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ZodTTD, The Android emulator dev, responds to Google taking down his apps.

zodttd.com

11–20 of 53 posts

Re: ZodTTD, The Android emulator dev, responds to Google taking down his apps.

#11

Sorry ZodTTD, that's not how Open Source licenses work. Cutting a back room deal with some of the original authors for a cut of your profits doesn't absolve you from blatant violation of a software license. If that even happened, considering that all we have to go on is your already tarnished word that you're passing the profits along. You have a rotten history of taking others' open source work and trying to turn it…

Actually, if it's a GNU licence, the original author may be perfectly entitled to licence the software under more commercially favorable terms. I know of at least one author who's made a significant amount of money doing this.

Re: ZodTTD, The Android emulator dev, responds to Google taking down his apps.

#12

Sorry ZodTTD, that's not how Open Source licenses work. Cutting a back room deal with some of the original authors for a cut of your profits doesn't absolve you from blatant violation of a software license. If that even happened, considering that all we have to go on is your already tarnished word that you're passing the profits along. You have a rotten history of taking others' open source work and trying to turn it…

Actually, if it's a GNU licence, the original author may be perfectly entitled to licence the software under more commercially favorable terms. I know of at least one author who's made a significant amount of money doing this.

It was GNU GPL.

Re: ZodTTD, The Android emulator dev, responds to Google taking down his apps.

#13

Sorry ZodTTD, that's not how Open Source licenses work. Cutting a back room deal with some of the original authors for a cut of your profits doesn't absolve you from blatant violation of a software license. If that even happened, considering that all we have to go on is your already tarnished word that you're passing the profits along. You have a rotten history of taking others' open source work and trying to turn it…

Actually, if it's a GNU licence, the original author may be perfectly entitled to licence the software under more commercially favorable terms. I know of at least one author who's made a significant amount of money doing this.

Even though GPL is the most obvious case where you'd want this, it's not the only one. AFAIK there is no software license which prohibits the copyright holder (ie original author) from relicensing their software, either to individuals or openly, under as many other licenses as they see fit.

It does get complex when a single Open Source project contains code from multiple different contributors, each holding their own copyright. I believe that's one reason why plenty of OSS projects (GNU & Android both spring to mind although with opposite motives) require contributors to assign copyright as part of contributing.

Alternatively, it's also a problem if you (say) link a bunch of GPL-licensed libraries to your own OSS source code. AFAIK in that case you can't really relicense & distribute your project in its entirety under a different license, due to GPL virality.

I have NFI if any of these gotchas apply in this case, though.

Re: ZodTTD, The Android emulator dev, responds to Google taking down his apps.

#14
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, if it's a GNU licence, the original author may be perfectly entitled to licence the software under more commercially favorable terms. I know of at least one author who's made a significant amount of money doing this.

It was GNU GPL.

Actually it doesn't matter what license it is. It isn't so much that the GNU GPL allows or disallows you to sell a commercial version without source but rather that the original copyright holder can release the software under as many different licenses as they want to, similar to the way that Nokia (née Trolltech) used to release Qt as GPL but also sell commercial licenses that allowed you to not be beholden to the GPL. The trick is that the person releasing under multiple licenses must own all the code (which is one of the reasons some projects require copyright assignment to contribute).

Of course all of this is likely irrelevant in this specific case, since I don't think this guy is telling the truth here, but you can absolutely sell GPL (or any other FOSS license) licensed code to other parties under a different license that doesn't require them to share code as long as you hold the copyright to that code.

Re: ZodTTD, The Android emulator dev, responds to Google taking down his apps.

#15
post #8

I don't have any respect for ZodTTD. For years he's been taking open source software and reselling it on Cydia with no attribution for the original authors. As far as I'm concerned, he's a thief.

I'm wading into something I have absolutely no background on, but I want to say something about the "shape" of what is happening here, not necessarily related to its exact specifics. In a situation where there is a free (as in beer) product, and someone comes along and then sells it "for a quick buck", they are not automatically thieves - they are in fact doing the work of the free market by promoting and spreading t…

The snes9x software that zong was distributing is largely under a custom license that only grants use for non-commercial purposes. Getting that re-licensed would be difficult due to the large number of devs. You can read more about that situation on the snes9x forums.

ZodTTD from his own statements had a trademark violation on one of Sony's marks. According to other developers he was committing license violations. Combining the two he's in violation of the android market terms that he agreed to. Any way you slice it the termination of his market account was well within Google's rights.

