Sourceforge is hosting a bogus Tiny Core project.

[vinnie]

I think it is worth mentioning clearly the developer to be in norm

[Frank]

this cut and paste from the overview page.

                     Tiny Core Linux by grimaldo

[EDIT]: In my opinion this is a claim of authorship.

Looking at the page's HTML source, that looks more like automatically generated content (i.e., outside of the guy's control):

Code: [Select]

<section id="project-header">
    <div id="project-title">
        <h2>Tiny Core Linux</h2>
        <p id="maintainers">
        by
        <a href="/users/grimaldo">grimaldo</a>
        </p>
       
    </div>
</section>

In addition, it wants to describe the "maintainer," not the "developer." And for the SourceForge branch / fork / whatever, that person clearly is the maintainer, whether we like it or not.

[bmarkus]

In addition, it wants to describe the "maintainer," not the "developer." And for the SourceForge branch / fork / whatever, that person clearly is the maintainer, whether we like it or not.

Do not think so. Ask a lawyer

[bmarkus]

Hm.... Project Home Page link at SF now points to www.tinycorelinux.com see http://sourceforge.net/projects/tinycorelinux/support

Interesting. Is it possible that this guy simply has no any glue what he is doing?

[tinypoodle]

Equivalent seems to have occured with "his" other projects as well.

[tinypoodle]

Umm, I did not see asking for donations from the first time I checked til now.

http://sourceforge.net/project/project_donations.php?group_id=515564

[roberts]

In my first post in this topic, when I said I contacted Sourceforge this is what I sent:

Re: http://sourceforge.net/projects/tinycorelinux/

It has been brought to my attention that a certain individual by the name of Dave Bukov aka grimaldo has very recently registered the above named project, Tiny Core Linux.

I am the founder and lead developer of Tiny Core Linux, see http://www.tinycorelinux.com (hosted at bluehost.com). My project was first published on Dec 01, 2008. My project is registered at Freshmeat see: http://freshmeat.net/projects/tinycorelinux as well as DistroWatch see: http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=tinycore, and Ibiblio see:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/

From the above you can see that my project is very active and on-going.

By allowing this Dave Bukov, aka grimaldo, to register my project and for you to host it is very inappropriate. By the above you can see that individual has completely copied my content. I don't know this individual and I certainly don't know their motivation. It is therefore incumbent upon you to take down  http://sourceforge.net/projects/tinycorelinux/

Regards,
Robert Shingledecker

When Chris at Sourceforge failed to take any action, I sent the followup:

Chris,

So If I want to host my new project, let me call it Ubuntu, then you are fine with hosting it?  Really?

Your procedure is to accept any project without first verifying that an existing project by that name exists?

This is not copyright material. It is GPL. This individual can certainly fork my project, but it should not be named the same. and Sourcefore should not allow such.

Your procedure for hosting any project without checking that it is an existing project is a huge disservice to the FOSS community.

Regards,
Robert Shingledecker

This is not about distributing binaries and charging for it. I am well aware of the GPL. This is about scamming (fraud) claiming to be the tinycorelinux project and its developer. it is even more apparent when the support link points back to the real (our) project,

With all the links that I provided Sourceforge in my first email, it would have taken 2 minutes to verify our project is the target of a scam.

Sourceforge, shame on you. Shame on you, for having your policy backwards, allowing any FOSS project to be so easily scammed. For placing the burden on the real honest valid project thereby allowing the scam to occur so easily.

[bmarkus]

Sent a short mail to author of RIPLinux, another victim.

[vinnie]

is not the only other victim, but I could not find information about other

http://grimaldo.users.sourceforge.net/ this is all project shared by "Dave Bukove"


Emails are in the respective sites

GRUB Invaders http://www.erikyyy.de/invaders/
RIPLinuX http://www.tux.org/pub/people/kent-robotti/looplinux/rip/
Puppy Studio was created by a l0wt3ch ? is user of puppy forum
Aptosid is by Stefan Lippers-Hollmannn , look for his email on this page finding "gmx" http://manual.aptosid.com/en/cd-dl-burning-en.htm

[Frank]

it should not be named the same. and Sourcefore should not allow such.

