[HN Gopher] Voice.ai: GPL Violations with a Side of DRM
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Voice.ai: GPL Violations with a Side of DRM
Author : ronsor
Score : 342 points
Date : 2023-02-06 18:15 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (undeleted.ronsor.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (undeleted.ronsor.com)
| flockonus wrote:
| Thanks for this article, saved me installing a potential vector.
| password4321 wrote:
| I understand the GPLv3 angle where the violation is clear, but
| not asking for other source code under LGPL:
|
| > _In accordance with the LGPL v2.1, I am requesting a copy of
| the libgcrypt source code plus the source code of VoiceAILib.dll
| and of any other components, tools, and /or scripts necessary to
| reproduce a working executable with my own version of libgcrypt._
|
| I thought the required binaries (needed to re-link, .obj for
| Windows) could be requested but the source was not required,
| isn't that the point of LGPL?
| oakwhiz wrote:
| For the LGPL portion, it was linked statically, so they need to
| at minimum release enough of the code so that the LGPL portion
| can be relinked. This would not be an issue if it was linked
| dynamically. If they modified the LGPL portion they also need
| to make those modifications available to whoever they provided
| the binary to.
|
| For the GPL portion they need to release the code for the whole
| binary.
| leni536 wrote:
| AFAIK the point of the LGPL is that the LGPL license parts
| must be replaceable with a user-modified version. The easiest
| way to achieve that is through dynamic linking, but it's not
| the only way. They could release object files of their
| library and the LGPL licensed parts, document how to replace
| the object files of the LGPL licensed parts if you wish to do
| so, and how to link the whole thing into a dynamic library.
| rmccue wrote:
| The point of LGPL is that it's less viral than the GPL,
| specifically for linking. If you link GPL code into your
| project, the whole project virally becomes GPL; with LGPL, the
| link is the boundary. You can still request a copy of the
| source of that library though.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| To be pedantic, if you're mixing your code with GPL code and
| distributing the result then you're _obligated_ to make it
| all GPL _in order to follow the license_ , but it does not by
| itself become GPL.
| bonzini wrote:
| More precisely you can make it any license that is GPL-
| compatible (including MIT), and _distribute the source_ in
| order to follow the license. But it 's okay for people to
| strip the GPL bits and only follow the permissive license
| on the rest.
|
| This has been done for QEMU in the past, for example (QEMU
| for historical reasons is a mishmash of GPLv2-compatible
| licenses, which is fine as long as the combination is
| distributed under the rules of GPLv2).
| password4321 wrote:
| Separately (really stretching the edges of my understanding
| here as I have not kept up with any court cases, settlements,
| or other ways this has come up and been resolved), it's my
| understanding that the nature of dynamic linking in Windows
| DLLs is seen by some as a proper boundary against the full
| GPL, such that only an affected DLL would require its entire
| source code available rather than the entire program. I
| believe the justification in such a case is that the DLL is
| serving it's intended/entire purpose and could be replaced.
|
| I'm far from an expert but thought this was an interesting
| technical issue affecting open source licensing (perhaps
| similar to closed-source kernel drivers?). If anyone has
| recent experience sorting this out "in the real world"
| (amicably or not!) I'd love to hear about it.
| goodpoint wrote:
| > the whole project virally becomes GPL
|
| It does not. There is no such thing in copyright law as one
| work changing the license of another work. The idea of
| "virality" is incorrect.
|
| If an author is violating the GPL by distributing e.g. MIT
| licensed code that links to GPL code it's up to them to
| choose between switching the whole work to GPL, or stop
| distributing it, or keep using MIT and stop including the GPL
| part.
|
| They can even keep using MIT in libraries that are included
| in the main project and other combinations.
|
| edit: see @bonzini reply
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > or keep using MIT and stop including the GPL part.
|
| Well, in this case it appears that they're violating the
| license of the _permissively_ licensed code, which still
| requires attribution. Points for uniformity, I guess...
