I have been reading the mail archive and forums about this story, then went on the FPS website and read their disclaimer.
>From what I saw, and given that my understanding of GPL and copyrights might be wrong, here are my thoughts : I think what this person(s) do here is *almost* legal. They are commercially distributing a GPL software in order to make profit, which is clearly allowed by the GPL licence, provided that the seller makes the source code accessible. I could find a link to some sources in their disclaimer. I did not parse the whole provided archive, so I don't know if every bit of FG sources are here. I am not sure if providing a download link is enough, or if they should provide the sources with the commercial CD/DVD they sell. Also, I don't know if they provide the source with the CD/DVDs. On the other hand, it seems from what I have read, that some of the pictures used in their website are screenshots coming from either the wiki, or from personal websites / blogs of FG users. In the case of the wiki, I understand the contents are provided under GPL. I am not sure how GPL works for images, my guess is that as long as the images on the website are linked to the wiki sources, the website holders must be safe. In the case of personal screenshots from personal blogs/ websites, it would depend on the licensing that their holders choosed. I see in the website disclaimers that they are willing to remove images if the copyright holders ask so. So, basically, if the source providing part and the image copyrights conditions are met, I think what is done here is just legal. It doesn't mean that I approve it entirely. When some commercial linux distributors include flightgear in their pay packages, I see it as a nice feature, and a 'plus' for that distribution. What the FPS team seems to be making is just easy money based on thousands man hour work, without other justification than simple profit. Ethically, this is a little bit border line in my opinion... but ( again if conditions are met ), this is just what the GPL allows. I didn't do much contributions to Flightgear, but the few I made, I did perfectly knowing that someone could reuse it for a commercial project, so despite the questionnable ethics in this story, I am not that upset. I see some people really upset and quite surprised, and I perfectly understand their feeling when they see that their hard work is being piped into some company's wallet. I presume there might be a need for better communicating what the GPL is to Flightgear new contributors, before their work is added to the project. I don't know how this could be done, though. Maybe asking contributors to include a copy of the license text with their work ? Maybe having a ' are you sure you understand what GPL is ' paragraph in the developer wiki portal ? Anyways, my opinion is that FlightGear and its contents SHOULD remain GPL based. This is what makes its great strength, what makes it an amazingly alive and vibrant project, that constantly evolves and progresses day after day, answering the needs and wishes of its userbase in good freedom and friendship feeling. The fact to include our work, be it code or some aircraft model, under the GPL is just our choice. If someone feels better to have it separate, under other types of licensing, like Creative Commons for instance, the choice is their too ! But again I think there is a need for some way to clearly explain people what the licenses really mean, before new work is commited, in order to avoid bitter surprises like we see now. I presume nothing can prevent some people with little consideration to make commercial attempts from time to time based on the FG team work... but as this has been said here, what future have these commercial projects when people will see that they can get the same product for free, with a wonderful community support and lifetime updates for nothing more than a hello in a chat or mailing list ? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Download Intel® Parallel Studio Eval Try the new software tools for yourself. Speed compiling, find bugs proactively, and fine-tune applications for parallel performance. See why Intel Parallel Studio got high marks during beta. http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-sw-dev _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
