Pilotlogic and codetyphon in clear violation of copyright law

The past couple of days has been pretty rough. A couple of individuals have been pestering this blog asking for ‘evidence’ regarding my earlier post on GPL violations by PilotLogic. Which is a bit ironic. They have the strength to type hate posts both here and over at the lazarus/freepascal forum, but lack the energy to read earlier posts about infringement of rights. The term trolling comes to mind.

Chain of events

Piracy is piracy

Yesterday a member of the Delphi Developer Group (Facebook) brought forward the evidence I was pointing to all along. I did not want to implicate him or any others by name, but considering the slander, threats and more being posted against me – you leave me little choice in the matter.

Leading up to this was the following chain of events:

So on saturday I visited Pilotlogic’s forum where I found a rather colorful description of myself. I was a liar, a thief and a troll (eh, yeah, because I run around forcing people to read my blog *sigh*).

When I responded to this the Pilotlogic group posted my personal address, phone number and a link to a previous employer. This is just completely unacceptable and utterly out of line. It’s also illegal to do so without consent in Europe and I would guess it’s illegal in the US as well.

When I responded with evidence together with a friend, we were both kicked from the forum and banned. The original thread was likewise deleted.

A third person, an administrator for Delphi Developer visited the forum to ask exactly what was going on with their GPL situation. He received the same treatment.

The debate continued on the freepascal and lazarus forum, where I was once again threatened to be kicked and banned for telling the truth (!). Not only did I write about this breach in order to protect FPC/Lazarus from damages (and also because I find pilotlogic’s behavior rude and unacceptable), but I also did so to give pilotlogic a fair chance to fix the problem. The respond from the community however has been a clear case of killing the messenger.

Firemonkey/VGScene open source?

Firemonkey is based on a commercial product called VGScene (also DXScene) which Embarcadero bought. VGScene has never been an open-source product, yet we find that pilotlogic’s ORCA system is in reality a carbon copy of VGScene. They simply copied the damn thing, re-named the classes and branded it open-source (!) And they are now continuing to bundle this code and giving it away to their customers.

That is piracy, plain and simple.

I am not going to wade though all the code here, those that really want to have a look at this should head over to the freepascal/lazarus thread where you will find all the information. In short: orca and vgscene was put through a normal comparison test and there can be no doubt that ORCA IS VGSCENE. A product now owned by Embarcadero.

I think it speaks for itself

VGScene was never open-source, it is a commercial product all the way. So this is a clear violation of copyright law.

Their response? To kick and ban me and the guy which has written to pilotlogic countless times warning them about this. I mean — how bloody stupid can you get!

GPL violations

A total of 3 GPL violations were brought to light yesterday. The evidence was so clear that the Lazarus and FPC community is issuing a formal wiki-page urging pilotlogic to clean up their mess!

Final words

I would like to say to those that have slandered, thrash talked and outright lied to protect their own sorry asses and implicate me — from the bottom of my heart: go and fuck yourself. And I mean that deeply, and from the depths of my being. Preferably with a broom and some breakfluid.

You wanted evidence? Well I didn’t want to post evidence here since that would sort of make it a dead-end for pilotlogic wouldn’t it? Fucking morons. I posted the article because I wanted pilotlogic to clean up their act. But you guys just had to push it didnt you? But head over to lazarus and read the thread – there should be more than enough to fill your hunger for drama and blame there.

You guys should be ashamed of yourselves. Posting personal contact information about me, my home, where my kids live? Oh I really hope you come up here, I’ll give you beating of your life.

You guys have utterly disgraced yourself. You dont threaten a man by name in public. You should be thankful I dont report this to the police, because we have kept PDF signed snapshots of all the rubbish you have posted.

I take for granted that this is the last I hear of this case.