| jahewson wrote:
| No that is incorrect.
| password4321 wrote:
| Thanks for the clarification.
|
| The wording in the original article seemed to imply turning
| over the source was required by the LGPL, but if I understand
| what you're saying ( _You can still request a copy of the
| source of that library though_ ) it should be more of a
| "pretty please, if you're feeling generous".
| voakbasda wrote:
| IANAL but AFAIK, the license absolutely does require them
| to provide the source code for any LGPL libraries that they
| used. It does not affect/infect their other source code, as
| would be the case with the full GPL. However, voice.ai was
| foolish enough to include a GPLv3 component in their
| product, so all of their source code arguably has been
| affected by its terms.
| password4321 wrote:
| Yes, thanks!
|
| The piece I didn't understand (under LGPL) was "source
| code of VoiceAILib.dll".
| arvidkahl wrote:
| I for the life of me can't understand removing people who point
| out such critical issues from your community. Is it greed?
| Ignorance? Complete unawareness of the Streisand effect?
| trzy wrote:
| Sweep it under the rug hoping that this person is unlikely to
| be able to afford to litigate this.
| runnerup wrote:
| Their discord is now 99% full of people complaining about the
| GPL violations. The voice.ai discord moderators are so far
| handling it with aplomb.
| mrtweetyhack wrote:
| [dead]
| PeterisP wrote:
| I presume that this was an attempt to prevent the complainer
| from complaining in their public forum where it would be read
| by other users of their product.
| codeguro wrote:
| That's it, I'm reporting this to the FSF, and the copyright
| holders to libgcrypt and Praat.
|
| This is _exactly_ what the GPL license was made for!
| kmeisthax wrote:
| One thing I'd love to see would be a way for a copyright owner
| (e.g. GPL library developer) to get an injunction on an infringer
| prohibiting them from having "no reverse engineering" clauses in
| their license agreements.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| The GPL _already_ prohibits further restrictions.
| goodpoint wrote:
| Correct. In addition it protects from patent trolling.
| BillSaysThis wrote:
| Not to mention they have the gall to include an ethics page on
| their site: https://voice.ai/ethics. Not that it mentions
| following the licenses discussed on this thread. ROFL but in a
| sad way.
| DDBE wrote:
| To clear up this thing about "lashing out": You violated the TOS
| by demanding an offline version, so you could circumvent DMCA
| takedowns. That's when the volunteer mods had a group chat and
| decided a ban.
| madsbuch wrote:
| Is it safe to assume that GPT3 has been trained on GPLed code?
| And in that case, should the GPT3 source code be freely
| available?
| DDBE wrote:
| To clear up this confusion about "lashing out": You violated the
| TOS by demanding an offline version, so you could circumvent DMCA
| takedowns. That's when the volunteer mods had a group chat and
| decided a ban.
| jzebedee wrote:
| The installer also doesn't even let you view the Terms and
| Conditions. It's styled as a link but it literally can't be
| opened: https://imgur.com/CUzLdRQ
|
| This is ironic considering how aggressive the language is on
| their branding page: https://voice.ai/branding-guidelines
|
| > WARNING:
|
| > We use technology to check for infringement on the Internet and
| on social platforms and may automatically (or manually) issue
| takedown notices for content that infringes on our IP. Simply add
| our approved clip to your content to avoid takedown notices. We
| reserve all rights.
| user3939382 wrote:
| Now it works: https://voice.ai/tos
| mrtweetyhack wrote:
| [dead]
| sva_ wrote:
| So they're reading this thread, I suppose. But no statement
| yet.
| bbarnett wrote:
| Someone should just hack them, put the code on github, and
| respond to dcma requests with GPL legalities.
|
| They should be fined too, but the above at least would
| solve their miscreantic behaviour.
| jahewson wrote:
| No that would be equally wrong.
