Phil Taylor - MosLock - Deception

[rjk]

It has come to my attention that the majority of the mosLock component sold by Phil Taylor was actually written by someone else. In fact the component contains a copyright notice which specificially contradicts the Commercial Software License provided by Phil Taylor with the component.

The copyright notice from within the script is provided below. Now Phil Taylor has modified this script in order to provide the mosLock functionality however nowhere does he make it clear in his sales material, web site or even in his so called Commercial Software license that mosLock is built on software freely released by another author. The modifications Phil Taylor has made to the Marcus Cicero/EliteWeaver script are minor to say the least.

At the very least Phil Taylor should make it abundantly clear in his documentation, so called commercial software license and pre-sales information that mosLock is based on free software which is copyright by someone else. To not do so is, in my opinion, utterly deceptive.

To add insult to injury, it is my opinion after reading the mosLock code that is a poorly thrown together modification of what is actually a completely a free PayPal IPN script!

As such perhaps we could form a project to clean up this messy combination of free code and messy additions and release a free mambo paypal subscription component for everyone to download. If any one else wants to assist with this project I'll be keen to partner with others to ensure that a decent replacement component is released which FAIRLY attributes the code taken from EliteWeaver. Let's create a GNU Freeware Mambo Subscription component!

I encourage anyone with mosLock to look at the code.

################################################## #######
# Copyright ? EliteWeaver UK All rights reserved. #
################################################## #######
# #
# Program : IPN Development Handler #
# Author : Marcus Cicero #
# File : notify.php #
# Function : Skeleton IPN Handler #
# Version : 2.0 #
# Last Modified : 10/04/2003 #
# Copyright ? : EliteWeaver UK #
# #
################################################## #######
# THIS SCRIPT IS FREEWARE AND IS NOT FOR RE-SALE! #
################################################## #######
# END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT #
# Redistribution and use in source and/or binary forms #
# with or without modification, are permitted provided #
# that the above copyright notice is reproduced in the #
# script, documentation and/or any other materials that #
# may have been provided in the original distribution. #

[Admin]

Well, I think this is a very difficult question to talk about. There are many free scripts and classes available for PHP. Let me take the popular phpMailer class as an example.

While I developed AkoForms, I came to the point where I had to decide how to send out the emails. During the 4.5 days the Mambo mail function was a little bit buggy and their mails very detected as spam by some email programs. So it was very clear to me that I had to use something else. But why should I invent the wheel twice? The phpMailer class was free and powerfull. So I decided to use this class to send out the emails. This turned out to be a good decision as now even Mambo is using this class.

Now you might say "Hey, Arthur, the phpMailer class is free and you are not allowed sell it". And right you are! But if you think about it, AKoForms consists of thousands of lines of code written by me personally. This lines do I sell and not the lines written by someone else.

Of course I easily could remove phpMailer class from my distribution and tell my customers where to download it and how to place it in the directory structure, but this wouldn't be a very good customer service, wouldn't it?

I think this is the same here. Phil wrote a script, which uses a ready to run IPN script for Paypal. This script is what he sells and not the IPN program.

"But Arthur, why didn't he tell us?" A good question. Personally I talked about phpMailer as a feature of AkoForms. I did this because the class is very popular. But why should you talk about it if no one knows this class anyways? If you buy a car, it surely is clear to you that your car was not completely produced by Ford, Volkswagen or Toyota. The windows are done by someone else, the seats are done by someone else, the wheels are done by someone else, ....

So, please, don't start a war now...

[rjk]

I think that using a class as a minor portion of a script is different from substantially using someone else's code and then calling it your own.

And contrary to the Copyright notice of the original IPN script there is no attribution or supply of documentation indicating anything about the IPN script with the mosLock component.

The point here is that mosLock is not using a simple class as part of a major coding effort. mosLock is substantially built around someone elses work and being claimed by Phil to be his own. That is plaguarism at best.

Phil has added little of substance to the original free IPN script he uses which despite being free is copyright and contains conditions including not providing it for resale. The substantive portion of mosLock was not written by Phil Taylor.

This is a simple issue of what is morally if not legally right.

[eyezberg]

Have you possibly emailed Phil about this issue before posting?

