Stockfish clones in the AppStore: it's becoming a plague...

[tiger]

Is it OK or not, in a general context, to charge for a copy of Stockfish (either the engine alone or the engine and some GUI), without your explicit consent, provided that the seller abides by the GPL terms?

My limited understanding is that the GPL is incompatible with the App-store. Therefore, to release something through the App-store, you have to change the licence for the App-store release. If you do not own the copyright to the GPL code, you can't do that. Therefore you cannot take someone else's GPL program and sell it in the App-store.
This is different from taking someone's GPL code and selling it on, which is fine as long as you follow the rules laid out by the GPL.

That's my understanding anyway.

But Tord has published Stockfish on the App Store under the GPL licence.


// Christophe

[Sven]

Is it OK or not, in a general context, to charge for a copy of Stockfish (either the engine alone or the engine and some GUI), without your explicit consent, provided that the seller abides by the GPL terms?

My limited understanding is that the GPL is incompatible with the App-store. Therefore, to release something through the App-store, you have to change the licence for the App-store release. If you do not own the copyright to the GPL code, you can't do that. Therefore you cannot take someone else's GPL program and sell it in the App-store.
This is different from taking someone's GPL code and selling it on, which is fine as long as you follow the rules laid out by the GPL.

That's my understanding anyway.

But Tord has published Stockfish on the App Store under the GPL licence.

As you mention that, I am not sure whether it would be better to publish the AppStore version under a different license than the GPL, e.g. BSD license.

We have different issues to be understood here:

1. the fact that these Stockfish copies definitely violate the GPL,
2. the fact that the GPL is incompatible to the AppStore rules.

As to 1., in other posts I already gave some reasons for it but there is even more. Only providing the license text "somewhere" and providing "some link" to the Stockfish sources would just not be enough. GPL requires to show, in an appropriate form, information about the license, the rights derived from it, and also about the original copyright holder, to the receiver of a copy (here: a customer who buys the copy). Showing is more than just silently delivering it. The details are much more complex but this is a "compressed version" of what applies here.

Regarding 2., I fully agree to all Evert wrote above. There has been an interesting case last year about GnuGO which was removed from the AppStore after a complaint by the FSF that Apple would violate the GPL by selling GnuGO in the AppStore. In section 7.3 of the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement (Version of 2010 which seems to be the most recent one), the following is stated:

In the absence of a separate agreement with Apple, You agree not to distribute Your Application to third parties via other distribution methods or to enable or permit others to do so.

This, together with other paragraphs, seems to manifest the incompatibility to the GPL, even though GPL and OpenSource are explicitly mentioned at some places.

It is also clear from these rules, e.g. from section 4.1 saying

You ... warrant that ... none of the Licensed Applications ... violate or infringe any patent or copyright ...

, that once the original copyright holders of Stockfish inform Apple about the facts, these copies would be removed quickly from the AppStore, other actions not being excluded.

Sven

[tiger]

I think there was a GPL violation.

This comes from the FAQ from the free software foundation:

If you commercially distribute binaries not accompanied with source code, the GPL says you must provide a written offer to distribute the source code later. When users non-commercially redistribute the binaries they received from you, they must pass along a copy of this written offer. This means that people who did not get the binaries directly from you can still receive copies of the source code, along with the written offer.

Is there such a written offer that comes with the distribution?

Also, these "for sale" copies fall under GPL and they must be accompanied by a license. So there is a clearly a GPL violation.

I doubt GPL was designed to allow someone to market a free work by misrepresenting it as private without a GPL license.

Is this really all we are complaining about here?

I like your question because I usually try get the heart of the matter myself and determine what it is that we are complaining about.

In this case, at least 2 questions come to mind.

1. What is it that many of us find so offensive about this?

2. What can we do about it if anything?

I cannot speak for everyone else, but it hurts my sense of justice to see someone taking the work of someone else, profiting and taking credit for it. The profit part is not nearly as offensive as the taking credit part - at least for me.

What can we do about it? Probably not much that "we" can do, but there are steps that Tord can take if that is what he decides.

So I guess the answer to your question, "is this really all we are complaining about here?" is a clear and resounding "maybe." I would like to see Tord and the Stockfish team be given full credit and for there to be full disclosure on the packaging about what is really happening.

You mean these guys just have to splash the GPL text somewhere, provide a link to Tord's source code or their own 2 lines changes and we are done?



