Plagiarism of my open source app ChatSecure
chatsecure.org
chatsecure.org
Er, that's the exact point of the BSD license. The GPL even allows selling binaries and source code, but not re-licensing.
So the gist of this blog post is that you offered your source code under a license that allows re-licensing provided that your copyright and some notices are included, someone did it, and now you realise you want the GPL. I applaud this person for taking advantage of the very point of BSD and making some business out of it, that chap is smart.
If he's using your logo and you didn't license the logo then that's a copyright claim. But you have no right to whine about the source code. He can say whatever he wants about it, that the "product" is his, etc. (You think Google Chrome doesn't use a hundred libraries written by someone else? But it's Google that made Chrome, right?) And in YOUR LICENSE you wrote “you cannot use my name to advertise”, so the only question is whether your copyright notice and license terms are included in the redistribution.
“… illegally selling licenses to my source code for $13.99-$59.99.”
I would be VERY careful about libeling people by publicly outing them as doing illegal activities. Alexander Moskalev may even have a case against you for defamation or libel. I'd take this blog down if I were you. And then go and read some pages from http://fsf.org/.
It may not be the case for this library (given that he didn't need to under this licence) but it does suggest its possible.
I didn't have a problem with him selling my stuff, I just have a problem with him claiming something I wrote as his own.
By the way, Chupamobile responded and removed his software: https://chatsecure.org/blog#7
Is this not the case?
I see two things that you could do (in addition to the DMCA if the BSD license was actually not respected):
- Selling it yourself cheaper than (s)he is (since anyway you weren't counting on making any money with it) with premium/improved features that are not in the version which is distributed open source ;
- Or you could just try to advertise your free product, saying that it is the same thing that this other person is selling, in order to get credited better for your own work.
Regular License - $13.99
The regular license allows the use of the purchased item in a project for either personal or commercial uses, without the payment of any further fees or charges after the initial download cost. The regular license gives you the right to use the purchased items within 1 project of your own or on behalf of a client (commercial, personal, or non-profit). You or your client cannot offer the item up for resale either on its own or as part of a project. Items purchased under a regular license must not be redistributed or resold “as- is” or as part of any other collection of files.
What you can do: You can integrate the component in 1 APP. You can be distribute it only as a binary only (You cannot distribute Source Code). Commercial use is allowed. You can customize the Source Code.
EDIT: It seems I am, since if there was any changes to the product, it can be freely relicensed.
The safest way to protect against this is to use a better free software license which is copyleft (for instance the GNU GPL).
- The BSD license requires one to preserve the copyright notices and the BSD license. If that person stripped these from the software, he would be in violation of the BSD license.
- If the seller did not add anything that is copyrightable, I guess it's questionable if his added terms hold up. In this case it is exactly the same as the original BSD-licensed product, and covered by the BSD license.
What usually happens is that some proprietary software vendor takes a chunk of BSD-licensed software (say, a TCP/IP stack) and integrates it into their proprietary software (say, a kernel). In that case, you'd theoretically be allowed to pry out the BSD-licensed parts and redistribute it. In practice, this will be impossible, since the original source files are probably changed to such an extend that it's a mixture of BSD-licensed and proprietary software.
~~~
Of course, this is all the effect of choosing a weak copyleft license. You are practically saying 'you can do whatever you want with this code, as long as you list my name and this license in the source code and/or binary versions, and don't sue my if it doesn't work correctly'. If you want stronger protection, you should use a strong copyleft or a proprietary license.
You don't have to state the use of (revised) BSD-licensed code outside the source or binary distribution.
Actually, that's not true. In many legislations a minimum amount of originality is required copyright to apply.
Releasing BSD code quickly turns into repackaging of the code by people who are more interested in money than coding. Next time do research on the licenses that are available before you pick one. I recommend the GPL, despite the FUD about how you can make a 'livelihood' off of it, which I somehow find easier to imagine than you being happy with this person piggybacking.
