[MPlayer-dev-eng] KiSS of copyright

Ivan Kalvachev ivan at cacad.com
Wed Mar 10 22:33:21 CET 2004


Gabucino said:
> D Richard Felker III wrote:
>> Please ask Gabucino to do this. He only sent me an incomplete mailbox,
>> omitting the mails where he actually accepts their deal.
> Your little rebellion is quite miserable, accusing me with lying and
> keeping
> that mail in secret. I've already pasted it to IRC that time after I
> finally
> found it, probably time to learn reading.
>
> Any more accuses I can rotfl on?
>
>
>> And he asked me not to share it, so IMO it would be better if he posts
>> the
>> complete archive himself.
> Kiss asked us (me and A'rpi) not to disclose it (and I also despise
> forwarding
> private emails very much - especially as it contains the phone number of
> Peter
> Christensen), but of course I can tell you everything inside it, we have
> nothing to hide, despite what richard and ivan says.
>
> Mailings have been started at the beginning of January, but the first
> mail
> admitting code stealing occured only on 26th January. In that mail Kiss
> offered
> that they'll rewrite that "insignificant" piece of code, and release new
> firmwares shortly. In my answer, I pointed on the irrelevance of line
> numbers
> of the stolen code in light of the used GPL license, and also my
> disappointment
> of how could they expect I will believe that stuff without seeing any
> proof of
> then actual rewrite happening. The rest of my mail was warnings about
> more
> license violations and stuff (kernel config files, libjpeg, suggesting
> opensource donations, and whether they have dual-licensed libmad).
You also had some very reasonable request about giving the source
under NDA for inspection. I would like to hear why you have aborted that.
You confirm that they gave no proove that they had stolen mplayer code.
Nor that they have removed it.
Have you got the idea that the subtitle reader could have been stolen
from another project like ffdshow that uses quite big amount of mplayer
code? (the project is GPL AFAIK)

>
> In the answer, they actually had an offering and not only null-speaking:
> fixing
> all those license problems I've asked, and they offered a donation of
> hardware
> into our new server, and also settling the case in a good manner in
> respect for
> the OS community.
So you have abandone all things that you request from the first offering
of money. BTW I didn't sow in the letter that YOU have offer them any
server configuration and that you had pointed the price of the server.
Did you negotiate this by phone? What else did you talked about?

>
> I've answered that is all well, and told the parameters of the new
> server
> which was being planned since months (1U sized P3 machine with disks).
>
> Shortly I've received a mail which suggested finally making the common
> press
> release closing the case, and a 2500 USD (515061 HUF) donation which
> matches
I would have filled more comfortable if they had bought the machine and
donotate it, instead of giving money. Just a personal oppinion.

> the cost of the hardware I outlined. We've argued about this on IRC (Feb
> 19
> 15:51), confirmed that it does approximately cover the costs, and A'rpi
> gave
> his agreement to the donation. The IRC logs were read by lez (author of
> subreader.c), Alex Beregszaszi, Michael Niedermayer. D Richard Felker
> was also present, but silent.
Hmm you haven't told me this! I could have been more tolerate to you
if  I knew that you had talked with at least one (biggest) copyright
holder!
But of cource you do not say that. You say "IRC logs were read by lez".
If lez is somewhere around I would like he to clear it's postition. And
as Michael said, the conversation have been on hungarian.

>
> And now this uprising all of a sudden.
Why the press release have been delayed so long? More than 2 weeks.
Why nobody of you have not say anything?
(I have personally asked arpi in irc about KiSS news, few times)

>
> This is the timeline and things as they are now. Questions?
Yes. What's the name of the coder that have taken mplayer code and put it
in propriatly software. What punishment did he got?

Did you consult layers? Who? Did you consult any FSF member
requesting legal advice? I suppose FSF have been at least warned.

Won't this negotiation acctually encourage next mplayer code abuse.
After all the donnotation is less that monthly payment of good coder.
(i'm guessing here).

Is subtitler code removed from KiSS firmware ATM?
Are there devices with contaminated firmware selling ATM?

Best Regards
   Ivan Kalvachev
  iive




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