// Christophe

Actually, yes. I don't know about the Apple issue which is another thing, but the GPL license encourages this. If you licence under GPL you are essentially giving away your rights in matters like this.

I don't think that giving proper credit is what bothers people who are shocked by the practice.

While proper credit should be given, it absolutely does not matter to the customer.

And several people, including Tord, have clearly said that they consider that charging money for Stockfish is "stealing".

It's not about giving credits.

Your question #1 is:
1. What is it that many of us find so offensive about this?

I think the answer is that some people want proper credit to be given and the GPL terms respected (access to the source code), but this is a convenient way to hide the real motive.

The real motive is that some people on this forum, the author of the copied program included, consider that selling a GPL program is stealing.

If you want to go to the heart of the matter, here is an hypothesis:

The GPL and open-source in general has been glorified and sanctified because the few users who have heard about it do not understand it and associate it with "software that I do not have to pay for".

Because users consider it is always a good thing, some programmers get sucked into it without realizing the consequences. They, too, associate GPL with something that people will not have to pay for. What a generous motive! I'm going to create an outstanding piece of software that every human being on this planet will be able to use, even people who can barely feed their family! My creation will be used in the most devastated regions of Africa, Asia, and even in the poorest suburbs of US megatowns!

I can already see the tears in your eyes.

OK now we wake up. Small entities, for example individual developpers, do not have the resources to enforce a fair use of their GPLed work.

And, anyway, the GPL explicitely allows anyone to sell GPLed work. Oops.

As a result, open source software is routinely exploited to make money and create commercial, closed programs.

GnuChess, Fruit, Crafty, Stockfish... and others.

All of these programs have been, are, and will be used to make unmerited money. It has been the case with GnuChess for the last 20 years. It has been the case with Fruit (combined with Crafty apparently) since 2005. It's already the case with Stockfish.

The open-sourcing of strong chess engines leads to the following:
- the perceived value of years of hard work is lowered
- there is less incentive to produce original work and more incentive to reproduce or even copy what is already out there
- people with no real commitment to the field can make easy money from it. As they have done no investment at all, they can sell as low as they want, effectively preventing anybody else to take the risk to further invest in research

I find it ridiculous to publish an open source program and come back later complaining that other people are making money from it.

It was bound to happen.

The heart of the problem is that it is irresponsible to publish a strong open source chess program if you do not have the time, resources and energy available to enforce a fair use of it.

As far as I can tell, only Crafty can be considered to have been relatively well protected from abuse, because of the reputation and social network surrounding its author.



// Christophe

[tiger]

Is it OK or not, in a general context, to charge for a copy of Stockfish (either the engine alone or the engine and some GUI), without your explicit consent, provided that the seller abides by the GPL terms?

My limited understanding is that the GPL is incompatible with the App-store. Therefore, to release something through the App-store, you have to change the licence for the App-store release. If you do not own the copyright to the GPL code, you can't do that. Therefore you cannot take someone else's GPL program and sell it in the App-store.
This is different from taking someone's GPL code and selling it on, which is fine as long as you follow the rules laid out by the GPL.

That's my understanding anyway.

But Tord has published Stockfish on the App Store under the GPL licence.

As you mention that, I am not sure whether it would be better to publish the AppStore version under a different license than the GPL, e.g. BSD license.

We have different issues to be understood here:

1. the fact that these Stockfish copies definitely violate the GPL,
2. the fact that the GPL is incompatible to the AppStore rules.

As to 1., in other posts I already gave some reasons for it but there is even more. Only providing the license text "somewhere" and providing "some link" to the Stockfish sources would just not be enough. GPL requires to show, in an appropriate form, information about the license, the rights derived from it, and also about the original copyright holder, to the receiver of a copy (here: a customer who buys the copy). Showing is more than just silently delivering it. The details are much more complex but this is a "compressed version" of what applies here.

Regarding 2., I fully agree to all Evert wrote above. There has been an interesting case last year about GnuGO which was removed from the AppStore after a complaint by the FSF that Apple would violate the GPL by selling GnuGO in the AppStore. In section 7.3 of the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement (Version of 2010 which seems to be the most recent one), the following is stated:

In the absence of a separate agreement with Apple, You agree not to distribute Your Application to third parties via other distribution methods or to enable or permit others to do so.