| hackmiester wrote:
| It would be legally wrong, but morally, it would be less
| cut and dry. I'm not saying it is moral either, but I
| would like to point out that those two things aren't
| equal.
| jfengel wrote:
| It's weird reading this thread on a site where I so often read "I
| don't believe in invisible property." Often applied to music,
| movies, or art.
|
| I'm sure it's not as simple or hypocritical as the same people
| saying both things. And this specific story is about a very
| specific subversion of intellectual property rules to make it
| open. But it's a little weird hearing a complete lack of
| "information wants to be free" when the thing being "stolen" is
| our work.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| Copyleft ensures the continuation of a freedom already given,
| copyright restricts freedom.
|
| (Yes I know de jure copyleft relies on copyright to exist, but
| morally they are diametrically opposite)
| funnymony wrote:
| GPL is a briliant trick.
|
| It is a extreme reaction to extremely dire copyright situation.
|
| If information cant be free in this system, then let's add a
| restriction that it must be free.
|
| Briliant!
| PeterisP wrote:
| The original post is consistent with "information wants to be
| free" - we should be free to use and view Voice.ai source code,
| just as Voice.ai could use and view the code of these other
| projects they did. The only hypocrisy I see here is from
| Voice.ai, taking open source code themselves but then insisting
| (without any right to do so) that the result has become their
| proprietary "invisible property" and others can't do stuff with
| it.
| runnerup wrote:
| I think the "information wants to be free" crowd would be
| happier if all work was free to be stolen. GPL enforcement is
| currently necessary to make that happen. It would be better if
| it wasn't.
| favorited wrote:
| > I personally recommend downloading a copy of the Voice.ai
| software and contacting the developers to request source code.
|
| This approach is what drives corporations to adopt zero-GPL
| policies. The GPLv3 explicitly includes language about how to
| cure a violation (spoiler alert: it's not "haha, we caught you -
| now hand over all of your source!"), and both of the mentioned
| violations are available under GPLv3.
|
| This person needs to notify the copyright holders of the GPL
| libraries, who can then contact the copyright holders of the
| violating software, starting the timer on the window in which the
| offending software must be cured.
| 4bpp wrote:
| Is there a problem with corporations that have no intention to
| contribute source code back to the public adopting zero-GPL
| policies? It seems that this conveys more of a disadvantage
| upon them than the presumed alternative (they use GPLed code
| with abandon to build more closed-source products more easily,
| knowing that if caught they can always weasel themselves out of
| any consequences by a "curing" process), resulting in closed-
| source software being of lower quality, resulting in fewer
| incentives for users to run it and more market share and
| eyeballs for open-source software, which is an outcome well-
| aligned with the preferences of the typical developer who puts
| their software under GPL.
| goodpoint wrote:
| > This approach is what drives corporations to adopt zero-GPL
| policies
|
| Such companies are freeloaders at best and sometimes even
| hostile to FOSS and to users.
| codeguro wrote:
| > This approach is what drives corporations to adopt zero-GPL
| policies.
|
| Good! That's precisely the whole point of the GPL. That is: to
| prevent proprietary code, which harms users, from being mixed
| with Free Software! Proprietary software is harmful to the
| users. OpenAI is malware, it has cryptominers in it. It also
| sets off antivirus scanners. Now we'll get to see if their
| claims are true by looking at the code for ourselves
| devalidating wrote:
| If AI can create human readable code that compiles down to
| the exact same thing, would that negate it?
| doesnt_know wrote:
| > This approach is what drives corporations to adopt zero-GPL
| policies.
|
| Good. It's literally the point of choosing the GPL that
| organisations producing proprietary software can't benefit and
| mix in GPL licensed work without publishing the source.
| voakbasda wrote:
| Great to see companies getting exposed for these kinds of
| violations. However, their response of shooting the messenger
| tells me that they will not simply roll over and give up their
| source code.
|
| I strongly suggest contacting the owners of the open source
| projects and talking them into having a lawyer send a message to
| them. Those projects have the necessary legal standing to bring a
| meaningful copyright infringement case against Voice.ai.