If you want copies and derivatives to remain open source always, then use GPL - which adds a list of restrictions for redistribution.
* If one really doesn't like things like this to be within the grounds of the copyright, don't use BSD. Use GPL.
* On the other hand, what odds are there that the GPL will be reliably enforced against such small fry actors? Maybe you are best choosing a license based on what makes the most sense for the project's advancement anyway.
BSD doesn't force you to put the copyright notice and credit in the app description page.
is that what you're sending the dmca notice about? because you couldn't find the necessary copyright notice? (if you didn't download it, how do you know it's not in the about box?)
I am not a lawyer, but my interpretation of the license was that you had to attribute me if you were selling my source code. Either way, they are the ChatSecure name to promote themselves and representing the work as their own.
Representing someone else's work as your own is plagiarism, regardless of the software license.
> I am not a lawyer, but my interpretation of the license was that you had to attribute me if you were selling my source code.
Perhaps they do - and if they do, they are within their rights (as granted to them by yourself through the BSD license).
> Either way, they are the ChatSecure name to promote themselves and representing the work as their own.
That would be a trademark violation, and potentially false representation.
As for trademark, if you want to take legal action, you probably need to register it with the USPTO (assuming you are in the US). I am not a lawyer either, but when I inquired about it a few years ago, it was apparently required to register trademarks and copyrights before taking legal action.
False pretenses have much higher standard than you would assume: Unless they write anywhere "we are the sole author of this work", they are probably legally ok.
If this affair upsets you (as it seems it does), you would probably be better off with a GPL license - it's a signal to (ab)users that you care, as opposed to BSD which is a signal that you don't.
I think you are the good guy here, but I'm not sure you have much legal standing after using the BSD -- unless they removed your copyright notices.
Doesn't seem to me to exclude selling the source code without displaying the information up front, as long as the copyright notice is still included with the source code (which we don't know, because we don't know anyone who bought it). And I can't see the third clause being triggered, because neither the name you gave it, or your name are being used.
Edit: fceccon pointed out that the name and logo are being used in the header, so yes that seems to make it much more clear cut, albeit turning on the legal definition of "Derived"
And I can't see the third clause being triggered, because neither the name you gave it, or your name are being used.
[1] http://www.chupamobile.com/products/details/600/Secured+Chat...
This case doesn't seem on the surface of it, to be completely clear cut. Is there a case to argue that it is morally wrong for them to charge for something that is free, (apparently) without adding value? Perhaps. Legally, though, the case might be different.
much of open source is redistributed at a cost, "(apparently) without adding value". https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html
> "If you think your products has been copied or there was some breach of copyright please inform us by sending an email at report@chupamobile com, including:"...
So it might be worth hitting that also. I'd also like to make clear that I completely sympathise with your situation, if my other responses had implied otherwise.
Edit: the plagiarist is in Indonesia
Plenty of proprietary systems have been based on BSD code. That's pretty much the point of BSD.
If you want to prevent people placing more restrictive conditions on your code, that's what the GPL is for.
I think you are confused with the GPL.
BSD only requires you to acknowledge original authorship, and declines any suitability or liability. It requires you to preserve the first. (You're welcome to take liability, though ...)
Also, note that the plagiarist's derivative software can be under any license of his choice, be it commercial, non-commercial or personal. He is free to include / modify your source code and sell it under a different license of his choice -- the only restriction being that your name must appear in those parts of his source code you have written. Unless you buy his product and confirm that he has removed your name, you can't do anything.
Remember that BSD license roughly means public domain with copyright notice preservation. That's all. It doesn't restrict anything else.
This guy wouldn't have started selling your thing is it wasn't clear that it's something that people will pay for. Your first reaction when you hear that he's making money off of it shouldn't be how to stop him. It should be "Wow. I could be making money off of this.
My advice:
- Don't worry about this guy.
- Put a price on your product
- Stop giving away the source
- Improve it until your "competitor" fades away
> There's no rule saying that you have to give your work away as open source.
