FREE!ship continues as DELFTship

[Mikey]

Martijn

Here's all the domain info

Good Luck
Mikey

[Mikey]

Originally Posted by marshmat

and all too difficult to track them down.

Easy
Mikey

Ouch, that sounded too much like showing off... Easy, when you're lucky

[daiquiri]

Another possibility:
Create a thread, on this site or wherever, in which you will state clearly, in the very first lines that this guy is violating the GNU licence terms, and that he is selling his software illegaly.
Then find someone, a friend or a willing person, who can enhance visibility of that page on google, yahoo, live search etc., till bringing it to he top positions of those search pages. Any internet provider firm have software for doing this.
So whoever tries to search for 3-D boat design software through google etc. will first find the warning not to deal with that guy over there.
In that way you don't even need to do any legal action - you will effectively suffocate his business by repelling the potential clients.

Well, that's also quite nasty...

Daiquiri (mr. Hide version)

[Leo Lazauskas]

Originally Posted by marshmat

Re: Michlet
JotM, I don't think Leo will mind if one of us sends you the executable binaries for 8.07/8.09 (nobody but Leo has the source). Send me an email from the link on my profile and I'll send them to you.

There goes a potential sale, just when I'm desperate for cash.

[JotM]

Originally Posted by Leo Lazauskas

There goes a potential sale, just when I'm desperate for cash.

Who knows, but I warn you: I am a strange kind of customer, I want to understand what I am buying.
(which is probably more problematic on my side than on yours )

[marshmat]

Leo,
I thought Flotilla was your commercial code- I didn't know you were selling Michlet now too. Looking at the cyberiad site I thought it was just a broken link problem, so I didn't think there would be anything wrong with sending Jot a copy of the old free version....

[Martijn_vE]

Originally Posted by Mikey

Martijn
Here's all the domain info
Good Luck
Mikey

Thanks Mike. I've given it a few days, and still got no reply whatsoever. (as was to be expected ).
So I've sent the same email to ALL of the adresses in the document you have supplied, just to let him know we know his personal name and address. Maybe that will shake him up. Now let's just wait for a few days and see what happens, but I'm not expecting too much.......

[Martijn_vE]

In addition I've also send it (CC)l to his webhost.

This is the reply I've got from them:

Dear Sir or Ma'am,

Thank you for contacting the GoDaddy.com Abuse Department.
In order to ensure that your claims are dealt with in the most efficient manner possible, you will need to send your claim to CopyrightClaims@GoDaddy.com.

Please submit your copyright claim in accordance with all steps as outlined in our Copyright and Trademark Policy located at http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/legal_agreements/show_doc.asp?se=%2B&pageid=TRADMARK%5FCOPYhref="http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/legal_agreements/show_doc.asp?se=%2B&pageid=TRADMARK%5FCOPY" rel=nofollow>http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/legal_...RADMARK%5FCOPY If all the policy conditions are met, and if we can verify that the material in question is indeed a registered and copyrighted work, then we will re-direct the site per the terms of this policy.


GoDaddy.com
24/7 Abuse Department
ARID2215

[Martijn_vE]

Now that did wake him up!

Here's his reply:

Hi Martijn,

Thanks for the email and sorry for the delay in getting back to you. I have
just replied to the one from the website that you submitted but I will reply
to this one as well to ensure you get it.

I wanted to have enough time to go over this correctly before just sending
off a reply.

Anyway I will respond to your email and answer your questions now.

1. As per the GPL License, software can be re-branded, I have to state that
it is a modified version, and when it was modified and ensure I give support
for the modified version. (so you are not stuck with this task)

Please review the Preamble:
Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the
freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for them if you
wish)...that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new free
programs

the GPL requires that modified versions be marked as changed, so that their
problems will not be attributed erroneously to authors of previous versions.

2. I do not see anywhere in the license that the original name of the
software has to be displayed in websites.
5. a) The work must carry prominent notices stating that you modified it,
and giving a relevant date.
Source code and compiled code + license are available in the files that are
received (they get everything)

3. Please review on the website under features: All from the thriving Open
Source Community, this software is forever changing
The license of this re-branded version stays the same as per the terms of
the GPL.

4. The software has been modified so this is a fork in the project. There is
no requirement of what can be charged in terms of money for this software.
It could be $1 or 1 billion dollars. The idea is that the market will decide
upon what is acceptable.

5. Depending on sales and demand will depend upon updates. If this works I
might get a coder to create new parts to this software. Of course these will
be under the GPL if needed as well

Thanks

Andrew

I've already noticed some flaws in his reasoning but will first have to dig up my copy of the GPL license to make sure.

[marshmat]

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html

For one:

5b) The work must carry prominent notices stating that it is released under this License and any conditions added under section 7. This requirement modifies the requirement in section 4 to “keep intact all notices”.

I could find no such notice on his site.

It looks like he's trying to nitpick on the legalese while completely missing the point of the licence. As far as I can tell he hasn't changed anything- even the "Free!ship" in the title bar on the screenshots remains the same as in v2.6.

Perhaps the best approach may be simply to get the warning out to potential buyers that all this guy's doing is charging money for an outdated version of a free program.

[masrapido]

I am heating bitumen and piling up for old feather pillows. Just in case nothing else works...

[Martijn_vE]

Originally Posted by marshmat

As far as I can tell he hasn't changed anything- even the "Free!ship" in the title bar on the screenshots remains the same as in v2.6.

You're correct Marshmat. I can even recognize the directory structure displayed in the title bar as my own! These are my screenshots. I bet he hasn't changed anything.. That's very easy to check. I'm simply going to order the program and compare the code and executables.

Do we know anyone who has aalready bought the software from him?
If so I wouldn't have to spent money on buying my own software

[daiquiri]

I have proposed you a cheap method of boycotting him. All you need is to make it to higher-ranked positions on search engines. Think of it.

[Martijn_vE]

Originally Posted by daiquiri

All you need is to make it to higher-ranked positions on search engines. Think of it.

As easy as it may sound, creating a high ranked page is not as easy as it used to be. Nowadays search engines (like Google) use several hundereds of parameters to calculate the ranking of a page. The formula is kept secret to avoid abuse.

[masrapido]

Martijn,

Why don't you just ask him to send you a copy. As the original creator of the program you certainly have some right to review his "version". And as you provided it for free, he should reciprocate to you.

It may work, given the tone of his response. He tried hard to sound "cooperative" and willing to discuss.