|
| There are plenty of lawyers that will send a suitable message, at
| no cost to the projects, For example, the Software Freedom Law
| Center [0] provides free consultations and has a good track
| record.
|
| [0] https://softwarefreedom.org/about/contact/
| charcircuit wrote:
| >not simply roll over and give up their source code
|
| Nothing requires them to give over the source code. They just
| have to stop distributing the software which is violating the
| license.
| jasonlotito wrote:
| They've already distributed the software. They are required
| per the license to distribute the source code. They can
| remove the source code that requires them to do this, but
| existing copies of the software must are covered under the
| license agreements.
|
| i.e. The cat is out of the bag.
| jahewson wrote:
| They were also required by the license to follow the
| licence and yet here we are. They're in violation of the
| license. They can be sued for damages.
| ronsor wrote:
| So far I've also emailed the FSF (license-violation@gnu.org)
| and am currently awaiting a response.
| voakbasda wrote:
| My understanding (which may be incorrect) is that the FSF
| actively defends copyright on GNU projects. They do not
| defend other projects, but they will consult with attorneys
| on matters of the licenses themselves.
|
| Nevertheless, I (and I'm sure many others here on HN) would
| enjoy seeing the response from the FSF.
| [deleted]
| rascul wrote:
| I think libgcrypt is a GNU project.
| jraph wrote:
| Maybe the Software Freedom Conservancy would be more
| suitable?
|
| https://sfconservancy.org/
| [deleted]
| ronsor wrote:
| Praat includes code from the GNU Scientific Library (GSL)
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| user3939382 wrote:
| If it's not already, it would be nice if Google and Apple made
| these types of violations grounds for revoking approval of apps
| from their app stores.
|
| In general I abhor the whole concept of the "blessed app" walled
| garden gatekeeping, but if they're doing it anyway (and they are)
| they may as well do some good while they're at it.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| Isn't a copyright violation already some sort of grounds for
| removal? If someone uploaded an app with a bunch of disney
| copyrighted stuff it would be pulled pretty quickly.
|
| I imagine at the least the original developers could file a
| DMCA notice.
| intelVISA wrote:
| Seems like it should be, after all if you publish an app that
| plays copyrighted music it'd be folded by The Powers That Be
| pretty quickly.
| kuroguro wrote:
| Imagine if google's app store ended up with a similar system to
| yt's content ID - fingerprinting binaries to check if they
| comply with licensing lol
| cwillu wrote:
| I mean, if Voice.ai doesn't have the rights to distribute a
| piece of software, then google and apple also do not have
| rights to distribute it. (They may have required that voice.ai
| (or whoever) indemnify them against legal action resulting from
| voice.ai's actions)
|
| Perhaps the authors of praat or libgcrypt could issue a DMCA
| takedown request to apple and google?
| saurik wrote:
| https://www.engadget.com/2011-01-09-the-gpl-the-app-store-an...
|
| http://web.archive.org/web/20110115040843/http://www.tuaw.co...
|
| http://web.archive.org/web/20110111004349/http://planet.vide...
| neilv wrote:
| A lot of tech industry doesn't seem to take FLOSS license
| violations very seriously.
|
| Maybe it'd help to instead call it "IP theft", which still sounds
| a bit serious.
|
| I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know how this would work, but
| something like the following seems interesting...
|
| In those cases in which IP theft appears to be intentional or
| grossly negligent, don't respond like a nonprofit flowerchild
| bringing peace and love to someone who simply didn't know.
| Instead, get a pitbull of a lawyer, to make the perpetrator
| _actually_ regret it.
|
| Which, for startups that made claims to investors regarding
| ownership/rights to the IP they used, could then trigger an
| additional concern: defrauding investors.