This, together with other paragraphs, seems to manifest the incompatibility to the GPL, even though GPL and OpenSource are explicitly mentioned at some places.

It is also clear from these rules, e.g. from section 4.1 saying

You ... warrant that ... none of the Licensed Applications ... violate or infringe any patent or copyright ...

, that once the original copyright holders of Stockfish inform Apple about the facts, these copies would be removed quickly from the AppStore, other actions not being excluded.

Sven

Then Stockfish is in clear violation of the App Store agreement, and if other derived work of Stockfish is removed from the App Store it would be consistent for Apple to also remove Stockfish until Tord releases it under another licence.


// Christophe

[JuLieN]

Then Stockfish is in clear violation of the App Store agreement, and if other derived work of Stockfish is removed from the App Store it would be consistent for Apple to also remove Stockfish until Tord releases it under another licence.


// Christophe

No, you're confused, Christophe. Stockfish is released in the App Store under the App Store's agreement. But it's source code, that can be download on SF's website, is released under GPL agreement.

[tiger]

Then Stockfish is in clear violation of the App Store agreement, and if other derived work of Stockfish is removed from the App Store it would be consistent for Apple to also remove Stockfish until Tord releases it under another licence.


// Christophe

No, you're confused, Christophe. Stockfish is released in the App Store under the App Store's agreement. But it's source code, that can be download on SF's website, is released under GPL agreement.

This is also a violation of the App Store agreement.


// Christophe

[JuLieN]

Then Stockfish is in clear violation of the App Store agreement, and if other derived work of Stockfish is removed from the App Store it would be consistent for Apple to also remove Stockfish until Tord releases it under another licence.


// Christophe

No, you're confused, Christophe. Stockfish is released in the App Store under the App Store's agreement. But it's source code, that can be download on SF's website, is released under GPL agreement.

This is also a violation of the App Store agreement.


// Christophe

Does the App Store's agreement forbid to release the source code of an App under the GPL agreement? I don't remember such a thing.

[Don]

I think there was a GPL violation.

This comes from the FAQ from the free software foundation:

If you commercially distribute binaries not accompanied with source code, the GPL says you must provide a written offer to distribute the source code later. When users non-commercially redistribute the binaries they received from you, they must pass along a copy of this written offer. This means that people who did not get the binaries directly from you can still receive copies of the source code, along with the written offer.

Is there such a written offer that comes with the distribution?

Also, these "for sale" copies fall under GPL and they must be accompanied by a license. So there is a clearly a GPL violation.

I doubt GPL was designed to allow someone to market a free work by misrepresenting it as private without a GPL license.

Is this really all we are complaining about here?

I like your question because I usually try get the heart of the matter myself and determine what it is that we are complaining about.

In this case, at least 2 questions come to mind.

1. What is it that many of us find so offensive about this?

2. What can we do about it if anything?

I cannot speak for everyone else, but it hurts my sense of justice to see someone taking the work of someone else, profiting and taking credit for it. The profit part is not nearly as offensive as the taking credit part - at least for me.

What can we do about it? Probably not much that "we" can do, but there are steps that Tord can take if that is what he decides.

So I guess the answer to your question, "is this really all we are complaining about here?" is a clear and resounding "maybe." I would like to see Tord and the Stockfish team be given full credit and for there to be full disclosure on the packaging about what is really happening.

You mean these guys just have to splash the GPL text somewhere, provide a link to Tord's source code or their own 2 lines changes and we are done?



// Christophe

Actually, yes. I don't know about the Apple issue which is another thing, but the GPL license encourages this. If you licence under GPL you are essentially giving away your rights in matters like this.

I don't think that giving proper credit is what bothers people who are shocked by the practice.

While proper credit should be given, it absolutely does not matter to the customer.

And several people, including Tord, have clearly said that they consider that charging money for Stockfish is "stealing".

Then that is their own fault - they chose the GPL license.

I think you are wrong about giving credit because advertisers love to attach names of real people (or made up people) to products. People DO in fact relate to that. If the inventor or creator is listed on the package people really do take notice and it means more to them that normal product branding. Designer clothes is just one example. Even if the consumer is completely unaware of who the author actually is, it registers - a program by Tord Romstad. And even if it's nonsense and made up people attaching meaning to it.

In the 80's everyone wanted a "Spracklen" chess program. If it had the name "Spraklen" attached you knew it was a good program. (At some point it became a bad thing when their programs fell in stature.)

