PearPC coders near end of tether over Cherry's pickings

Wired did a little investigating a while back, wheeling out an expert, Dave Schroeder, senior systems engineer at the University of Wisconsin, to compared the two offerings. He declared of Cherry: "This is pretty clear-cut…They are, in fact, using significant amounts of code from PearPC."

Pearfolk have been since ranting on about this apparent appropriation of their hard work, harranging the Cherryfolk with emails demanding an explanation.

Sleuthing hack, Ian Betteridge, over at EWeek asked Maui X-Steam for an explanation a couple of weeks back and was rewarded with a promise that a statement was being drawn up and would be posted on the Maui X-Stream web site. Said statement is not yet forthcoming.

Meanwhile, a Pearperson awoke from a fitful slumber yesterday to call up Maui X-Stream and demand some answers. Bluntly told to bog off and speak to a lawyer, our hero would like to do so but fears he doesn't have the financial wherewithal to engage in such a course of action.

Mr "Suicide" said he only ever wanted Maui X-Stream to comply with General Public Licence (GPL) guidelines and release its source code. "Now," he warns Maui X-Stream, "you've p*ssed me off."

He adds: "Notice, if you're paying attention, even if they comply with the GPL now, they're still in violation of my copyright.

"Let this be a leason (sic) to future people that wish to exploit GPL code. We never gave up our rights to our code, it is still our code, and we have full control of it. And if you feel like being a jerk and totally and blatantly refusing to comply with the GPL, then you have no right to our code."

The Pearcoder has set up a Paypal account for donations to help hi fight his corner. That's all here. µ

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