[rt.gpl-violations.org #2406] GPL violation on BongoSurfer

[Pascal]

Hello,

thank you for your answer Clemens :)

> Did they only change the program name (perfectly legal), or did they
> remove information about the original author(s) (_very_ illegal)?
>   
they did not remove information about us, but our names are now written
in a context were they should not be (for example below passages of the
documentation we didn't write). Another example is this page:
http://colorsurfer.software.informer.com
I'm not a developer of ColorSurfer!

> The ISP versions are distributed by the ISPs, so it's they who are
> responsible for distributing/offering the source code.
thank you, good to know. I'm not sure the ISPs even know that the prog
is GPL.

> It's possible that "First Internet Invest Ltd" does not have enough
> assets to pay your expenses and damages, but it might be possible to
> make the CEO personally liable (since it looks as if he did the
> violation).
>   
does somebody know about previous legal actions against GPL violations
in germany?
I must admit that we don't have a clue about legal matter, we're just
hobby programmers. But we think that the GPL should be protected, we put
much effort in this piece of free software, and what we want is that the
software remains free. The question is how far we are willing to go in
proceedings, because we are not aware of the (financial) risks we would
take.
I would be satisfied if we could exert enough pressure on the company to
force them to release the sources or to abandon their program.

> Try asking in a newsgroup like de.soc.recht.misc.
I'll remember, thanks.


best regards,
Pascal




>
> Pascal wrote:
>   
>> The programs are not really functional, because they obviously did bad
>> things like sed 's/bongosurfer/colorsurfer/g' on the sources, but that's
>> another story ;)
>>     
>
> Did they only change the program name (perfectly legal), or did they
> remove information about the original author(s) (_very_ illegal)?
>
>   
>> All the sources were only for the major release of colorsurfer.
>> Despite our requests, we didn't receive any sources for the derived
>> versions sold to the ISPs mentioned above.
>>     
>
> The ISP versions are distributed by the ISPs, so it's they who are
> responsible for distributing/offering the source code.
>
>   
>> How long should we wait to get the complete sources of ColorSurfer and
>> all it's derivatives?
>>     
>
> Whatever is appropriate for this task.  ;-)
>
>   
>> What would be the next step to take if our requests fail?
>>     
>
> Talk to a lawyer and sue them.
>
> It's possible that "First Internet Invest Ltd" does not have enough
> assets to pay your expenses and damages, but it might be possible to
> make the CEO personally liable (since it looks as if he did the
> violation).  Try asking in a newsgroup like de.soc.recht.misc.
>
>
> HTH
> Clemens
>
>
>   
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