Why? Because the GPL ensures that the software user has full access to the source code. It also grants you permission to modify the software as you see fit, as well as permission to redistribute both the original software and your modifications. That’s a lot of power for an end-user.”
Category:
The XVID development team is still considering legal action against Sigma Designs even though the company issued a press release Thursday saying it would release the source code for its MPEG-4 video codec. Although release of the code would correct part of the GPL violation the XVID team is alleging, Sigma’s press release doesn’t mention that the code in question came from the XVID project.
XVID project leader Michael Militzer says the group is getting legal advice from the Free Software Foundation on what step to take next. Meanwhile, XVID has suspended all development of its MPEG-4 video codec until the issue is resolved.
“If you’ve read Sigma’s press release, you might have noticed that XVID is not mentioned in one word therein, and that Sigma still tries to trick the public to believe that REALmagic is ‘their’ codec,” Militzer says. “But the press release is not worst: Meanwhile, the source code for REALmagic MPEG-4 Video Codec is indeed downloadable from Sigma’s Web site, but all our copyright notices have been removed from our files and replaced by ‘Copyright Sigma Designs 2002’ although the REALmagic MPEG-4 Video Codec source code distribution is in wide parts identical or near identical to XVID source code.”
Sigma Designs representatives did not immediately return a phone call and an email asking for an interview.
In its own press release released earlier Thursday, the XVID team links to a couple of code comparisons on its Web site. Here’s the first comparison and the second. [Both PDF.]
Militzer says Sigma Designs has used some tricks to try to disguise the code, but it’s still easy to see that Sigma’s REALmagic comes from XVID code. “A lot of code has been rearranged (change of variable names, loop unrolling etc. — every student programmer once tried those tricks if he’d face the situation when time was running out and he had a working copy of a colleague’s [work] and had to modify it for his/her own needs — but very seldom does this work out),” he says. “Those code changes have no real use, they add no functionality, they don’t improve anything — they are just there to disguise the stealing of intellectual property.”
Free Software Foundation founder Richard Stallman dislikes the term, “intellectual property,” but Sigma’s substituting XVID’s copyright notice for its own violates Stallman’s GNU GPL, Militzer charges.
“So even though Sigma Designs’ released some source code in the meantime,
basically nothing has changed at all: Sigma Designs’ is still violating
both the copyright of XVID authors and the GNU General Public License,” Militzer says.
Militzer says the XVID team discovered the Sigma problem by accident. One of the coders tried the Sigma REALmagic program, but couldn’t get it to run on his machine. When he looked at REALmagic’s CPU detection code, the programmer “was very
surprised that the CPU detection code was identical to XVID’s,” Militzer says.
The XVID team contacted Sigma in July, and Militzer says a manager there told XVID that the copied code was a new employee’s mistake, not an intentional GPL violation. The XVID team then asked Sigma to stop distributing REALmagic until the copyright issues could be resolved, and Militzer says the company promised to contact XVID with a decision. But that was a week ago, Militzer says, and Sigma’s cut off contact with the XVID team since then.
“So the steps Sigma Designs have taken yesterday had only one goal: trick the
public into believing that everything would have been resolved,” Militzer says. “This is
wrong: The community has to know that Sigma Designs’ still needs some
further assistance so that their source distribution finally conforms to the
GNU GPL.”
Category:
We are taking a wonderful Cruise on the USS Royal Sunshine Pier 2 Sheepshead Bay Brooklyn USA
Cost for the Cruise is $15 and we sail into Manhattan to Music and Drink.
This is a double decker boat, not a standard fishing vessel, women and children friendly. Everyone has a good time.
We will meet at 6PM at Captain Walters, at 3033 Emmons Ave Brooklyn, on the Corner of Emmons and Ocean AVENUE (not Parkway)
It’s a great Brooklyn Watering Hole for generations of my fellow countrymen. At 6:45 we will move to the boat.
The Cruise ends at 10:30, when we can continue, if we choose to, with an evening of Dance and Music at one of the local clubs along the waterway.
Sheepshead Bay is one of the great Night spots of NYC, and everyone will love it.
NYLXS is the local Free Software Advocacy Groups pro-activily sponsoring Free Software Education and usage in the NYC area. See http://www.nylxs.com
A $10 contribution to NYLXS will be asked for. We are raffling off 1 year of free education to any NYLXS program for a $40 Raffle Ticket.
We will be bringing Beer and Wine, and whatever else is going to go to the Free Software Institute to help continue our very low cost education program.
Come one, come all. For more information, check out NYLXS web site.
Category:
OEone’s participation in the OpenOffice.org Groupware project will
be an example of what can result when the open-source community works jointly
on open-source projects like the Mozilla project and the OpenOffice.org
project. OEone contributed the major portion of the Mozilla Calendar. The
OpenOffice.org groupware project has also contributed to the Mozilla Calendar.
The next logical step is to integrate calendar data into OpenOffice.org.
Gary Frederick, Project Lead for the OpenOffice.org Groupware project,
said, “OEone knows how to add applications into Mozilla. Their integration
of Abiword is an example of how they successfully accomplished the blending
of two open-source applications for mainstream use. OpenOffice.org has
also worked with Mozilla in the past. The Abzilla project included both
Mozilla developers and OpenOffice.org developers who worked together to
achieve a successful release. OEone’s participation in the OpenOffice.org
project will guarantee another successful example of varied stakeholders
collaborating on open-source projects. OEone’s knowledge and expertise
in Mozilla and the code they have contributed will ensure that we can use
calendar information in OpenOffice.org’s software. Their experience will
also ensure that parts of OpenOffice.org can be dynamically integrated
from Mozilla.”
OEone
is rapidly positioning itself to be the market leader for software that
enables an easy-to-use, fully-integrated, and rich Internet experience.
OEone’s unique Operating Environment (OE) can power a host of Internet
devices ranging from high-resolution handheld computers, Web tablets, and
screen phones, to high-end All-In-One entertainment devices. The Operating
Environment ensures that Internet devices deliver the simplicity of a consumer
electronics product while providing rich Internet functionality and the
personal productivity and multimedia applications typical of desktop computers.
OEone’s platform harnesses the strength of the Linux OS (optimized
for the Operating Environment), the Mozilla Browser, the Apache Web Server,
GNU tools, and other key open-source technologies. OEone brings new value
to the industry by integrating these key components into an Operating Environment
that is fully accessible to all users with an easy-to-use Web-based Graphic
User Interface (GUI).