This is insulting to the author and the whole open source community. You seem to think that people release sources of their software because they think it is worthless or don't know they could make the conscious choice not to release the sources.
Releasing your source code involves a lot more reasoning and motivation than not doing it. Building open source software doesn't mean giving your work away for free, nothing keeps the author from selling his open source application on App Store as a convenience (an example of this practice is Growl). Since we are talking about a mobile application, it is especially easier to sell since most of his users won't even consider building it from source.
His app is free and source code is published on github. Maybe he wants it that way.
"This project is 100% free because it is important that all people around the world have unrestricted access to privacy tools. However, developing and supporting this project is hard work and costs real money. Please help support the development of this project!"
:)
You can keep the source free and still support your ultimate goal, right?
Having a revenue stream from it would actually be beneficial in keeping it running longer.
But it shouldn't be. We, as developers, shouldn't harbor any ill will toward the OP should he decide to pull the open source version and sell it for profit. We certainly shouldn't advise him against it or recommend an alternative open source license that better guarantees that nobody can make money off this excellent piece of software.
Geeks like us tend to have a natural aversion to making money by selling our work directly, as though it's somehow dirty or wrong in some way that we can't quite articulate.
But we need to get over that.
We have a guy here (patio11) whose job this normally is, but he seems to have taken the morning off so I'll do this in his place:
On behalf of the Internet, I hereby grant you, the developer, permission to charge money for your software.
There, you're good.
Did you consider the possibility that the author already has a job that pays him extremely well and that the ROI he gets in spending time providing customer support/marketing for a commercial iOS app is actually losing money for him?
You should save the "you are allowed to make money" talk for people who are actually trying to sell software and doing it badly (Because they undervalue the work they created) instead of directing it at someone producing what looks like a labor of love and is not interested in marketing everything he has ever created.
I think that's more a rationalization that developers use to convince themselves not to charge for their stuff than a reality. I've certainly never experienced any support/marketing overload with any of my products.
He already has the app in the app store. His support/marketing is where it is already. All he need do is tick a box marked "allow people to send me money" in his app store control panel and he's done. In short, there's no "down" for the app to go. It's already maxed out on the "losing money" front, and doesn't seem to be overburdening him.
On the customer support side, he might actually see that go down too by charging. Here's yesterday's discussion on exactly that:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4376126
This really is a case where there's no downside to charging money. And, seemingly, a very real downside of keeping it open source.
Presumably because that's your full time job?
There's a reason I promote the lifestyle. Having a little pile of software products paying you a full developer salary in exchange for answering a few emails a week is a pretty good place to be.
What is the downside of keeping it open source?
Not everyone gives a shit about making money from the software they write.
There are many reasons to write software. There are many reasons to not charge for it. Stop presuming to know whats best for the developer.
As a user of proprietary software, you can't inspect that code for bugs and you can't inspect it for malicious code - you just have to take the vendor's word for it that "it is really secure, honest! And there aren't any backdoors put in by the US government/china/whoever"
I don't know whether chatsecure is any good or would withstand attacks by a nation state, but if I were a security researcher or an aid organisation in the 3rd world, I could look at the source and find out.
The author can spend the next ten minutes logging into his apple account and adding a price to it. That's all the effort needed to turn this into a product (besides rewriting the App Store description so that people other than himself can parse what the application actually does).
He could use your code with the only requirement to add you to the credits. He also could modify the license, provided that he respects the due credit.
You can't say: "Now my code is GPL!!", the code that this person is using continues being BSD. You gave it away, your DMCA complaint is invalid.
Stop whining and learn about the basics of licensing first. Then focus on your product and not on what other people do. You could also charge for it while giving your code.
To help prevent any future problems I have changed the license to GPL.
More importantly, I wonder how frequently this happens - pulling down an open-source project and trying to sell it elsewhere?
Isn't that sort of what Sun Microsystems was built on?
I'm being a bit glib, but there's some truth to it.