pidgin has been plaguerised?

[David Woolley]

Carl Bryant wrote:
> Please could someone look into this. (very) similar name, similar 
> concept, just a different platform. seems like different developers 
> though. Please let me know? Thanks.
> 
> http://www.smartphone-freeware.com/download-pigeon.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Smartphonefreeware+%28Smartphone+freeware+downloads%29

http://www.smartphone-freeware.com/download-pigeon.html

Is sufficient and will probably avoid someone being paid for a clickthrough.

http://www.getbest.ru/

Seems to get you closer to the source.

You can't really plagiarise GPLed software (although you can breach the 
licence).  There might be a weak argument under trademark law.  The Free 
Software Foundation, at least, is very much against software patents, 
which is the only basis on which you could make a claim for protection 
of the basic concept.

The concept behind the GPL is to encourage re-use of code, and to 
educate people in techniques by letting them study the code.

However, if they have actually used libpurple source code as more than 
documentation of the protocols and a general guide to tecnhiques, they 
have a licensing problem, as there appears to be no offer of source code.

-- 
David Woolley
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