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Erik The Half a Bee

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I am a part time nerd, part time chef and full time whiner. Did I type whiner? I meant winner...no wait, I whine a lot. I've worked in High Tech and Television and a few places in between. I've eaten fire roasted snakes and hand fulls of peeps (not in the same sitting of course). I'd like to share my experiences, so read on.

Technology: OpenSource in a box

Stamped: 1:56 PM

Do you know what OpenSource means? If you're too lazy to click on the Wiki, I'll spell it out for you. You write software, and then release all the code for everyone to use as long as they give respect to where it came from and never lock it up for profit. Who makes this stuff? Usually it's professional programmers who like to tinker in their free time. Some of the best stuff that ever come out was opensource and free to the public. Mac OSX is a perfect example. It's based off of FreeBSD at it's core. Recently some companies have been ripping off these free software packages, adding for-profit pieces and calling it their own. Here's the list of fun rip offs:
  • PearPC, Windows Emulator for Mac, ripped by CherryOS (now defunct after being caught)
  • Gaim, Instant Mesaage Client, ripped by IMBlaze.com (IM client to spam people with ads)
  • Miranda IM, Instant message client, ripped by zBuzzer and Star messenger (to add features without doing the labor)
  • Miranda IM, once again was ripped 2 years ago by QuickRiver (now defunct after being caught)
This might become an issue because who will represent a tiny group of unpaid programmers when a dispute arises? In a few cases stated above, the companies that ripped off the open source application collapsed when the bad press was released. The case of Cherry OS was especially amazing, because instead of admitting guilt they spent months removing words or changing words in the code that matched the stolen code, just to evade searches. These open source companies have no real stash of money to pay lawyers, and what lawyers and judges are experts in code violations? There are few. It starts to fall back on the community at large, to harass these companies to give up the goat once they have been found out.

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