Before continuing Your accusations, please provide GPL license text that is violated when sending binaries over private channels. You can assume that user is asking and paying developer to make better code for him from open source code. Can You make citation from GPL license that is broken with this?
Oh yeah? He's making better open source code, so he can then open source it? Using a loophole doesn't make it right. You're not supposed to be able to profit off other persons open work without their permission, that's the way it works. Just because you do it in private doesn't mean you aren't violating it. It's like doing something illegal profit still makes it illegal even if you more then likely wont get caught.
Your freewill understanding of GPL license doesn't count at all. If You can not provide citation of GPL license that is broken with before mentioned case than You should stop Your false accusations.
DJM was spouting BS and I followed along with it without reading through the entire license agreement (my bad for believing DJM knew what he was talking about).
Don't project your own behavior on others
Can you tell me how long would stay a fee in an open-source code ? (hence the reason why it needs to be closed source... and most likely crypted... hence might violate licence agreements... I guess I will probably have to explain you this over the next 2 or 3 months...
)
ps: If I spout BS this is as an amateur, you clearly have the world record... (and don't worry, your record is safe, I have no intention to become pro and compete with you... not that there is any chance to beat you...)
edit: the article is interesting though...
How long would it exist? Probably every time it's released on github and reposted on cryptomining blog and people just use it. Most people who mine don't know how to code. Taking a supporting dev fee out of a miner isn't something everyone does either. You assume everyone is and wants to be bad.
Not sure you understand what projecting means.
Yup, actually went and looked it up... You can charge for it, whether it's private or open. So CCminer could easily add a fee to it and it wouldn't violate a GNU license as long as a source is included (which goes for private and public versions, private miners are required to provide source if they're built off of any GNU licensed material). DJM was spouting BS and I followed along with it without reading through the entire license agreement (my bad for believing DJM knew what he was talking about).
So there is no problem with adding a fee to CCminer, it doesn't violate a GNU license. So by all means SP, fee away dude.
Helpful link:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.en.htmlGreat. Going step by step to the point. The point is that GPL license was created by very bright people, clever enough not to prohibit something that can not be enforced: distribution of binaries over private channels without source code. You can assume that I'm asking djm34: "Hay djm, please look at this source code, please compile and make it faster for me, I will pay You 10
BTC. I don't need source code and I will not publish binaries, because I know that I will have to publish source code too, that costs 100
BTC to buy it from You. Thank You." No license break.
That's covered in the article I posted. You're required to give the source in addition to the private version on request.
OK you toy lawyers... I've been in FLOSS dev for over ten years and have plenty of experience with GPL compliance.
1) ccminer is hopelessly non-compliant. The core code is GPLv2. It links to some dependencies which are mostly LGPLv2 system libraries. A few of the algo kernels are licensed MIT, BSD or Apache. So far, so good. Now there are a couple dozen kernels with no stated license whatsoever. The sources being public does NOT make them open. They default copyright to the original author. Using them in any way, without written permission from the original author, leaves you open to legal action. ccminer linking to them breaks GPL-compliance and distributing its binaries is illegal.
2) Just because someone uses GPL'd code in some private project does not give you any legal recourse towards them. You have to legally obtain a binary release first. It is perfectly fine to use GPL code in something you never release to the public. It is perfectly legal to sell a binary release privately, so long as you give the customer some means to obtain the code for that release. The sources need not be posted publicly by the original author. They can be sent to the customer via email, on a USB stick, CD or even printed on 100,000 pages and mailed, etc. Additionally, purchasing a binary only gives your rights the the sources used to build THAT release binary. The author does not have to give you SCM history and you are not entitled to future release sources without legally obtaining said future release in binary form.
3) As a continuation to #2; Anyone who legally obtains the source code to a GPL compliant project has the right to do what they want with it within the GPL licensing framework. This includes modification and redistribution, including to the public.
So as djm34 has been saying, adding a mining fee to ccminer is a lost cause. Even if distributed privately, it only takes one person to exercise their GPL rights to obtain the code. That person doesn't need to even know anything about code to publish it. Next some will remove the mining fee and use it privately. Eventually someone will remove the fee and release fee-less versions of the code.
Taking the opposite side of this argument is untenable. You think people will morally sit back and pay that fee if they don't have to? Bet your ass they won't. I'd be the first one in line to obtain the sources and strip the fee for my own use.
The only solution is a completely new, closed source, fee-based miner with completely new kernels written in isolation from the specs. The resulting binaries would further need to be copy protected to dissuade reverse-engineering and binary patching. How many people do you think would trust that?
The opposite side of the argument is that private miners that are paid are also violating license terms as well.
I assumed that CCminer licensing is a mess, but you have to go along with the flow before someone comes along that has everything already figured out. I'm not a lawyer and I'm not going to pretend to be. But when people bring up legal speak to scare people out of a idea, especially when other people in the area are already violating what they're talking about,it has to be sorted out.
Once again, people are assuming that everyone is evil and no one would donate with a fee. There is nothing wrong with making people jump through a extra hoop to get a free miner, especially with a low fee. You can easily make a argument for developer support and show where the fees are going. Most miners don't even know how to code and just use prebuilt binaries, people are also willing to donate a little bit of hash to a cause. You don't even need to make it closed source, although that would limit the possibilities, it would keep any licensing from being violated. Essentially what we have now, with a fee.
OK you toy lawyers... [...]
How many people do you think would trust that?
@t-nelson: I think you'd find plenty of people willing to trust a completely new, closed source miner, as long as it was published/developed by a trustworthy person. That is the case with Claymore's Cryptonight miners for example.
It so happens that not a single person has shown interest in developing such a miner for the Nvidia crowd.
It is obviously (a lot of) hard work, and not certain to ever be worthwhile for the developer venturing on this. There's also various limitations of technical nature that result from a fee based approach, but not worth getting into that discussion, if we can't even get past the interest stage.
Wolf0 had been doing something of the sort (own miner developed from scratch). Maybe he can share his experience on this, and we'd get the point of view from someone on that side of the fence, someone that actually spent some time on a similar project.
I agree there is plenty of interest and trust, this is why I've brought up the idea of a company a few different times. I don't think it's that far fetched considering the long term outlook of cryptos. GPU mining will exist, in some form, well into the future.
I've been trying to get Claymore into this thread and to get some input from him as he seems to be the only reputable fee based miner in the community with quite a bit of experience, but that hasn't worked out as he seems to be retired/afk/doesn't care. Claymore would be able to offer great input on the topic.
There is another option. Sell the compiled gpu kernals in a binary format:
(Like wolf0's sgminer .bin files)
This will be linux compatible, and the user can use a modified ccminer without gpu-code.
No Licesence issues, if the kernals are written from scratch.. (They should if you want to optimize them)
-- SNIP--
Dynamically loading non-GPL code into GPL code is legal grey area. Not that there's any precedent for any of this stuff.
It also does nothing to address the issue of the fee being removed.
Very interesting...
What if you used the module approach and picked more plugin pieces, not just the kernels. You can wall off the majority of the open source code on one side and then make a blackbox for the 'tasty bits' like the kernels. All you would have to do is write the interface between the two, which wouldn't really matter that much if someone copies. You could do more then the kernels inside the box and add things like a miners fee. You would just have to make a API or a standard interface of some kind between the two.
.How will this project goes? 
