I noticed earlier today that William Davidson was promoting UAV Solutions as a place to purchase telemetry radios. Just as Tridge called out Paul Whitespy from Ready to Fly Quads http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/an-open-letter-to-paul-from-witespy as a license violator I want to make people aware that UAV Solutions is one of the most prolific violators of the open source licenses we use in Ardupilot, Pixhawk, and PX4.
UAV Solutions violates the GPL License on Mission Planner and Ardupilot and they removed Michael Oborne's name from Mission Planner and rebranded it as their own software.
I have spoken with UAV Solutions many times and they have no interest in respecting Michael's work or the efforts of the dev team. They have no interest in respecting the licenses and there is no reason for them to change the way they do business because people buy from them and keep them in business.
Please support the companies who support this project and who respect the developers and the people who have made this project possible. UAV Solutions is not one of those companies.
One of the dev team had a suggestion of creating a badge for open source violators. Mr Davidson you are the first person to be awarded the badge.
Comments
HI @Alas
Quoted from above:
"Chris, you did indeed admit the badge was applied too hastily. So did Rob. Yet, you both have been complacent in having it persist on William Davidson's avatar all this time"
You are aware that I have no say on if this is on his avatar, to be clear I am a completely different Chris to Chris Anderson. I am a participant of the site.
If you are inferring that my support has meant his badge stays I'm sure that William will disclose what he is comfortable doing. Like I've said there is always different version of the truth, in the long run I'm sure it will get settled.
On the surface it appears that Craig has tried to work with UAV Solutions staff and got no joy, so they've taken this step and I support UAV Solutions being involved otherwise it would be a witch hunt. Who in your view should be the jury as people seem to think that this is a trial and has rules of evidence that should be applied. This is real life, yes this may have commercial impacts, that is something for both parties to think about. So far an allegation has been made, a badge has been applied and if done in error I'm sure it will be removed - with a public apology.
From my understanding this wasn't just @Craig deciding this, it has gone to a group of people to see if it was too harsh. If it was just Craig then yes I agree, but from earlier posts it appears that it was a group of people who were consulted.
To be fair I'll ask Craig the only question that could put his request for the source in question:
@Craig, were you given a copy of the binary from a UAV Solutions Client? Or has a customer requested the source and been knocked back. If yes then it's clear cut you have a right (or the customer does) to a copy of the source code as per the GPL v3. If not then it might be hard to press this point.
People should give them a chance to respond, so far over 95% of the posts (including mine) are not the active parties in this.
Regards,
Chris
Alas Kindle:
While several hours of time may be "very quick" on a geologic time scale, it's actually quite a long time on an internet forum time scale.
My comment was made based on a lack of information. 1) I'm still trying to figure out what the GPL actually says (as are many, apparently) and 2) I did not have the information presented recently, that in fact some of UAVS's customers have complained that UAVS is not supplying the source code on request, as is very definitely required by the GPL.
UAVs need to do the following....
Release the drawings of the Pixhawk derivative....
Release the code to mission planner modifications....
Release the code to the Ardupilot modifications....
May I suggest an open source page on their site?
It has been verified that they have refused to put this in a verifiable location.
When this is cleared up, we will all move on.
Craig has my 100% support on this.
I am one of the hardware engineers on the PX4 hardware team. I am active on the Ardupilot team. I am on the Board as a Silver member of Dronecode.
And again I stand behind Craig 100% on this.
UAVS are soliciting funds for their work on this system. So either they have a lot to give back, or they have taken a lot and can afford to support some development. Either way, they will be welcome.
@Alas, do you have any idea what kind of a person Graig Elder is?
People who have been in this community long enough have some sense of the developers motives and personalities.
My take is that something really nasty happened during the communication with UAVS. I think we will find out what it was if UAVS doesn't do something to remedy the situation.
