“A few days ago, we were contacted by one of the developers of
Everybuddy, a “universal” instant messenger client for Linux. It
seems that they were scoping out the competition, and found a
Windows-only program offered by a company called DSF Internet. Many
users of Everybuddy had asked for a Windows version of the
software, but none of the Everybuddy developers were very familiar
with the Windows platform, and so a port had never been completed.
This program, MessengerA2Z, seemed to offer all the functionality
of Everybuddy for Windows machines. Probably because it was based
on Everybuddy’s GPL’d code.”
“The proof was in the pudding, so to speak. Or at least, the
proof was in downloading and installing the Windows version, then
running the strings command against their compiled binary. Lo and
behold, some of the strings of text included such gems as “Visit
the Everybuddy website at http://www.everybuddy.com”. Now how did
that get in there?”
“Both Slashdot and the developer contacted this company,
which is based in New Delhi, India. They initially denied that
there was any GPL’d code in their product, but when presented with
the evidence, the story changed, and it now seems that they’re
going to take some action. The final outcome isn’t known –
perhaps they’ll publish the Windows code, perhaps they’ll rewrite
the whole thing from scratch, perhaps they’ll just edit out the
Everybuddy references and recompile. <shrug>”