It's not about giving credits.

Your question #1 is:
1. What is it that many of us find so offensive about this?

I think the answer is that some people want proper credit to be given and the GPL terms respected (access to the source code), but this is a convenient way to hide the real motive.

The real motive is that some people on this forum, the author of the copied program included, consider that selling a GPL program is stealing.

If you want to go to the heart of the matter, here is an hypothesis:

The GPL and open-source in general has been glorified and sanctified because the few users who have heard about it do not understand it and associate it with "software that I do not have to pay for".

What most people don't understand is that GPL is not for the software author, it's for the software user. It is designed to impart certain right to the user of the software and of course most people like that. If there is 1 author and a million users of the software, most people are going to like it. The authors are not going to complain because they chose the license.

I don't want to get too philosophical here, but deep down inside I think the system is totally broken with respect to copyright law and patent law and that includes GPL. To make a long story short, the whole concept of trying to protect an "idea" from someone else is ill-conceived and counterproductive. However, I also believe that you have to honor the system and that you don't break the rules just because you don't like them, but you have to live within them. If each person gets to decide which laws to obey and which they think are silly we would have chaos.

Because users consider it is always a good thing, some programmers get sucked into it without realizing the consequences. They, too, associate GPL with something that people will not have to pay for. What a generous motive! I'm going to create an outstanding piece of software that every human being on this planet will be able to use, even people who can barely feed their family! My creation will be used in the most devastated regions of Africa, Asia, and even in the poorest suburbs of US megatowns!

I can already see the tears in your eyes.

OK now we wake up. Small entities, for example individual developpers, do not have the resources to enforce a fair use of their GPLed work.

And, anyway, the GPL explicitely allows anyone to sell GPLed work. Oops.

As a result, open source software is routinely exploited to make money and create commercial, closed programs.

GnuChess, Fruit, Crafty, Stockfish... and others.

All of these programs have been, are, and will be used to make unmerited money. It has been the case with GnuChess for the last 20 years. It has been the case with Fruit (combined with Crafty apparently) since 2005. It's already the case with Stockfish.

The open-sourcing of strong chess engines leads to the following:
- the perceived value of years of hard work is lowered
- there is less incentive to produce original work and more incentive to reproduce or even copy what is already out there
- people with no real commitment to the field can make easy money from it. As they have done no investment at all, they can sell as low as they want, effectively preventing anybody else to take the risk to further invest in research

I find it ridiculous to publish an open source program and come back later complaining that other people are making money from it.

It was bound to happen.

The heart of the problem is that it is irresponsible to publish a strong open source chess program if you do not have the time, resources and energy available to enforce a fair use of it.

As far as I can tell, only Crafty can be considered to have been relatively well protected from abuse, because of the reputation and social network surrounding its author.

// Christophe

Crafty has been heavily abused over the years. The only thing protecting it now is that it's not that close to the top so nobody cares.

I agree with just about everything you are saying. A lot of people sing the praises of GPL software but only for what is in it for them. They don't always truly respect the intent of it as we can see here.

[tiger]

Then Stockfish is in clear violation of the App Store agreement, and if other derived work of Stockfish is removed from the App Store it would be consistent for Apple to also remove Stockfish until Tord releases it under another licence.


// Christophe

No, you're confused, Christophe. Stockfish is released in the App Store under the App Store's agreement. But it's source code, that can be download on SF's website, is released under GPL agreement.

This is also a violation of the App Store agreement.


// Christophe

Does the App Store's agreement forbid to release the source code of an App under the GPL agreement? I don't remember such a thing.

Sven specifically quoted this part:

In the absence of a separate agreement with Apple, You agree not to distribute Your Application to third parties via other distribution methods or to enable or permit others to do so.

By allowing third parties to download the source code of your application you enable them to distribute your application.

For example I can download the source code of Stockfish, compile it, and distribute it thru the ad hoc or in-house distribution method.

The fact that the source code has been made available has enabled me to do so. This is in violation with Apple's developper agreement.

I think it makes open source incompatible with Apple's iOS developper agreement, unless a special deal is made with Apple.



// Christophe

[Cubeman]

The most straight forward way to dis courage this practice is for Tord or anyone else that is concerned to write small reviews about these apps and mention that it is virtually identical to the free StockFish app.Then these developers will be stuck with no revenue and still have to pay the annual registration fee to Apple.