|
| Then, after news of companies sorely regretting IP theft, a lot
| of companies proactively ban IP-theft-laundering tools like
| Copilot. And the companies that keep using tools like Copilot (or
| who don't excise existing stolen IP code quick enough, before
| forensic tools catch up, and catch them), start getting called to
| account by the pitbulls.
| echelon wrote:
| My team is about to launch a real time voice conversion system
| built in Rust without GPL violations, and we don't DRM our
| models, vits, vocoders, vad, etc.
|
| We'll open source it.
| phpisthebest wrote:
| There are a few problems. Not even developers of Open Source
| software take it seriously, as Software Conservancy is viewed
| as "extremist" when they file law suits attempting to enforce
| GPL, with Linux Foundation explicitly saying they were NEVER
| sue anyone.
|
| so if the code owners do not care why should the companies
| infringing on the license.
|
| Then there is big problems with calling it theft, as legally is
| it not. Infringement is not theft and in most jurisdictions (if
| not all) in the US you are barred from calling it theft in
| court.
| goodpoint wrote:
| > Maybe it'd help to instead call it "IP theft", which still
| sounds a bit serious.
|
| It's not a problem of naming but of who can afford fighting a
| legal battle in court and who cannot.
|
| There's been many famous episode of big companies going to
| court for copyright infringement. But they know they can ignore
| individual developers.
| neilv wrote:
| Is this a startup or law firm waiting to happen? (Preferably
| driven by true-believer public interest lawyers.)
| lmm wrote:
| It's less about the money than the will. FOSS types tend to
| not want to sue.
| [deleted]
| panny wrote:
| >A lot of tech industry doesn't seem to take FLOSS license
| violations very seriously.
|
| _devil 's advocate_
|
| Why should they? The original point of the GPL was to be the
| anti-copyright, the copyleft. The original point was to prevent
| companies suing individual developers, not to be some sort of
| gotcha for developers to sue companies. GPL is a shield, not a
| sword. Why would a company care about using GPL code in their
| proprietary products? It's fair use. Oracle vs Google proved
| it. You have no rights over code you released for free, and
| nobody is going to side with you as a developer suing to
| protect those rights. Everyone sees it as a bait and switch.
| jimlongton wrote:
| > We use deep learning technology to create realistic AI voice
| clones that sound exactly like an impression of anyone in the
| world; whether it's your favourite reality star, game character,
| celebrity or cartoon character.
|
| Their business model is creepy and unethical.
|
| > Our Voice Universe community of contributors are training
| incredible voices every day to create hyper-realistic replicas
| that sound exactly like the real person!
|
| And they even get their users to do the dirty work for them.
| Classy.
| rvz wrote:
| See? It is good to catch grifters abusing the GPL license and
| holding them accountable.
|
| We can all do the same and file complaints like this one [0]
| about GitHub, OpenAI and Microsoft with their Copilot product and
| model being trained on AGPL-3.0 code and a mixture of
| incompatible licenses and also outputs sensitive info of
| developers.
|
| Give that Truth Social was caught using Mastodon's source code
| and violated the AGPL license by giving no attribution and no
| copy of the source code which they later complied, now we are
| starting to see this with AI projects violating licenses of open
| source projects; the same should also apply to GitHub, OpenAI and
| Microsoft with their Copilot product.
|
| [0] https://githubcopilotlitigation.com/
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Did Truth Social ever actually comply with AGPLv3? I thought
| they just pointed vaguely at the original Mastodon source
| repository.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > a mixture of incompatible licenses
|
| As far as copilot is concerned, those repos might as well be
| closed source. They are not accepting the license, and don't
| care about it. Their goal/claim is that the language model will
| not retain copyrightable sequences.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| IS there a donation link to help take this to court by copyright
| owners? I'd be glad to spend some dough on this
| junon wrote:
| I'm not a fan of the GPL but in these cases it's a choice to
| simply not use it as opposed to steamroll through it.
|
| I wish the OSS community had a legal team that would represent
| license violations like this. I have heard the FSF doesn't go
| after these, and EFF doesn't really tackle licensing issues like
| this does it?
