Gosalia GnoMenu GPL breach

what should one do in a situation like this?

On Sun, 2010-02-14 at 02:22 +0000, whise wrote:
> Question #100988 on GnoMenu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/gnomenu/+question/100988
>
> Status: Open => Answered
>
> whise proposed the following answer:
> what should one do in a situation like this?
>
I am downloading the ISO right now. If there is a breach of the GPL then
I will contact the FSF and go from there.

After five attempts to download Gosalia using two different Internet connections I cannot get the ISO. There seems to be an issue at their end concerning bandwidth.

However, I did find a screen shot of their "start menu" control and it very much does indeed look to be a renamed version of GnoMenu. (which in and of itself is not a GPL breach) Without actually getting a working copy to see whether or not proper credits are given I cannot properly determine if there is an actual GPL breach. The screen shot that shows the Gosalia Copyright Notice is about the GnoMenu Button and not the actual program. So again no proof of GPL breach.

If anyone has better luck downloading the ISO I need to see a screenshot of the "About" >> "Credits" >> "Credits" >> "Written By" then if available a copy of the "README.txt" file

Here is a screenshot of the Credits dialog: http://s845.photobucket.com/albums/ab11/azorin/?action=view&current=Screenshot.png&newest=1

On Mon, 2010-02-15 at 13:40 +0000, Burnt Toast wrote:
> Question #100988 on GnoMenu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/gnomenu/+question/100988
>
> Burnt Toast posted a new comment:
> Here is a screenshot of the Credits dialog:
> http://s845.photobucket.com/albums/ab11/azorin/?action=view&current=Screenshot.png&newest=1
>
well that looks like a definite breech. I'll contact the FSF

GnoMenu - A consolidated menu for gnome that brings eye candy to the
world of the Gnome menu's. Fully functional menu , supports themes , for
a composited or non composited desktop. It can emulate the look and feel
of the most beautiful menus of most modern desktops, and it can also use
custom menus, due to its powerful theme XML engine. GnoMenu currently
supports Gnome-Panel, Avant-Window-Navigator, Cairo-Dock, XfApplet and
in the system tray.

Copyright is held by Helder Fraga and the GnoMenu Team and Contributors.

I am the documentation manager for the project. We received a
notification that there was a possible breech of the GPL by a Linux
Distribution called Gosalia http://gosalia.co.nr/

In the screenshot you will see that they claim to be the authors of
GnoMenu and are not giving proper credit to the actual author (Helder
Fraga) and the GnoMenu team.

Please inform us on how to handle this matter.

email sent to: <email address hidden>

GnoMenu - A consolidated menu for gnome that brings eye candy to the
world of the Gnome menu's. Fully functional menu , supports themes , for
a composited or non composited desktop. It can emulate the look and feel
of the most beautiful menus of most modern desktops, and it can also use
custom menus, due to its powerful theme XML engine. GnoMenu currently
supports Gnome-Panel, Avant-Window-Navigator, Cairo-Dock, XfApplet and
in the system tray.

Copyright is held by Helder Fraga and the GnoMenu Team and Contributors.

I am the documentation manager for the project. We received a
notification that there was a possible breech of the GPL by a Linux
Distribution called Gosalia http://gosalia.co.nr/

In the screenshot you will see that they claim to be the authors of
GnoMenu and are not giving proper credit to the actual author (Helder
Fraga) and the GnoMenu team.

Please inform us on how to handle this matter.

Contained screenshots of their Credits Page and our Credits Page.

Gosalia Download attempt now gets a 404 error.

Considering the size of the download they probably breached a few Multimedia licenses as well (Adobe anyone) and it may have been pulled.

This may be a mute point soon

No, that's not it. It's been like that a few times. It will come back soon (maybe in a day or 2). It's probably a problem with Dropbox.

The whole Gosalia issue seems a bit shady to me as DropBox has dropped them and even though the project is on Sourceforge the iso download is gone from there as well.

I'm betting a whole bunch of projects were, like us, were being labled (hijacked) as theirs and a whole lot of people got up in arms.

The project smells of issues in how the whole of it seems to be put together. First off who puts together a Linux Project web page together consisting of Flash. That alone will turn off most Linux users looking at the distro.

Still I made my report and am awaiting a response so we'll see.

The iso is back up again. They aren't using DropBox anymore. You can download it before it is gone.

The iso is back up again. They aren't using DropBox anymore. You can download it before it is gone.

Downloaded the ISO (It was compacted into a RAR file) and then decompessed it to quickly learn it was not compacted correctly. Whomever is making this distribution seems to have a major set of issues. The 1.9 GB RAR only decompressed as a 860 MB file I double checked the download to make sure it wasn't corrupted (It wasn't) and then looked at the compression and from the looks of it he failed to set the compression level correctly. At this rate he just isn't going to have a lot of followers.

Does he have his own repository for Gosalia?

I don't think he does.

I, the creator of Gosalia, whole-heartedly and solely apoligise for the mislead in credits. I never intended upon a Creditential breach, and promise to never do anything like this again.

I intent upon giving Gnome, GnoMenu and all external support that I have used and have helped me, for good and for benefitial purposes only. I do not remaster, nor illegally re-transmit anything without the censent permission of the owners and writers of the program.

This GnoMenu breach has been an accidental mistake by myself and my team, and will never occure again in the future of Gosalia. If there is anything I can do for Ubuntu, Gnome, GnoMenu and the creators of all applications and repositories in Gosalia, I will most heartedly do so. Credits will be added, and credit removals will be resubmitted.

Please let us know if there is anything we can do, our email is <email address hidden>.

Again,
I am truly, very sorry.

Thank you for contacting us and apologizing.

GPL breech will be rectified

thank you Technoshaun. If there is anything I can do, please let me know at <email address hidden>