[mythtv] Fwd: MYTHTV -> GPL Violation (someone violating Mythtv GPL License)

[Jean-Yves Avenard]

Hi

On 11 June 2014 19:40, Warpme <warpme at o2.pl> wrote:

> Let me explain shortly my position on problem.
>
> Source code is visit card of author. While I'm not software developer by
> profession - I still want to maintain reputation of somebody who tries do
> things correctly, elegant and with high quality.
> Publishing my work also means taking responsibility for maintaining it.
> Even if code will be published as unsupported - replaying remainders about
> this, answering questions, etc creates extra burden for me and my current
> situation+priorities and nor ready for this.

[blah blah blah deleted]

You very well know that you are not presenting the full picture here,
nor what you are doing with the work *WE* (the mythtv developers) have
provided for free.
Be honest, and open. What's the real reason you aren't publishing the code?

How much do you estimate your contribution to the MythTV code be ?
(rough figure, as a %), how many lines of code have you had to change?
Really.

The fact of the matter, and while I can't speak for everyone, I have
worked countless hours to provide a high quality code, that performs
well for the benefit of everyone.
While I can't prevent someone to use that work and attempt to make a
profit for it, as I respect my part of the GPL, I certainly can make
sure that whomever uses that code also respect their obligations: You
make a modification to our code, and that part is negligeable? You
must open it and release the source code.

Cherry-picking code from master back into a fixes/0.27 branch isn't
original or new work. I doubt you could claim any copyright on the
resulting code created.

So either you open up your code, and make contributions back for the
greater good.
Or you stop distributing a binary-only form of mythtv.

There's no exception to that rule, unless you contact every copyright
holder and manage a different licensing agreement with them.

Let me say that I've greatly appreciated your contribution to the
mythtv project, in particular all the testing you've done and great
feedback provided. It has certainly helped eradicate bugs and made a
better MythTV.

But knowing the core reason you did so was for ultimate commercial
gain, leave a very sour taste in my mouth. That I've been conned into
providing personalised support and fixes for free.
Do the right thing.

> if community believes it is unacceptable to provide binaries and not providing sources during next month or two - then I will fully understand this and I'm ready to withdrawal binaries from minimyth2 site.

I believe so, and that would be the solution