Dear Peter, I understand that you do not like how the FreeRDP project was created and the direction it has taken. I would like to apologize to Cendio for not trying harder to reach consensus first, and that this caused you to be extremely bitter about it and feel betrayed by the whole community. However, I think it is fair to say at this point that reaching consensus on the question of licensing is simply never going to happen, which is enough to justify the existence of the FreeRDP project, if we consider feature set, portability, architecture and all the rest separately.
I am not responsible for the fact that many community members felt Cendio was just too hard to work with. We haven't been sneaky about it, when Jay and I started the FreeRDP project, we were just doing our own thing on our side and didn't even attempt to get the word out. With time, other developers found us on google and started contributed, and they decided to stick with us because they felt like we were much more responsive, inclusive and easier to work with in general. Now the main issue with Cendio that I still have today is the fact that you still don't play well with others and try imposing your views. There is no "right" or "wrong" license for an open source project, only licenses that work better for some people and less for other people. We went for a license that works best for a larger amount of community members, and the sudden increase in community contributions and project activity just stands as proof that it was a good decision. I'm not trying to convince you that the Apache license is always a better license, I'm just saying that in practice we can clearly observe a strong relationship between the switch to the Apache license and an overall increase in contributions and activities. My understanding from the multiple discussions we had over the years is that you do feel threatened by the existence of the FreeRDP project. You hold a firm belief in strong copyleft licenses, and we're just this annoying project that stands to prove permissive licensing can also work. It is not about Cendio copyright, since we respect your rights and do not use Cendio source code as you never agreed to licensing your source code under the Apache license. It's one or the other: you either agree to license your source code under the Apache license, or we do not use it as we have to respect your rights, but don't come complaining afterwards that we're not using your code and therefore you don't get a word to say on what we do with our own copyrighted code. I am sorry if we are defying your beliefs at their core, but this should not blind you from respecting the choices that we make for ourselves. We have our own copyrighted code that you cannot rightfully claim rights to, just like we cannot claim rights on your source code. We respect your copyright since we do not use your source code, don't be mad at us for not taking the decision to keep using your source code and convert ourselves to your views regarding the licensing. Aren't we allowed to enjoy our rights just like you do? Then please leave us alone with this. Regarding Ulteo, I estimate there are probably about 10 apps in the App Store right now that contain FreeRDP source code, and there are more on the way. Just to tell you, there are many Microsoft partners who use FreeRDP, and for all of them FreeRDP 1.0 was perfectly fine for their legal departments. And trust me, in America, companies are scared to death about getting involved in copyright infringement. Many people were hiding their identities to only reveal themselves when the FreeRDP 1.0 release was completed. Europe is different, and maybe you are shielded from such levels of paranoia often found in America, and do not see what the big deal is with what you are doing. I learned from you that Cendio is fully aware of your actions against the FreeRDP project and endorses them. You are playing a very dangerous game here, and the minute you attack a company with enough resources to fight you back legally, you are in for serious trouble. Don't get me wrong, what you've been doing is plain copyright trolling. Apple doesn't want trouble, barely investigates anything, and pulls apps that "apparently cause disagreements and trouble regarding copyright". They have never taken the time to look at all the evidence I brought forward to them in the case against Ulteo. Instead, they took *your word* and pulled the app. You didn't even prove anything. Why Ulteo and not the other apps out there? Because they are a French company, which is close enough to you, and they are a direct competitor. They are also too small to really be able to fight a copyright troll. It is unfair to Ulteo that only their app is being taken down while others are still there. It is unfair that you abused the weaknesses of the App Store to attack a competitor by spreading FUD. Try this against a larger corporation able to sue you back and you will cry, because what you're doing is not only is wrong, it's also illegal in most countries. You are either extremely vicious or completely unaware of the dangers you are exposing yourself and Cendio to, but in any case I just think it is better for all of us that you stop right now like I've been asking repeatedly over the years. How many times do you need to be warned before it's too late? With such behavior, it comes as no surprise that Cendio is getting in trouble with other companies. For instance, SmartFleX technology is accusing you of breaching contractual terms and of violating the GPL with Cendio ThinLinc: http://www.examiner.com/article/smartflex-technology-ends-support-for-cendio-thinlinc-terminal-server Are we really the ones looking for trouble here, or is it you? Please consider ending this vendetta once and for all before it is too late. We'd rather spend our time, money and energy writing meaningful software rather than waste it fighting copyright trolls. Best regards, - Marc-Andre On Tue, Oct 8, 2013 at 9:57 AM, Peter Astrand <astr...@cendio.se> wrote: > On Thu, 3 Oct 2013, Otavio Salvador wrote: > > >> The original rdesktop smart card implementation was done by a "Alexi > Volkov" > >> back in 2006. Since then, at lot of work has been done by colleagues of > >> mine. The recent Kerberos and CredSSP work has been done by Henrik > Andersson > >> <hea...@cendio.se>. > >> > >> Please observe that due to the licensing issue, no code may flow from > >> rdesktop to FreeRDP. > > > > A shame; two non-complete RDP clients. It'd be way better to have joined > forces. > > In a way I agree with you, and I was actually surprised to see that > FreeRDP had forked rdesktop without trying to reach consensus first. On > the other hand, there were and still are fundamental issues which prevents > a closer cooperation. I believe one of the main reasons why the fork was > done was that some developers found it difficult to cooperate with some > rdesktop developers. Later, when FreeRDP decided to try to change to the > Apache license, the rift became even bigger. Recent discussions on this > topic has confirmed that we have a different opinion not only on which > license is the best for an Open Source RDP client, but also that that we > have a fundamentally different view on copyright in general, and what you > must do in practice to fulfill the GPL license. > > It's no secret that one of the recent issues was the "Ulteo" App on the > Apple AppStore. We claimed that it contained our copyrighted code. Apple > apparently agreed with our position, since the app has been removed. > Obviously, this makes us even more confident that our interpretation is > sound. > > > Best regards, > --- > Peter Astrand ThinLinc Chief Developer > Cendio AB http://cendio.com > Teknikringen 8 http://twitter.com/ThinLinc > 583 30 Linkoping http://facebook.com/ThinLinc > Phone: +46-13-214600 http://plus.google.com/112509906846170010689 > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > October Webinars: Code for Performance > Free Intel webinars can help you accelerate application performance. > Explore tips for MPI, OpenMP, advanced profiling, and more. Get the most > from > the latest Intel processors and coprocessors. See abstracts and register > > http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=60134071&iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk > _______________________________________________ > Freerdp-devel mailing list > Freerdp-devel@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freerdp-devel > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ October Webinars: Code for Performance Free Intel webinars can help you accelerate application performance. Explore tips for MPI, OpenMP, advanced profiling, and more. Get the most from the latest Intel processors and coprocessors. See abstracts and register > http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=60134071&iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk _______________________________________________ Freerdp-devel mailing list Freerdp-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freerdp-devel
