[vlc] VLC GPL Violation

[Wolphin]

Dear VLC developers,

I thought you might be interested in my following correspondance with the
FSF - there is someone who is seriously violating the GPL under which your
software's licenced and I have been advised to notify you. So, here goes!

Regards,

M. B.

-------------------Forwarded message below-------------------

Sent to FSF-Violations by Wolphin
-----
> Dear Sir,

I have come across violations of the GPL at Luxuriousity <
http://luxuriousity.com>. [Note: The site's index has been taken down. You
can find their violated VLC here:
http://www.luxuriousity.com/mediaplayerdownload.htm , although they have
removed the images as well so that you can't tell it's VLC. You could also
try to use Google's cache to see the original web page]

Luxuriousity are selling GPL'ed software like OpenOffice.org, The GIMP,
MySQL AB, Audacity and a few others under different names, such as
"Luxuriousity Office Professional", "Luxuriousity Media Player",
"Luxuriousity Multi-Track Music Studio Professional" and others. Now, quite
a few people who have bought Luxuriousity products have realised that they
are actually the same as programs they already had - or which they could
download for free, instead of $29.99.

While this is a complete scam, I believe that it is not there where the GPL
is violated, but rather the fact that the source is not distributed with the
products (I have contacted a few of the disappointed purchasers) and it is
not available upon request (I sent an email as if I were a purchaser wishing
to view the source code and received no reply). Some details follow:

Precise name of the product: There are several. Luxuriousity: Office
Professional, Office Deluxe, Email Document Viewer, Media Player,
Multi-Track Music Studio Professional, Karaoke Professional, the list goes
on...

Name of organization: Luxuriousity Inc.

Postal address:

     Luxuriousity  Inc.
     P.O. Box 5670
     Santa Monica  CA 90409
     US

     More info to be found here:
http://samspade.org/t/lookat?a=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.luxuriousity.com%2F


Name of violated package: There are various. OpenOffice.org, VLC, The GIMP,
Audacity, MySQL AB, and more.

How the license was violated: The source code is completely missing.

I have posted about this on my blog:
http://wolphination.com/linux/2006/01/19/luxuriousity-oss-application-scammer/
, which may offer some more information.

Thank you,

M. B.

-----

Sent by FSF-Violations to Wolphin

Yep, this is definitely a problem.  You should write to the copyright
holders of the software in question to let them know.


-Dave "Novalis" Turner
GPL Compliance Engineer
Free Software Foundation
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