I have produced some open source software, released under the GPL, and intend to give users the opportunity to send me donations if they wish. It has occurred to me that since the open source license allows anyone to amend the software, someone could change the 'donate here' message displayed by the app to point to their own website/PayPal account and start collecting my donations. Has anyone heard of this happening, and is there anything in the GPL that prohibits it?
+3
A:
No, you can't put anything in the GPL to prohibit what you're describing. People are free to make their distribution request donations for them, but, you then have to ask whether that would net them any money.
Remember that they are not allowed to take out copyright messages that say the software was written by you. So unless their version is significantly enhanced from yours, why would users pay them, and not you?
Chris Jester-Young
2009-11-11 15:22:15
A:
I have never heard of this happening. From what I heard, collected donations are typically quite low (maybe a couple of dollars/euros now and then), probably too low to make this scenario profitable: the would-be parasite would have to download your source code, take the time to understand how/where to modify it and how to build it, which could take several hours depending on the amount of documentation you provide. The pay does not seem worth the effort.
Eric Bréchemier
2009-11-11 15:55:18