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Comment by nash | Hacker News Reader

The MediaCoder author would be a great example of such a person.

If the author of MediaCoder uses someone else's software, it's quite reasonable he obeys their rules for that software. He obvisously didn't read the licence for the software (even when asked multiple times). He even makes claims about various software being in the public domain.

Seriously the ffmpeg authors are quite within their rights to be rude to someone VIOLATING THEIR COPYRIGHT. You make it sound like MediaCoder author is the injured party - he is not.

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OK, sure, they're within their rights to be rude. Everyone has that right (it's America, dammit!)

But why bother having a wall of shame, if you're actively hostile to people who try to fix the problem?

Maybe I'm just biased (as a OSS developer who has had my software ripped off), but I don't see he is trying to fix the problem. His first comment on the issue essentially was: "It does not violiate license of FFmpeg." Personally I'd be more then a little hostile against someone who started from that position.

If he was he'd do what he was advised to do many times in the issue tracker: * Read the licences involved * Hire a lawyer if he doesn't to understand it * Follow it's terms

Argueing and tweaking things in his EULA isn't part of that solution. It's really not ffmpeg's position to offer him legal advice on how to comply with the licences.

If he genuininly believes he is following the licence, maybe he should talk to his lawyer about defamation?

Here's that one HN article about how it's best to ask nicely first, and make it an issue of respect.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=462259

You can't really expect anyone that is distributing software free of charge to get a laywer to understand the (L)GPL. As I see it, everyone is on the same side here, donating free time to create software that is offered free of charge. I don't see how that warrants rudeness.

Free of charge? He charges $399 for a premium version (which consists almost entirely of ripped-off open source software), and you think he doesn't have money to pay a lawyer?

Based on the linked issue thread, the MediaCoder author also makes money by bundling commercial crapware in the "free" version's installer.

Open source is/was never about the money. It's about the freedom of having the source. The license is pretty easy and simple if you distribute your modified soft with the same open source licence.

The concept of the gpl is: I show you my code, if you show me yours. It's about sharing and repriocity.

It's not about snatching the nice tools built by the community, putting a nice gui layer and some extra features on it and closing the source. The fastest way for our friend here to adhere to the license is dropping ffmpeg or releasing his code as gpl. He doesn't seem to be willing to do that.

How would you like people who copy your sourcecode without permission and sell it to anyone?

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