vBuzzer, a software to allow mixing of Internet Telephony with Instant Messaging, has been found to be using the source code of Miranda IM in violation of several terms in the GNU General Public License.

These guys are the worst scum of software developers. I mean piracy (using software without paying) is one thing, but stealing free open-source code and passing it of as your own and making money out of it is another.

vbuzzer had an idea - yet they did not want to incur any development costs in their part for the software so they entirely stole and lied about the origins (not very well I might add) of their IM software and legally pretended it was theirs and they had full rights over it.

vbuzzer are in violation of several terms of the GPL and their use of Miranda IM’s source is now voided.

These types of companies are hurting Miranda IM - they want access to the source for free and lock it down but yet give back nothing in terms of support (donation or code) and their ‘code’ changes aren’t vital either because their modifications are geared to meet their end objectives, which are to hide the fact it is Miranda in the first place!

It’s pretty sad and expected, some will say we shouldn’t give the code away and that it’s our fault and we should quit whining about it, however they entirely miss the point of why the source is licensed to allow collaborative development not really external non community based development for some related monetary gain.

This is why you have talented programmers who work for free, but why do you think cyreve really left? why rainwater did? why I pretty much gave up and took my own development semi private?

No one cares.

Scums like them should be crucified. Where are the lawyers when you really need them?

Excrept from the Miranda Developers Journal