Here's part of the agreement for developers on the android market that applies to this situation:

7.2 Google Takedowns. While Google does not intend, and does not undertake, to monitor the Products or their content, if Google is notified by you or otherwise becomes aware and determines in its sole discretion that a Product or any portion thereof or your Brand Features; (a) violates the intellectual property rights or any other rights of any third party; (b) violates any applicable law or is subject to an injunction; (c) is pornographic, obscene or otherwise violates Google's hosting policies or other terms of service as may be updated by Google from time to time in its sole discretion; (d) is being distributed by you improperly; (e) may create liability for Google or Authorized Carriers; (f) is deemed by Google to have a virus or is deemed to be malware, spyware or have an adverse impact on Google's or an Authorized Carrier's network; (g) violates the terms of this Agreement or the Market Content Policy for Developers; or (h) the display of the Product is impacting the integrity of Google servers (i.e., users are unable to access such content or otherwise experience difficulty), Google may remove the Product from the Market or reclassify the Product at its sole discretion. Google reserves the right to suspend and/or bar any Developer from the Market at its sole discretion.

Google enters into distribution agreements with device manufacturers and Authorized Carriers to place the Market software client application for the Market on Devices. These distribution agreements may require the involuntary removal of Products in violation of the Device manufacturer's or Authorized Carrier's terms of service.

In the event that your Product is involuntarily removed because it is defective, malicious, infringes intellectual property rights of another person, defames, violates a third party's right of publicity or privacy, or does not comply with applicable law, and an end user purchased such Product within a year before the date of takedown,: (i) you must refund to Google, all amounts received, plus any associated fees (i.e. chargebacks and payment transaction fees), and (ii) Google may, at its sole discretion, withhold from your future sales the amount in subsection (i) above.

Re: ZodTTD, The Android emulator dev, responds to Google taking down his apps.

#16
post #6

I don't have any respect for ZodTTD. For years he's been taking open source software and reselling it on Cydia with no attribution for the original authors. As far as I'm concerned, he's a thief.

> As far as I'm concerned, he's a thief. Oh really? If they violated licencing terms, drop a mail the EFF[1] guys and they'll help to sort it out. They already have helped in sorting out a bunch of cases, most often amicably. If ZodTTD conformed to the licensing terms, what's your point? It's the original developer that picks particular license -- wide is variety available already, covering most grounds. [1] http://w…

>If ZodTTD conformed to the licensing terms, what's your point?

He apparently provides no evidence of this and is removing comments from his blog that question the claim... so i'm skeptical.

Re: ZodTTD, The Android emulator dev, responds to Google taking down his apps.

#17

Sorry ZodTTD, that's not how Open Source licenses work. Cutting a back room deal with some of the original authors for a cut of your profits doesn't absolve you from blatant violation of a software license. If that even happened, considering that all we have to go on is your already tarnished word that you're passing the profits along. You have a rotten history of taking others' open source work and trying to turn it…

He claims to have a private licensing agreement in place with the copyright holder(s). Until the latter comes forward to claim otherwise, I guess we have to give him the benefit of the doubt. For now, this isn't really any of our business.

Re: ZodTTD, The Android emulator dev, responds to Google taking down his apps.

#18
I've talked with ZodTTD about this, but I've also done my own research into the licensing claims. What I've found is that most of his Cydia (and, presumably, Android) apps do rely on at least one GPL-licensed component. Note, however, that he can sell GPL'd apps, and the GPL specifically allows this: he just need to release the source code (edit: or give it to people when they ask).

However, looking at his GitHub, his source releases are not timely (although they do seem to be complete). If ZodTTD just added "dump source to GitHub" as part of his release process, there would be no issues here. I don't think ZodTTD is deliberately trying to steal money or code from anyone, but I think he misunderstands the importance of putting out the source code for his emulators right away, as they are released to a store.

(However, there is one exception: SNES9x has a license specifically forbidding commercial use. ZodTTD's "snes4iphone" then does, in fact, either need to be taken down or (at least?) made free from now on.)

Re: ZodTTD, The Android emulator dev, responds to Google taking down his apps.

#19
post #18

I've talked with ZodTTD about this, but I've also done my own research into the licensing claims. What I've found is that most of his Cydia (and, presumably, Android) apps do rely on at least one GPL-licensed component. Note, however, that he can sell GPL'd apps, and the GPL specifically allows this: he just need to release the source code (edit: or give it to people when they ask). However, looking at his GitHub, hi…

Apple routinely waits a longer time than this guy before putting out the mobile webkit code from a given ios release.

Re: ZodTTD, The Android emulator dev, responds to Google taking down his apps.

#20
post #19
post #18

I've talked with ZodTTD about this, but I've also done my own research into the licensing claims. What I've found is that most of his Cydia (and, presumably, Android) apps do rely on at least one GPL-licensed component. Note, however, that he can sell GPL'd apps, and the GPL specifically allows this: he just need to release the source code (edit: or give it to people when they ask). However, looking at his GitHub, hi…

Apple routinely waits a longer time than this guy before putting out the mobile webkit code from a given ios release.

And they don't release a buildable or complete copy of the source (more info: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2530689). But, ZodTTD's emulators aren't in the App Store since Apple won't allow them, so that's not really relevant here.
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