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Growl fork maintainer banned from Growl mailinglist after fixing bugs

basementcoders.com

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Re: Growl fork maintainer banned from Growl mailinglist after fixing bugs

#11

Post by mansoor-s »

stephenr wrote: post #4

From the article: "One of the biggest problems with this approach, other than the fact they just pissed off a lot of people who beleive strongly in OSS, is that Growl is still broken. So you pay your $1.99 and it no workie. TESTING MOTHER FUCKERS, DO YOU DO IT? " I happily paid for Growl from the App store, and sure enough it works fine on both my Lion Macs. http://growl.info/documentation/developer/growl-source-inst…

"other than the fact they just pissed off a lot of people who beleive strongly in OSS"

If they believe so strongly in OSS, they wouldn't use macintosh would they? Nope they don't want to pony up and take out their wallets.

Re: Growl fork maintainer banned from Growl mailinglist after fixing bugs

#12

Post by patrickod »

hmottestad wrote: post #10
benatkin wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It became popular because it was open source and the community built the brand recognition. Now he went and took the brand recognition to do something that the community didn't expect and doesn't approve of.

So the question is. Can you make a fork and call it "Growl" or would the "new" growl try to sue the hell out of you?

If you use the latest BSD released version then you're ok. The code is free for public use. Were you to make it commercial though I think you would be liable as you would need the explicit permission of the original owner to do so.

EDIT: It seems after further research the license that was being used prohibits the name "Growl" being used to promote any derivative works of the same name without explicit permission from the original owners. [1] - http://growl.info/documentation/developer/bsd-license.txt

Re: Growl fork maintainer banned from Growl mailinglist after fixing bugs

#13

Post by masklinn »

patrickod wrote: post #12
hmottestad wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the question is. Can you make a fork and call it "Growl" or would the "new" growl try to sue the hell out of you?

If you use the latest BSD released version then you're ok. The code is free for public use. Were you to make it commercial though I think you would be liable as you would need the explicit permission of the original owner to do so. EDIT: It seems after further research the license that was being used prohibits the name "Growl" being used to promote any derivative works of the same name without explicit permission fro…

> If you use the latest BSD released version then you're ok.

No, I doubt the naming falls under source release. See Firefox.

Re: Growl fork maintainer banned from Growl mailinglist after fixing bugs

#14

Post by masklinn »

elgenie wrote: post #9
stephenr wrote: post #4

From the article: "One of the biggest problems with this approach, other than the fact they just pissed off a lot of people who beleive strongly in OSS, is that Growl is still broken. So you pay your $1.99 and it no workie. TESTING MOTHER FUCKERS, DO YOU DO IT? " I happily paid for Growl from the App store, and sure enough it works fine on both my Lion Macs. http://growl.info/documentation/developer/growl-source-inst…

There don't seem to be publicly visible commits after the 1.3 release, though. Compare http://growl.info/documentation/version_history.php with http://code.google.com/p/growl/source/list : the source of version 1.3.1, which includes some important-sounding bugfixes, is nowhere to be found.

http://groups.google.com/group/growldiscuss/msg/0793d15920fa...

The 1.3 SDK also added Mist[0], which means software does not have to install Growl itself (and the user does not need Growl) to get Growl notifications.

The Growl application itself (from the AppStore) essentially becomes a "Growl Pro", offering users more (and centralized) control over notifications display.

[0] http://growl.info/documentation/developer/implementing-growl...

Re: Growl fork maintainer banned from Growl mailinglist after fixing bugs

#15

Post by _ak »

rmc wrote: post #7

decided they should be paid for their work. There is one slight problem however. Growl is Open Source Software. So? You can sell open source software. Just because software is GPL/BSD licenced doesn't mean you can't sell it. Open Source ≠ Non-commerical. Closed Source ≠ Commmerical. You can change for open source software. If something is open source you can't complain if someone sells it. Obviously if the software i…

To my knowledge, the source to the 1.3.x release isn't public. I wonder whether it's a complete rewrite from scratch or whether 1.3.x still contains patches from external contributors and whether they agreed that their work be sold for money.

Re: Growl fork maintainer banned from Growl mailinglist after fixing bugs

#16

Post by p0ckets »

hmottestad wrote: post #10
benatkin wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It became popular because it was open source and the community built the brand recognition. Now he went and took the brand recognition to do something that the community didn't expect and doesn't approve of.