[rjk]

You mean email Phil and ask him why more than 80% of a 17k script which he claims to be his own carries someone else's code?

Also, while we are at it, while this snippet of code does not seem to be called, so I really don't know why it's there:

// Send the message
@mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers);
@mail("me@phil-taylor.com", $subject, $message, $headers);

there is no mention that a section of the mosLock code is set up to email Phil Taylor in the documentation. Fortunately the function in which this gem exists does not get called in MosLocked default installation.

If you take away the portion of the actual MosLock script (not including the unmentioned and unused function designed to email Phil) not written by Phil you are left with 3478 bytes out of a 17145 total. In my opinion if you write a script then sell it and about 80% of it is someone elses copyrighted code then you have a responsibility to attribute it.

[danialt]

I think it answers your question:

Redistribution and use in source and/or binary forms #
# with or without modification, are permitted provided #
# that the above copyright notice is reproduced in the #
# script

and the copyright is intact in the source code so you could see it, hence there is no problem there, even if it is 99% used, still he can use it in his code and port it to mambo and charge for the code.

about that function, most probably is for his test purposes and no other means. why does he want to send so many emails to his private email address?

[thethepapapa]

I would agree with Arthur, the fee is not neccessarily for the 'free' script, its for the extra lines of code added to 'extend' or 'make the script more funtional'. Personally, I needed a script that would make selling a product more secure, I didn't have the time to hack a script myself to make it work with Mambo and bought Phil's. Do I mind that its 80 pecent 'freeware' and just slightly added to....no! For ten pounds, it was cheaper to buy than look for the same script myself.

Why is it that in this mambo community you have to be a script artisan and create a complete work of art from scratch every single time? You'd almost think that its against the law to earn some money around here.

[absalom]

The IPN.php script is the main "engine" for managing Paypal transactions, both for Shambo2 and MosLock - both products contain the same Eliteweaver functions. I have independently verified that the ipn code is the same in both products.

That being said, Phil has stated that if I try and redistribute my modified work of Shambo2 (or whatever I decide to christen it once it's finished, based on the development plan I'm working), he will prosecute. This remains somewhat strange.

For, on the one hand, he has readily modified a free, non-commercial only script, and sold it through derivative works. Yet, on the other hand, he seems to have put himself into a position where he will prosecute derivative works of his own products.

[rjk]

Phil Taylor has certainly not substantially changed or added to the, free but copyright, Eliteweaver IPN script enough to successfully pursue people from distributing it.

What most people who have replied to my initial posting do not understand is the concept of an "original work" for the purposes of copyright law in either the UK or Australia.

To take the idea (or in this case code) of someone else and then to slightly modify it, while retaining the entirity of the original idea, function and code, is not enough to create an original work.

For a work to be original it must be substantially your own idea and be substantially your own work. No objective or reasonable person could see mosLock as substantially being the original work of Phil Taylor.

Now for Phil Taylor to make minor changes to, then sell the copyright work of another person without even at the very least mentioning such in his presales information is "misrepresentation". Phill Taylor is passing the mosLock script off as his own work when, for the purposes of the originality required for copyright law, it is not.

I have no problem with people making money from open source code, from creating their own modules, from using free codebases to create original works and then distribute them, provided that proper and honest representations are made and that attribution is given where it should be.

However in the case of mosLock there is no substantial original work on the part of Phil Taylor. He has taken a free script which is the copyright work of someone else, made a few small alterations to make it compatible with Mambo, then released it as a product which anyone looking at his website would be led to believe is his own work.

It would not be hard for Phil Taylor to mention that mosLock is a modified version of Eliteweavers free IPN script which will work with MOS. Then anyone buying it would have no claim of misrepresentation, however he doesn't, there aren't even credits in the mosLock copyright statement or documentation.

As far as further distribution of the Eliteweaver IPN script goes, it is my intention to clean it up and provide the same functionality for MOS as mosLock and add it to the already strong list of free Mambo components. If Phil was serious about his values and integrity he might try to beat me to it.

[gkanks]

Are you saying there is a legal requirement for Phil to post such a statement? This license does not appear to use one of the standard agreements (GPL, Creative Commons, etc) and without seeing the entire agreement it doesn't look like he violated it. So is this just an ethical commentary or has he violated a law?