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| An earlier poster mentioned SFLC:
| https://softwarefreedom.org/about/contact
|
| The Software Freedom Conservancy is another place to look. They
| defend the GPL for a number of member projects, much like FSF
| does for GNU projects. (I don't know how a project would go
| about becoming a member of the Conservancy)
|
| https://sfconservancy.org/
| SomaticPirate wrote:
| Blatant disregard for GPL. I hope to see some lawsuits for this.
|
| Doing things like this really should be an ethical violation for
| engineers. Every engineer should be able to say no to building
| something like this
| StuckDuck wrote:
| Unfortunately it seems like nowadays with open source being very
| widespread that many companies or people simply ignore/forget
| that these libraries that they include in their software aren't
| just "public domain" because the code is public, but they have a
| license that should be respected and actually has legal value, so
| what often ends up happening is that they take advantage of open
| source software or libraries in their proprietary software
| without even giving a crap about their authors and their
| community
| ilaksh wrote:
| But the first error is one that you seem to have made also:
| that there are different types of open source licenses. GPL or
| other copyleft licenses generally require you to disclose the
| code (or make a licensing deal in some cases). Things like the
| MIT license are much less restrictive.
| adrr wrote:
| Only if you distribute the code. You can go take some
| copyleft code, modify to you liking but only run on you
| backend servers and that is perfectly fine. Copyright license
| only triggers on distribution.
| macmac wrote:
| This is not correct. The AGPL which is also a copyleft
| license "triggers" without distribution. This is possible
| because you as the copyright holder can decide the terms of
| the license you offer, and these terms do not need to be
| related to your exclusive rights as a copyright holder.
| goodpoint wrote:
| No, the additional clause in the AGPL triggers *only*
| when a network service is directly accessible to 3rd
| parties.
| [deleted]
| jraph wrote:
| So _yes_ , it "triggers" (even) without distribution: the
| network service being directly accessible is a sufficient
| condition and the distribution not a necessary one (it is
| also a sufficient condition though).
| adrr wrote:
| Distribution is network protocol which they claim
| copyright over. It only covers outside distribution and
| can't cover standardized protocols and formats because
| they don't own the copyright on those. If postgres was
| AGPL, they can't claim that ANSI SQL triggers copyright
| because ANSI SQL is owned by INCITS.
| jraph wrote:
| I have hard time understanding your comment, and even
| your point actually.
|
| Distribution is distribution: sharing the binary / source
| code of the thing.
|
| Network protocols are not involved at all. Network
| connections between the software and the end-user are.
|
| If a particular implementation of ANSI SQL was AGPL, and
| you modified and used this particular implementation and
| exposed it to the world, you would need to redistribute
| the code of this particular implementation.
|
| But that does not change anything about ANSI SQL or about
| any other implementation of ANSI SQL.
| adrr wrote:
| How does that work? How does a copyright license apply if
| there is no distribution? What legal mechanism allows
| that? You can include a TOS in the code, but that isn't
| enforceable because there is no agreement forcing
| function like "click to agree" nor am i required to even
| read it. And TOS doesn't have any laws protecting it like
| copyright.
|
| Edit: Instead of voting me down point out the relevant US
| law that allows copyright law that applies after the
| distribution like a TOS to person who didn't distribute
| the code.
| jraph wrote:
| You can't use copyrighted material without explicit
| permission from its authors / right holders, fair use
| aside. Programs are copyrighted material (since 1974 in
| the US IIRC). The AGPL license is what will give you the
| permission to use AGPL'd software, but under conditions
| you need to respect, to the extent permitted by law (in
| both ways: some uses are illegal, and some restrictions
| imposed by the licenses could be unenforceable).