So the question is. Can you make a fork and call it "Growl" or would the "new" growl try to sue the hell out of you?

Maybe. Forsythe might have some claim to the trademark for "Growl", but things like the Growl Network Protocol should weaken it.

Note that the copyright on the code and the trademark on "Growl" are separate issues.

Re: Growl fork maintainer banned from Growl mailinglist after fixing bugs

#17

Post by masklinn »

_ak wrote: post #15
rmc wrote: post #7

decided they should be paid for their work. There is one slight problem however. Growl is Open Source Software. So? You can sell open source software. Just because software is GPL/BSD licenced doesn't mean you can't sell it. Open Source ≠ Non-commerical. Closed Source ≠ Commmerical. You can change for open source software. If something is open source you can't complain if someone sells it. Obviously if the software i…

To my knowledge, the source to the 1.3.x release isn't public. I wonder whether it's a complete rewrite from scratch or whether 1.3.x still contains patches from external contributors and whether they agreed that their work be sold for money.

Your knowledge is incorrect. The 1.3.0 source is available[0], and 1.3.1 should be soon[1], they have not dumped them in the public repository is all.

> I wonder whether it's a complete rewrite from scratch or whether 1.3.x still contains patches from external contributors and whether they agreed that their work be sold for money.

I'm not sure that has any relevance. It would if Growl had changed its license (they have to agree to license changes to their contributions, unless they ceded their copyright to the project or project owner), but selling the product is independent of that. It can be seen as a dick move, but it's still independent.

[0] http://code.google.com/p/growl/source/detail?r=9831a92b05b20...

[1] http://groups.google.com/group/growldiscuss/msg/0793d15920fa...

Re: Growl fork maintainer banned from Growl mailinglist after fixing bugs

#18

Post by peteforde »

As is so often the case with these sorts of posts, there are several issues being conflated here:

1. Growl authors want to ca$h in

2. Widely reported issues under Lion

3. Legitimate conjecture over rights and ethics for pmetzger's fork and whether it can be called Growl

I'd be more than happy to donate (more) to Growl, although I admit that the "suggested upgrade" made me pause. It felt like it crossed that slim line between a premium version and bait-and-switch that is hard to argue either way. It's certainly not strange that people are responding to the fact that this was just dropped on the existing userbase. That pmetzger is getting C+Ds (has this been confirmed) makes me really uncomfortable — it's not in the spirit of OSS as I understand it in my gut.

Ultimately, I don't think people will have a problem with paying, and certainly not such a small amount. It's more the way that it's been thrust upon us that feels slightly off. Am I right?

Of course, we haven't heard their side of the story yet. I urge you all to wait before you cast aspersions on them, because they've worked hard on something many of us have used for years.

Re: Growl fork maintainer banned from Growl mailinglist after fixing bugs

#19

Post by p0ckets »

_ak wrote: post #15
rmc wrote: post #7

decided they should be paid for their work. There is one slight problem however. Growl is Open Source Software. So? You can sell open source software. Just because software is GPL/BSD licenced doesn't mean you can't sell it. Open Source ≠ Non-commerical. Closed Source ≠ Commmerical. You can change for open source software. If something is open source you can't complain if someone sells it. Obviously if the software i…

To my knowledge, the source to the 1.3.x release isn't public. I wonder whether it's a complete rewrite from scratch or whether 1.3.x still contains patches from external contributors and whether they agreed that their work be sold for money.

They agreed that their work would be sold for money when they contributed to a BSD licensed project. If they cared, they could release their patches.

Re: Growl fork maintainer banned from Growl mailinglist after fixing bugs

#20

Post by patrickod »

_ak wrote: post #15
rmc wrote: post #7

decided they should be paid for their work. There is one slight problem however. Growl is Open Source Software. So? You can sell open source software. Just because software is GPL/BSD licenced doesn't mean you can't sell it. Open Source ≠ Non-commerical. Closed Source ≠ Commmerical. You can change for open source software. If something is open source you can't complain if someone sells it. Obviously if the software i…

To my knowledge, the source to the 1.3.x release isn't public. I wonder whether it's a complete rewrite from scratch or whether 1.3.x still contains patches from external contributors and whether they agreed that their work be sold for money.

It's not public yet but as per their BSD licence terms they will be releasing it. This, according to http://www.macworld.com/article/162208/2011/10/growl_shows_t...
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