DVD Jon violates the GPL

[RadicalEd]

strings dump of DVD Jon's new app, DoubleTwist (http://www.doubletwist.com), which contains multiple GPL violations by way of both excluding the license for several things (A52codec, ffmpeg libs with --enable-gpl, and libx264) and linking to GPL things (ffmpeg libs with --enable-gpl and libx264) despite being a proprietary app:

macbook:~ mike$ strings /Volumes/doubleTwist/doubleTwist.app/Contents/Resources/TranscodeTool | grep x264
enables constant quality mode, and selects the quality (x264)
minimum interval between IDR-frames (x264)
x264 - core %d
libx264
libx264 H.264 / AVC / MPEG-4 AVC / MPEG-4 part 10
x264_macroblock_bipred_init
x264_macroblock_cache_load
x264_frame_pop
x264_frame_shift
x264_frame_push_unused
x264_frame_pop_unused
x264_cpu_detect
x264 [warning]: unable to determine cacheline size
x264_2pass.log
x264 [%s]:
x264_slicetype_analyse
unknown SLICE_TYPE unsupported in x264_macroblock_write_cabac
x264_mb_analyse_inter_p16x16
x264_macroblock_analyse
x264_ratecontrol_new
x264_ratecontrol_start
x264 - core %d%s - H.264/MPEG-4 AVC codec - Copyleft 2003-2009 - http://www.videolan.org/x264.html - options: %s
your cpu does not support MMXEXT, but x264 was compiled with asm support
to run x264, recompile without asm support (configure --disable-asm)
x264_reference_build_list
x264_encoder_close
x264_slice_header_write
x264
macbook:~ mike$ strings /Volumes/doubleTwist/doubleTwist.app/Contents/MacOS/doubleTwist | grep x264
libx264

Here is the support request for source code which can be followed publicly online (https://nullentropy.fogbugz.com/default.asp?3281_b5kpfj0f) (please don't try to contact me at that address it is a temp)

From http://www.doubletwist.com/dt/Home/AboutUs.dt:
doubleTwist Corporation was founded in Oslo, Norway by Monique Farantzos and Jon Lech Johansen (aka DVD Jon) and is headquartered in San Francisco. We are backed by several prominent venture capital firms and individual investors.

and from http://forums.doubletwist.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=18:
doubleTwist is free and the core features will always remain free. We will possibly be launching some premium features in the coming months, but our core product will always be free of charge.

So maybe Dark Shikari and Pengvado can score some bank out of this.

Reddit thread (http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/8qdtl/you_know_doubletwist_dvd_jons_new_app_it_violates/) (upvote for maximum damage)

[ChronoCross]

Hilarious however what did you expect from a guy whose for the most part known for breaking DVD's copyright protection.

[RadicalEd]

Hilarious however what did you expect from a guy whose for the most part known for breaking DVD's copyright protection.

I figured he would know better since he is apparently a pretty big advocate of the GPL at least according to some guy on IRC the direct quote from which I cannot find right now

[Guest]

Have you emailed him with your concerns?

[RadicalEd]

Have you emailed him with your concerns?

There is no email contact shown on their site, only a form which goes to the support ticket I posted in the thread starter.

[Guest]

Found this:

karen@doubletwist.com

[RadicalEd]

Found this:

karen@doubletwist.com

Well, ok, but the support ticket is open and public, and Dark Shikari has used the same means to send them a legal notice, so we'll see where that goes.

[RadicalEd]

Other GPL things linked:
xvid
faad2

full strings dump sans garbage: http://command-q.org/misc/strings.txt

[RadicalEd]

For documentation's sake:
I threw them a legal notice through the Contact Us system. Hopefully they respond--if not, they're getting a visit from the SFLC.
"avcodec.dll", which is linked to from DoubleTwist, also contains GPL code in their Windows application.

[RadicalEd]

Update: DS has pointed out that they do, in fact, have a source code page: http://www.doubletwist.com/dt/Home/SourceCode.dt

Until they include the licenses with the binary this is still in violation, but quite a bit better and easier to resolve.
Edit: Perhaps not, the GPL is unclear and gnu.org uses "should" rather than "must" with respect to including the license text. Perhaps this is a non-issue, but at least bringing it up has inspired some action.

Message to Dark from doubleTwist:
Thanks for bringing this to our attention. The acknowledgments document (available from the About box) already includes links to the GPL and LGPL, but we will update the document to also include the full text of the licenses, as well as a link to the Source Code page on our website.

[880]

This is funny because DVD Jon was upset when Rogue Amoeba violated Jon's GPL'd code:
http://nanocr.eu/2008/03/15/rogue-developers/

[Ajax_Undone]

lol Yes! But now that they have taken the proper steps to defuse the situation at hand and have rectified the wrongs committed. I am sure we shall get on with the rest of life with out any further garble.

But great post...

[cwl7454]

So, has anybody downloaded it and used it?

If so, is it worthwhile?