| adrr wrote:
| > Suppose you develop and release a free program under
| the ordinary GNU GPL. If developer D modifies the program
| and releases it, the GPL requires him to distribute his
| version under the GPL too. Thus, if you get a copy of his
| version, you are free to incorporate some or all of his
| changes into your own version.
|
| > But suppose the program is mainly useful on servers.
| When D modifies the program, he might very likely run it
| on his own server and never release copies. Then you
| would never get a copy of the source code of his version,
| so you would never have the chance to include his changes
| in your version. You may not like that outcome.
|
| > Using the GNU Affero GPL avoids that outcome. If D runs
| his version on a server that everyone can use, you too
| can use it. Assuming he has followed the license
| requirement to let the server's users download the source
| code of his version, you can do so, and then you can
| incorporate his changes into your version. (If he hasn't
| followed it, you have your lawyer complain to him.)
|
| Copyright law only covers distributed software. It is not
| a terms of service and cover usage. GNU site has a bunch
| of articles on what it covers and what it doesn't.
|
| AGPL doesn't cover internal software if you don't expose
| it outside of the company.
|
| https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-affero-gpl.html
| jasonlotito wrote:
| You are moving the goal post.
|
| Originally you said "Only if you distribute the code."
|
| If you run software on your server, and someone outside
| accesses the software via a web page, even if the
| software is still only running on your server and hasn't
| been distributed outside the company, if it's under the
| AGPL, the company must make available the source code.
| adrr wrote:
| If i run a AGPl database like mongo(before they switched
| to their own license) and had a web app that used it to
| persist and read data. I would not be required any
| modifications to mongodb because i didn't trigger
| copyright. Now if I let people connect to mongodb through
| some managed service that i was selling, i would trigger
| copyright because mongo protocol is proprietary and
| covered by copyright law. This is a textbook example how
| it works.
| jraph wrote:
| > because mongo protocol is proprietary
|
| No. It's because Mongo is AGPL in your case.
|
| If you used a brand new implementation of whatever
| protocol Mongo uses that's under a less restrictive
| license than AGPL, you would not trigger any obligation
| to share the source code.
|
| "Proprietary" in "Proprietary protocol" pretty much means
| "specific" / "non-standard". And you can't legally
| prevent someone to reimplement your proprietary protocol.
| I don't even think you can copyright the protocol itself.
| You can copyright the documentation / specification
| document at best, and actual implementations of it.
|
| In "proprietary software", though, "proprietary" means
| "non-tree", that is, not open-source as defined by the
| OSD / not free software as defined by the FSF / the GNU
| project. The meaning of this word is very different in
| those two separate concepts.
| jraph wrote:
| > AGPL doesn't cover internal software if you don't
| expose it outside of the company.
|
| Yes indeed, you can use AGPL software internally without
| redistributing the source code, as you can with GPL
| software by the way (since AGPL is GPL + restrictions).
| The FSF actually considers a license that doesn't allow
| private use without distribution non-free, like the
| Watcom 1.0 license [1,2] (while the OSI does consider
| this license open source [3]).
|
| Now, I think this is a property of the license, not the
| copyright laws which do allow authors to place such
| restrictions. That's why you can't freely use Windows or
| Photoshop privately.
|
| Making the user click a "I agree" checkbox is one way of
| letting them know the terms and conditions, but not the
| only one.
|
| [1] https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/License:Watcom-1.0
|
| [2] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#Watcom
|
| [3] https://opensource.org/licenses/Watcom-1.0
| jahewson wrote:
| Copyright grants the following fives rights: 1)
| reproduction, 2) adaptation, 3) publication, 4)
| performance, and 5) display. Distribution falls under 3
| while creating a derived work falls under 2.
| elif wrote:
| If you are running a server connected to the internet,
| and it exposes an open source function, it is essentially
| distributing the functions with every request.
|
| Live application runtime bytes streamed vs bytes written
| to a disk is not a meaningful distinction.
