- Saturday, 28 November 2009
- INQ Mobile
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I've been accused of vulgarity. I say that's bullshit - Mel Brooks
Mochasoft Iphone, Ipod app. violates GPL
A SOFTWARE PRODUCT distributed commercially through Apple's App Store is allegedly in violation of the General Public Licence (GPL).
A post by one Peter Honeder to the GPL Violations mailing list points out that the Mochasoft RDP client software for the Iphone and Ipod Touch appears to be based upon the "rdesktop" application, which is licensed under the GPL.
As evidence, the whistle-blower adduces that rdesktop symbol names can be discovered in the freely downloadable "lite" version of the Mochasoft RDP client application, including global rdesktop variables that start with "g_" literals and iso functions that start with "iso_" literals, as well as tcp, mcs and rdp layer functions.
The poster emailed Mochasoft requesting that it publicly release the source code to its RDP client as required under the terms of the GPL.
Mochasoft replied that, "due to the difference in the platform (screen, input,...) of the Iphone [from the rdesktop targeted hardware] they do not see this as a GPL violation."
The company apparently did not deny that its RDP client software products are based upon the GPL licensed rdesktop source code. The GPL covers the source code, not the platform.
Mr Honeder concluded his post by suggesting to the legal staff at GPL Violations, "Maybe you can explain [to] them what the GPL actually means and that both their free lite version and their commercially sold normal version have to be published in full source code and detail."
If it persists in denying that the GPL requires it to release the full source code to its rdesktop derivative software products, Mochasoft might find itself served with an invitation to defend that contention in federal court. ยต
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If you check the long list of settled cases at gpl-violations.org, you'll see that very few of them actually get as far as court. The companies almost inevitably see the light, once their lawyers realize that this is a real licence with some legal teeth behind it.
Of course, releasing the source code will be a direct violation of Apple's T&C's (that famous NDA) , so they're basically screwed. Damned if they do (release the code) damned if they don't.
You still don't know how to spell iPhone and iPod after all these years.
Assuming the symbols actually do belong to rdesktop software, Mochasoft is in clear violation of the GPL. 

Surprising that Mochasoft left the symbol names as they were. Maybe they're not even aware that rdesktop's symbols would remain in their object code. Maybe they never heard of a binary API?

The reasoning of Mochasoft is futile. What if people reasoned like this: "Emacs was developed on a PDP and my HTC Touch Diamond has a different input and screen than a PDP (8?) so porting the Emacs code to an HTC Touch Diamond doesn't violate the GPL? Right?" 

WRONG.
Surely you mean Guh-noo Public License.
as of 11:50am est on Monday, the rdp is no longer avail for download from the appstore (though it is still listed in the directory of the appstore).

did mocha implicitly admit defeat?

or did apple force the withdrawl?

[Er, the INQ outed it, of course! Mod.]
To finish this article and add missing things, Mochasoft has properly pulled its GPL violating apps from the app store and acknowledged the fact in a proper manner. Please see the follow-ups of the discussion in the legal mailing list on www.gpl-violation.org

Additionally there seems to be another project based on rdesktop as well as many other projects based on other GPL licensed software (e.g. samba,...)

Best regards,
Peter
It's true, check the dictionary.
So is "sony".
So is "mochasoft".
So is "kookamunga".