Google Blogoscoped

Forum

Google Code and "stolen" code

Travis Harris [PersonRank 10]

Sunday, August 16, 2009
14 years ago3,158 views

I have a sourceforge project that is LGPL... So, people can steal my code all they want as long as they follow the LGPL license.... well... now someone spun off the project onto google code, and is publishing it under the MIT license...

Is there anything I can do about this other than take legal action? Is there any way I can even contact google about this?

Roger Browne [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

Google is just supplying hosting for these projects, so they won't (and shouldn't) do anything unless you send them a formal DMCA takedown notice. I suggest you first make every effort to contact the people who are administering the project, and explain to them why they must use the LGPL license for their modifications to your code.

But first check carefully – are they really in breach of the LGPL? It's common for MIT-licensed projects to simply a copy of an LGPL library. The library keeps its LGPL license, while their own code (under the MIT license) uses the LGPL library. This is within the letter and the spirit of the LGPL. On the other hand, if they have actually removed the LGPL copyright notices from their copy of your files and substituted the MIT notice into those same files, that is clearly infringement.

Forum home

Advertisement

 
Blog  |  Forum     more >> Archive | Feed | Google's blogs | About
Advertisement

 

This site unofficially covers Google™ and more with some rights reserved. Join our forum!