The PS1 Game Spongebob Squarepants: Supersponge Violates the GPL • Hacker News Board

Re: The PS1 Game Spongebob Squarepants: Supersponge Violates the GPL

#41

Post by cesarb » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 1:48 AM UTC

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #9

Does this mean that any GPL project could reuse source code from this game, under the logic that it all inherently must be GPL licensed? I'm pretty sure the answer is "no", but I'd like to know why, it makes logical sense...

> Does this mean that any GPL project could reuse source code from this game, under the logic that it all inherently must be GPL licensed?

No, this only means that the game developers are violating the copyright of the copied code. The GPL is not "viral"; including code under the GPL in a project without following the GPL only means that the GPL doesn't apply to it anymore ("[...] and will automatically terminate your rights under this License"). Since there's no longer any license allowing it, the default restrictions of copyright apply, and the result cannot be distributed without the permission of whoever holds the copyright to that piece of code under the GPL.

Re: The PS1 Game Spongebob Squarepants: Supersponge Violates the GPL

#42

Post by m463 » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 1:51 AM UTC

RockmanX wrote: post #3

what's the consequence if someone's product violates GPL ?

It depends on if and who pursues the violation. For example, apple is violating the GPL with bash by distributing a binary but not distributing all the source code used to compile it.

I believe there are also violations by vmware and lots of others (I believe ubiquiti?)

That said, there are legitimate ways to distribute GPL code, such as a dual license.

You could write code and license it to company A under one license, and release it under GPL to company B.

company A could have any rights or responsibilities you grant, while company B would have to comply with the distribution restrictions of the GPL.

It's also worth noting that the GPL does not restrict how anyone USES the software, it only restricts how the software is redistributed.

Re: The PS1 Game Spongebob Squarepants: Supersponge Violates the GPL

#43

Post by AdmiralAsshat » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 1:56 AM UTC

A page with other prototypes and builds from this company may be seen here:

https://hiddenpalace.org/Climax_lot

From the looks of it, Climax Group primarily developed licensed games and shovelware. Say what you will about the quality, but from the number of build dates for each game, they clearly had their shit together with respect to version control.

Re: The PS1 Game Spongebob Squarepants: Supersponge Violates the GPL

#44

Post by caf » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 2:01 AM UTC

hermitdev wrote: post #38

What are the violations? The twitter post just states that GPL was violated, but no evidence offered. Edit: I'm looking at it on mobile, and the only link seems to be a self referential link, not to anything of substance.

If you read the full thread they took the vsprintf() implementation from the Linux kernel circa year 2000.

Re: The PS1 Game Spongebob Squarepants: Supersponge Violates the GPL

#45

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 2:03 AM UTC

a_t48 wrote: post #31

thrower123 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one reason I hate npm. Who really checks that sprawling byzantine dependency tree to make sure that there isn't some micropackage that has a GPL license that could get included and taint the whole thing? I just have the horrors when I look at the package.json file after the front-end folks have been allowed to run free...

Shouldn't this be something that npm could support checking as a first class feature?

[deleted]

Re: The PS1 Game Spongebob Squarepants: Supersponge Violates the GPL

#46

Post by microcolonel » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 2:05 AM UTC

bendbro wrote: post #2

I wonder if this will impact game archival efforts. Companies may be less likely to permit release of old source (or more likely to take action against those who do release source) knowing legal issues like this may be inside. Is there a statute of limitations here? Could the owner the violated code sue? What happens it they succeed, monetary compensation?

The most likely outcome is not a chilling one: they comply by releasing their code officially under a compatible license, and hope they don't upset anyone else by doing so.

Re: The PS1 Game Spongebob Squarepants: Supersponge Violates the GPL

#47

Post by saagarjha » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 2:11 AM UTC

m463 wrote: post #42

RockmanX wrote: post #3

what's the consequence if someone's product violates GPL ?

It depends on if and who pursues the violation. For example, apple is violating the GPL with bash by distributing a binary but not distributing all the source code used to compile it. I believe there are also violations by vmware and lots of others (I believe ubiquiti?) That said, there are legitimate ways to distribute GPL code, such as a dual license. You could write code and license it to company A under one licen…

> For example, apple is violating the GPL with bash by distributing a binary but not distributing all the source code used to compile it.

https://opensource.apple.com/source/bash/bash-106.220.2/

Re: The PS1 Game Spongebob Squarepants: Supersponge Violates the GPL

#48

Post by saagarjha » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 2:12 AM UTC

microcolonel wrote: post #22

I'm guessing nobody ever asked for the source code, so maybe it wasn't that violating, and now we know it's GPL. ;- )

Well, the GPL requires that they have the license text available somewhere.

Re: The PS1 Game Spongebob Squarepants: Supersponge Violates the GPL

#49

Post by nfriedly » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 2:17 AM UTC

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #32

thrower123 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one reason I hate npm. Who really checks that sprawling byzantine dependency tree to make sure that there isn't some micropackage that has a GPL license that could get included and taint the whole thing? I just have the horrors when I look at the package.json file after the front-end folks have been allowed to run free...

There's tools [0] to help check the licenses of all your dependencies. I think larger companies build up a whitelist of libraries as they're reviewed and approved. [0] https://github.com/davglass/license-checker

Yep. When I was at IBM, part of releasing something was a review every of dependency and it's license. The stuff I worked on wasn't allowed to include any GPL code. (Or WTFPL, for that matter, but I think that had more to do with curse words than actual license issues.)

Re: The PS1 Game Spongebob Squarepants: Supersponge Violates the GPL

#50

Post by vortico » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 2:18 AM UTC

hermitdev wrote: post #38

What are the violations? The twitter post just states that GPL was violated, but no evidence offered. Edit: I'm looking at it on mobile, and the only link seems to be a self referential link, not to anything of substance.

Scroll down one tweet.