It is relevant by the fact that your only interest in this community is to support William, and could not care less for help on others issues happening on this site, whilst member like Craig have been active with more than 1000 (thousand) contributions, and that's without his contribution as developper. But hey it's an open forum, so please keep your meaningful contributions coming...
Hi Alas,
I have seen from your home page that all the contributions you have made so far on dyidrones is on this particular thread, shows how heavily involved you are in the community.....
Hi @Alas,
Yes you quoted me correctly in:
'And Chris, you wrote "There are also claims that the binary recipients are not receiving the source code as required." Is an unverified, 3rd-hand account enough for you to accuse someone of violating the license? Do you have verifiable evidence? And to use the claim that Craig Elder would not "level that allegation without being 100% certain" as proof that UAVS is guilty is such a logical fallacy that I'm utterly stunned.'
You however missed my earlier post which said that maybe the OS violators badge was a bit hasty too. Funny how that wasnt quoted.
Now think this through, all that needs to happen for a copy of the source needing to be handed over is for one of UAV Solutions clients to give a binary copy to any person and that person is then entitled to a copy of the source code. That is the intent of the GPL, have a read of it. As soon as you release a binary copy you are bound to provide the source code, hence my words of any 'binary recipient' it doesnt need to be a 'customer' of theirs..... That is why I back what @Craig has said to date. Yes it is all of 3rd party info, only a very limited number of people have first hand knowledge or business documents that would meed the rules of evidence in a court of law, note we are not one and are not bound by it's limitations.
Notice the bar now is very low to be required to release the source code. If @Craig was given a copy of the binary from a customer then he is entitled to ask for the source code, see where this is now going. The ability to withhold the source is now very hard. It doesn't matter that their might be a commercial agreement to not forward it on to others (and may count as propagation which I believe is not allowed in the GPL - someone who is more knowledgeable would have to verify that one) but that is a different set of laws and has no bearing on the release of the source code. If you wish to not hand over the source code the safest thing to do is not release it to an outside party, keep it in house 100% as once you do the control is in their hands and not yours. It is the only way.
I'm all for UAV Solutions having their side put forward as they may have a different view and that is fair enough, they have a right to be heard on this forum. That is why I don't count this as a Witch Hunt. If we took that away and no one listened to them, then yes we'd have a witch hunt. We have an action that may have been a bit hasty but on the surface it doesn't appear so.
Chris
Comment by Pbreed 14 hours ago
"There is NO requirement in the GPL license to release the code to anyone but their customers."
@PBreed, Sorry that is not correct.
The Point of GPL software is that any user (aka "program's users") of The Software can access the source code of any author, *if their copy of the source code has been released*, for example a product using The Software is sold to a customer. If I make a modified copy of source then that copy must be made available to any user of the software on request. I believe the License itself covers what is a reasonable way to make the soure code available
Put simply. If you make modifications and release them to anybody, then I am allowed to see them without having to burgle your office. That is the whole point. You see now everyone can build on everyone else's work. You see how that might work :)
Of course if you, as a potential user dont like it, then you are free not to look at it, modify it, use it or sell it, in which case I wonder quite what you are doing here. :)
regards
Andy
@Alas +1.
You should not be accused, tried and executed by the same person. Innocent until proven guilty is what I grew up with in a Democracy...Maybe this is not a democracy though. Forgive me if I am mistaken.
Hi @Darius,
Are those android apps GPL'd or some other license? It was asked before by @Chris Anderson and not answered by you.... When you say @Chris is it me or Chris Anderson you are referring too? There are numerous licenses used on the Google Android store. I suggest if they are violating the license they have then you have the right to call them on it. That doesn't give another person a free pass now does it....
A number of the apps specifically allow for reskinning and customization, as long as the license supports it then it is ok.
I'm all for UAV Solutions having a voice to respond, it is only fair. They have their version as does Craig. Where the truth is will come out in due time.
Chris
-
2
-
3
-
4
-
5
-
6
of 11 Next