| phpisthebest wrote:
| yes but when you do npm install myfavlibrary it is all the
| same :)
| jraph wrote:
| > the first error is one that you seem to have made also
|
| They don't seem to have made such an error though. Their
| comment was very general, and permissive licenses still have
| conditions like giving attribution.
| ronsor wrote:
| In this particular case, Voice.ai is also violating
| permissively licensed libraries. For example, libFLAC is
| included in VoiceAILib.dll: reference
| libFLAC 1.2.1 20070917
|
| The license text:
| https://github.com/xiph/flac/blob/master/COPYING.Xiph
|
| The license requires Voice.ai to include the license text
| _somewhere_ in the distribution or documentation, yet they do
| not.
| ilaksh wrote:
| Okay but that's still quite different from the copyleft
| licenses and violations which was my point.
| dsr_ wrote:
| Actually, it isn't. It's the same underlying principle.
|
| All software must be paid for, with the exception of
| countries which have an actual public domain. Some
| software is paid for with money, some with
| acknowledgments, and some with source code sharing.
| Sometimes the developer demands postcards, and sometimes
| they demand that you not use it for evil purposes. All of
| these are forms of payment.
|
| If you don't pay for it, you don't have certain rights to
| it.
| ilaksh wrote:
| Its the same principal, but importantly it would be very
| easy for them to comply with attribution somewhere, but
| much harder to give away the source code. So its quite a
| critical distinction.
|
| Lol. HN is so ridiculous sometimes.
| codeguro wrote:
| > but much harder to give away the source code
|
| On the contrary, it's actually quite easy. They can
| simply upload the repository on github's or simply tar
| snapshots of the source for their releases and host it
| themselves.
|
| No, the issue is _not_ that it's hard. It's that they
| don't want to comply with copyright law. That's an issue
| of criminality, not difficulty.
| [deleted]
| smoldesu wrote:
| Critical distinction to whom? The users? The developers?
| The judge and jury?
|
| If you get pulled over for speeding, you can't argue away
| the ticket by saying "yes officer, but speeding is easy
| to fix relative to hitting someone". If you continue to
| violate the law despite being notified of your exact
| violation, then you're probably due in for some
| punishment. I don't see how that's so hard to understand.
| INGSOCIALITE wrote:
| It's not harder to 'give away' the source code. It's part
| of the license(s) of the code you are linking to create
| your binary. It's not hard at all, actually. On the
| contrary, it's very easy.
| jraph wrote:
| > Lol. HN is so ridiculous sometimes.
|
| I hope you won't hold this against me, but I would
| suggest some humility here.
|
| Let's discuss and disagree with respect, shall we?
| esskay wrote:
| Time to let the free software foundation know. Is this something
| they are likely to help the authors of the IP theft take action
| against Voice AI for if they refuse to comply?
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| The problem with GPL is its a contaminating license, there are
| problems proving violations, and shaking people down like a
| commercial entity is toxic.
|
| I prefer Apache 2.0, as who knows where chunks of code end up 10
| years from now.
|
| If you are able, than its good karma to support the community
| with your own development hours and or fiscal donations. =)
| bitL wrote:
| The whole point of GPL is that nobody gets to ride free without
| contributing sources back to community. Of course companies
| prefer Apache or similar licenses. But then you end up with
| Amazon taking over products they didn't develop, never paid a
| cent to original developers and squeezed all fiscal potential
| out of the product, killing off the original.
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| Actually, if you can make money from my old code it makes me
| happy.
|
| You are correct in that Bezos does little for the community,
| and AWS tends to repackage community projects. Yet, most
| firms do put in many paid hours on kernel development etc.
|
| Have a wonderful day =)
| funnymony wrote:
| > Yet, most firms do put in many paid hours on kernel
| development etc.
|
| Linux kernel uses GPL.
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| Indeed, but my point was the license is not always
| appropriate for some businesses who still wish to
| participate in FOSS.
|
| Have a great day =)
| faisal_ksa wrote:
| I want to thank you for sharing this with us
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