Author: Roger D Davis
Date: 08:31:53 03/17/05
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On March 17, 2005 at 08:57:17, Gabor Szots wrote: >On March 17, 2005 at 07:08:14, Roger D Davis wrote: > >>On March 17, 2005 at 03:22:06, Gabor Szots wrote: >> >>>Do you agree that after giving you due credit Toga's "author" can claim that >>>"his" engine is his own intellectual product and can be called a new engine? >> >>The GNU GPL says that any Toga improvements can be consolidated back inside >>Fruit, yes? > >Seems a bit strange that you can take the source of a _strong_ engine, >modify/improve it, finally say it is yours. All you have to do is give credit to >the real author _afterwards_. I don't like it however legal it is. I believe >source is for learning, not for copying. > >Note that in the case of Toga a further issue is that the "author" did in fact >try to conceal the origin. Allegedly because nobody would test a clone. Do you >believe him? I don't. I don't think it's legal under the GNU GPL to improve something slightly and call it yours. Projects under the GPL are intended to become collaborative in nature...the way I understand it, the license forces collaboration. If the changes to Toga are not wrapped back into the Fruit source, then it's the users who really get cheated. And what if the Fruit author then adopts some of the Toga source down the road, after first declining to assimulate the changes into Fruit...does that mean that Fruit can be accused of copying Toga...does it mean that there are these two strong chess programs whose source is so highly overlapping that neither has any strong claim to identity? Does the Toga author continue to make improvements so that one day he can say Toga is really his? I don't have the answers, but intention is something that's very difficult to prove one way or the other. I've met a lot of intellectually bright people who were really dumb interpersonally, meaning that they were constantly creating awkward situations or stepping on toes, or making assumptions that weren't valid, pissing people off, being accused of behaving passive-aggressively. It's hard to say what any given individual intended or did not intend. I'm not making excuses for anyone, just reporting my observations. Roger
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