From: Brian Adkins <lojicdotcom@...>
Date: 2008-12-01T03:34:43+09:00
Subject: Re: Aaron Bedra@Relevance Inc fraudulently claiming ownership of BSD licensed code -- how to protect?

Rudi Cilibrasi <cilibrar@gmail.com> writes:

> Hi everybody,
>
> I have been programming open source for about fifteen years and have
> many projects, including a small contribution to the Linux kernel and
> Ruby.  I had the singularly unpleasant experience for the first time
> this morning to be notified thru email that somebody has taken one of
> the projects I made about six years ago (MPI-Ruby) and removed my name
> (and COPYRIGHT info) as well as all other contributing authors.
> http://aaronbedra.com/2008/4/18/mpi-ruby-officially-released
>
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/mpiruby          (see, same source
> code on sourceforge -- 2003 -- but with my name and the previous
> author, E. Ong, removed, as well as the University of Chicago, another
> supporter as well as the US Government)
>
> Then he added his own name.  Apparently he is well-known enough to
> speak at Rails Conf.  I notice that his company website, Relevance,
> describe Aaron's abilities thusly:
> ---
>
> http://thinkrelevance.com/about
>
> Aaron Bedra
>
> Programmer
>
> Aaron brings the ability to quickly ninja any application.
> ---
>
> At this point, because Relevance markets their company as "supporting
> open source", I wanted to point out that it seems to me they are
> actually just removing names, copying, and putting their own names on
> other people's work.  This is my experience and it feels like a
> violation of open source principles.
>
> http://thinkrelevance.com/open-source
>
> I was surprised that Aaron never even tried to email me 

From the following page on Aaron's site:
http://aaronbedra.com/2008/2/1/mpi-ruby-now-available-for-ruby-1-8-x

"I tried emailing the people that were in charge of the project
according to the info on the site, but all the emails just bounced
back...If you were part of the original project it would be great to
hear from you. I would love to keep things going and would like to see
what other people are doing with Ruby and MPI."


If someone has in fact removed your copyright notices and name, I can
understand you being very upset; I would feel the same way. However,
may I respecfully suggest you contact Aaron personally (if you haven't
already) rather than continue this in a public forum; you may be able
to resolve things amicably.

It's possible that there was simply an error in judgement rather than
any malicious intent.

> and also
> surprised that he didn't just add his name to the list of noble
> contributors kept in the original source code.  I'd have been fine
> with that.   I hope the Open Source community has a plan for how to
> defend against fraudulent IP claims and would appreciate any advice.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Rudi Cilibrasi
>
> -- 
> Git, Hg (Mercurial), and Subversion (svn) hosting over SSH
> http://sshcontrol.com/
>

-- 
Brian Adkins
http://www.lojic.com/
http://lojic.com/blog/