[x264-devel] Re: Suspected GPL violation by Erightsoft "super"

[Alex Izvorski]

Hi Christoph,

Thanks for bringing this up.  Some comments below.

On Mon, 2006-10-23 at 17:04 -0400, chl at iupr.net wrote:
> no, I'm pretty sure GPL doesn't allow this.

Yes and no.  GPL allows something similar to what they do, but certainly
not the way they do it ;)

> There's a single EXE file to download, already
> that is not just "mere aggregation" anymore.

Not necessarily.  It could be a self-extracting zip or installer, if so
it is still "mere aggregation".  In this case it is an installer
(actually Tarma Installer, another piece of freeware).

> For
> "derivative works" it doesn't matter if you include
> source code from GPLed project into your proprietary
> software or bundle unmodified binaries.

Yes, it matters.  Bundling unmodified binaries does not constitute a
derivative work.  Please check the GPL FAQ.

> I didn't look into the archive itself, because the
> EULA is unacceptable. 

You are correct.  The license that the installer displays explicitly
claims *all* of the software to be convered by the proprietary license
(in one place: "use of the software provided with this agreement" and in
another "this software written by eRightSoft" which is actually
contradictory).  To make it acceptable, they would have to say something
like: 

"A, B, C files created by/contained in this installer are covered by the
following eRightSoft license... 
X, Y, Z files are covered by the GPL (copy of GPL here) To download the
source code for these files, go to http://foo/
If you agree with the terms of both licenses, click I Agree".

> Same with the legal stuff on
> the website: it states everything that you can
> download is their copyright, you are not allowd to
> reverse engineer or redistribute. All clearly oppsite to
> GPL. 

Also correct.  I am looking at http://www.erightsoft.net/terms.html ,
what is stated there is incompatible with the GPL.

> There are no copies of the GPL/LGPL text, and no
> source, not even for the GPLed stuff. Etc. etc.

Also correct.

> Of course, if you're okay with that they do, that's fine.
> I just wanted to let you know.

I'm not ok with it, but I would suspect the problem is more of needing
to educate them than of them having bad intentions, so I would take it
easy at first.  Obviously these guys are not that sophisticated, the
licenses read as though they were copy/pasted from boilerplate and not
written by a lawyer, and it is freeware.  I would be *very* surprised if
any of those guys could actually explain the terms of the GPL.  So we
just have to let them know and suggest corrective action.  Let's see how
they respond.  Save your steam for later ;)

Regards,
--Alex

> Christoph
> 
> > Hi Christoph,
> >
> > I did know about SUPER for some time now but never really tried it out.
> > So I downloaded it today (a few minutes ago), installed and checked the
> > created files. They are right about what they say in their forums. SUPER
> > is only a frontend for the tools they list (mencoder, x264, etc.). You
> > can check this yourself. The frontend executable itself is tiny compared
> > to all the other executables that do the real work. So I doubt there is
> > any stolen-from-GPL code in their project. And IIRC the GPL does allow
> > all this.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Tobias
> >
> >
> > chl at iupr.net wrote:
> >> Hi guys,
> >>
> >> the SUPER codec by Erightsoft
> >>
> >> http://www.erightsoft.net/SUPER.html
> >>
> >> contains lots of GPL and LGPL code:
> >> mplayer, ffmpeg, x264, musepack, theora,
> >> which they admit and give credit for.
> >>
> >> Still, their product is proprietary,
> >> and they insist on it. I tried to get
> >> the source through their forum, but they
> >> of course won't give it:
> >>
> >> http://www.erightsoft.net/Supforum.html
> >>
> >> I'll forward this to the different mailing
> >> lists, so you can discuss and coordinate
> >> possible action if you want.
> >>
> >> Christoph
> >>
> >>
> >
> > --
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> >
> >
> 
> 

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