From: Nix <nix_at_esperi.org.uk>
Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2004 22:12:25 +0000

On Fri, 26 Mar 2004, Björn Stenberg muttered drunkenly:
> xx xx wrote:
>> I was thinking in something like: The company ignores any licenses and
>> RESTRUCTURES the SW. Afterwards it will probably be difficult to prove,
>> that the original source was Rockbox....
>
> I doubt most companies would want to spend lots of time and money only
> to obfuscate the code. It goes against the purpose of saving money. I
> have never heard of this happening to any project.

Indeed: in the majority of cases of GPL violation with respect to GCC
(which has GPL violation problems on a regular basis), the most that's
changed is the name of the binary: all the strings are still there, and
the --version switch generally still works, complete with the FSF
copyright notice. This tends to be a bit of a downer for companies that
claim that of course this isn't GCC they're distributing.

There have been a couple of cases of companies going so far as to remove
obviously incriminating strings from the source, but even there
comparison of assembler proved the case well enough.

-- 
`The game proceeds with people picking up cards in turn, and every so
 often this is punctuated with a church council when everyone goes mad
 and starts yelling and playing cards at each other and persecuting and
 making deals.' --- Jo Walton on _Credo_
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Received on 2004-03-26