Violation of GPL?

[Charlie Brady]

On Wed, 6 Apr 2005, Gustavo Federico Bett wrote:

> I've recently visiting the Blender site, and i found an article
> mentioning a website that is selling open source software (the GIMP,
> Blender, OpenOffice, Audacity) at a low price, but, changing the name
> of the product, and not naming the original authors.
>
> This is not a violation of the GPL??

Which particular item do you think would be a violation?

- selling open source software at a low price?

   No

- changing the name of the product?

   GPL allows modifications, and doesn't prohibit that particular 
modification

- not naming the original authors?

  I don't see that mentioned anywhere in the GPL. The following sections 
are probably relevant:

...
     a) You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices
     stating that you changed the files and the date of any change.

     b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in
     whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any
     part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third
     parties under the terms of this License.

     c) If the modified program normally reads commands interactively
     when run, you must cause it, when started running for such
     interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an
     announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a
     notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide
     a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under
     these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this
     License.  (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but
     does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on
     the Program is not required to print an announcement.)
...

> this is the link to the article:
>
> http://www.blender.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=208&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

The referenced article does refer to changes made in the copyright 
assertion notices. Someone states:

  Taking GPL software and changing the headers in source files from
  'Copyright Foo under the GPL' to 'Copyright Bar under the GPL' is
  perfectly legal. The GPL is not an accreditation license.

My understanding is that this isn't contrary to the License (GPL), but is 
contrary to Copyright law. See SCO's Slander of Title issue. Removing
Copyright assertion isn't prohibited by GPL, but it's not "perfectly 
legal" either.