If he had chosen a different name to distribute the identical binaries, wouldn't you then be even more annoyed?

[roberts]

Frank, I don't know why you are so defending of this but...

A different name with the same binaries, I would likely not know. It would certainly be embarrassing to claim it is EliteOS and when booted one would see Tiny Core Linux. So likely not the same binaries.
 
Heck, the guy can sell tiny core on ebay,as far as I care. There are many companies that sell FOSS CD distributions on DistroWatch. I do not care. But claiming to be the maintainer/developer and registering my project as his own on a developers site, is quite different.

Obviously you disagree and likely I will not change your mind. Say, Frank why don't you try to register a project called Ubuntu on Sourceforge?

[tinypoodle]

Hmm, perhaps - as sourceforge has not taken action so far upon request of taking that project down - directly requesting ownership of the project with said name to be handed over to the original developers instead of leaving it with the current holder could be a possible approach??

And Frank, just as as a reference example:
http://www.slackware.com/trademark/trademark.php

[Frank]

roberts, I am trying to bring some measure and reason into this thing. We heard large and dramatic allegations in this thread right from the beginning. Just look at the thread's title. In contrast to the huge allegations, there is very, very little actual evidence of a crime. I mentioned early on that I find no link, no page where this grimaldo guy claims to be the author of TinyCore. Until now, such a link was not identified by anyone else, either. His only "crime" so far is that he registered a SF project under an unfortunately chosen name. That is not the same as claiming authorship.

You are an experienced and seasoned developer. Have you ever considered the possibility that your opponent is perhaps just a misinformed, 19-year old college kid? A friendly email might have been enough to bring the guy back on track.

I don't know grimaldo. From what I see he does not appear to be overly bright, prepared, or experienced. It will be easy to get rid of him with a bit of peer pressure. One of the board's users is working on that. It has all the characteristics of a witch-hunt.

[bmarkus]

Well, one interpretation is that a friendly Tiny Core Linux fun is giving a helpful hand making TC binaries available at one of the World's largest site which is the proper place for such projects, guiding vistors to the official WEB site. There are already 79 downloads. Great!

Let's help Microsoft too. Windows Mobile need help due to Android.

Frank, your are optimistic. Do not say it as intentionally to harm and demage TC on to make money. Right. But has no any sense and it has no place at SF or similar sites is true. I beleave.

BTW, anyone ready to register

   tinycorelinux.info
   tinycorelinux.net
   tinycorelinux.biz
   tinycorelinux.ws
   tinycorelinux.us

or

   tinycorelinux.ca

even? These are free.

[Rich]

Quote from: Rich on Today at 02:35:24 AM
this cut and paste from the overview page.

                     Tiny Core Linux by grimaldo

[EDIT]: In my opinion this is a claim of authorship.

Looking at the page's HTML source, that looks more like automatically generated content (i.e., outside of the guy's control):

That may be, now if only he had control over something like a description where he could clarify that,
but I guess that's not possible.

When I checked the SF site about an hour after roberts first post all of "his projects" home links except
for aptosid and riplinux pointed back to SF pages. He was smart enough to get those two right but
not Tinycore? He corrected that "error" 9 or 10 hours ago. I don't know what Meta4 is but googling
grubinvaders, grubtint, and puppystudio found that they where created by other people. I didn't check
the donations links last night but as of today they all say "no donations".

You are an experienced and seasoned developer. Have you ever considered the possibility that your opponent is perhaps just a misinformed, 19-year old college kid? A friendly email might have been enough to bring the guy back on track.

I don't know grimaldo. From what I see he does not appear to be overly bright, prepared, or experienced. It will be easy to get rid of him with a bit of peer pressure. One of the board's users is working on that. It has all the characteristics of a witch-hunt.

Even a 19 year old college kid knows right from wrong, you do not take credit for someone else's work
whether implied or blatantly, they do teach that in college, don't they?

Witch hunt? Personally I think that everyone has shown a lot of self restraint.