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Ask HN: My Open-Source project is on eBay. What should I do?

6 pointsby jcofflandabout 5 years ago
I just find out that my GPL&#x27;ed CNC software, CAMotics is being sold on EBay. The seller clearly made modifications and I don&#x27;t see any way to access the modified source. Isn&#x27;t this a license violation? Has anyone else had this happen to them?<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ebay.com&#x2F;itm&#x2F;CNC-simulator-software-for-CAD-CAm-milling-machine-or-router&#x2F;113808167909<p>Real software: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;camotics.org&#x2F;

4 comments

mindcrimeabout 5 years ago
<i>Isn&#x27;t this a license violation?</i><p>That depends. If people who buy &quot;their&quot; software get the modified source along with it, and it&#x27;s also under the terms of the GPL, then they are compliant AFAIK. They can also just put up a link to download the source, but IIRC, that&#x27;s not required if it&#x27;s shipped with the CD (or whatever kind of media they are distributing).<p>OTOH, if they are really complying and releasing their patches under the GPL, you could spend the $19.00 to buy one of their distributions, then turn around and put their patches back into your base software if you wanted to.
johnnyoabout 5 years ago
Just because they are selling something on eBay doesn&#x27;t mean they are violating the GPL.<p>They are allowed to take your code, modify it, and sell it.<p>If the CD they are distributing contains their modified code, or a link to where it can be downloaded, then I think they would be in the clear.
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aiscapehumanityabout 5 years ago
Wish I could help, peaking around them and some others seems to show that there is a larger a rabbit hole in eBay of open source resellers.
carapaceabout 5 years ago
Ask the FSF <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.fsf.org" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.fsf.org</a>