Topic: seals with clubs desktop client (debian support, software license) (Read 2438 times)

I agree with you completely.  It's sort of a shame when people abuse the GPL---whose protection for community-driven, open-source software has brought us so much.  Presumably, the seals with clubs devs would just plead ignorance, I'm not sure.  We haven't heard any response from them about the copyright violation.

However, on the practical matter of (a) what they're distributing isn't a "binary" so much as python bytecode.  It's pretty easily decompilable with the instructions upthread.  On (b), what distro are you using?  What error did you get?  I'm running it on debian (even though they say it's only ubuntu), I just had to use a particular version of glibc.

I too would like to run the Linux client, but:

a) it's only available in binary format.  I would much rather build it from source myself, so I can see what I'm running

b) it's not available for the version of Linux I'm using

Providing the source code would remove both of the above obstacles for me, as well as being a legal requirement for distributing the binaries they are already distributing.

I also decompiled the python package they're distributing and can confirm cwil's findings about copyleft software (GPL software).   Seals, I love your poker site, but you really ought to comply with the licenses of the software you're including in your distribution.  I saw several GPL style notices in the headers of the decompiled files: "no warranty; free to use and modify; must include a copy of the source and a copy of this license"

Given how easy it is to decompile the "binary" you're distributing, why no just go ahead and meet the obligations of the license?

It uses PyQt4 and various components with MIT and BSD-like licenses.  At the very least, licensing should be included, and source should probably be made available.

Here's a list of licensed software included and the licenses that apply:
https://github.com/simplejson/simplejson (MIT/AFL2.1)
http://zope2.zope.org/ (ZPL)
https://twistedmatrix.com/trac/ (MIT)
http://www.riverbankcomputing.com/software/pyqt/intro (GPL/commercial license available)
http://www.openssl.org/ (OpenSSL/SSLeay) v1.0.0, not vulnerable to heartbleed, for anyone curious, additionally, export restrictions may apply
http://www.zlib.net/ (zlib)

I'd recommend anyone affected by this to first contact SealsWithClubs to inform them of their obligations, and based on how that goes, follow up with the copyright holders.  Additionally, I have decompiled source which I'm happy to provide, but I'll need a day or so to make sure there's nothing in it that'd threaten the integrity of SWC, and I'd like to give them a chance to ask me not to.  That being said, it'd likely take a total of 15 minutes for anyone interested in this topic to figure out how to extract and decompile the python bytecode from a PyInstaller binary.

Ok, so ... maybe offer something more concrete than speculation.  Or, what'd be nice is if the developers would weigh in here.

Speculation killed the cat

Always fun to offer speculation.  Still, there *is* a real question about software license.  If they are using any GPL code then their software is automatically GPL and they have a legal requirement to provide access to a copy of source.  What I downloaded was a python based binary, no source, no license info.  As far as I can tell "probably licensed by themselves" doesn't really mean anything in this context.

Seals with clubs original software doesnt come with a desktop version. This is something that the did by themselves and is probably licensed by themselves

In the end, I ended up finally upgrading debian to jessie.  Note: not just to make seals work, but because I was ready to upgrade.  Now I can run the swc client on my debian box.  For some reason, it crashes if i turn on sound.  But if I mute all sounds, it works just fine.

legit1, were you getting the error about glibc version?

BUMPity BUMP

i could use this debian support too

I'm not sure if this reply was supposed to be helpful, or just sarcastic.

Obviously the point of this thread is that while the developers are targeting Ubuntu (the spyware distro).  Ubuntu is derived from an incredibly similar distro that comes without spyware so the oustanding questions are these:

1) Is there a particular feature of glibc 2.17 that the developers are relying on.  Or is this one of those spurious version check things that has been put in by a compiler that built the software on 2.17 and which could actually be ignored (or removed)?

2) If they are using any GPL code and are distributing the app without offering a copy of GPL and access to the source then they are infringing copyright.

My only real goal in creating the thread was to try to get a meaningful discussion going on these topics.

it only works on ubuntu, support for other linux distributions is not available

Micon, thanks for the reply, it's nice to hear from someone even if you don't have the answer.

To try to clarify: I'm not having a problem with 32 vs 64 bit versions.  For personal reasons, I'm mainly wondering why you guys haven't set this up so that it runs easy on the main distro in the debian family (erm, that is, debian).  Given (a) the issues with spyware on ubuntu and (b) the ease of releasing code that runs on any debian-like distro, I'm just trying to figure out what gives.

The legal issue is also important but I don't actually have any beef with you guys (I love your site), I'm just trying to use the desktop client on my computer.

If there's really a compelling reason to release software that only runs on Ubuntu, it might be kind to advertise it as such.  That is, instead of calling your desktop client "PC/Mac/Linux", you should probably say "PC/Mac/Ubuntu".

Last question then, if you're not the technical guy, who is?  And how can I get a hold of him/her?

While I'm certainly not the tech guy (or the legal guy) I can tell you we released 32 and 64 bit versions, and because it's pre-beta it's more like that's what we got, glglglglgl

Uh, not sure how to rephrase the OP for you.  Can you be just a little more specific about the part you didn't understand?

Seeing as this is quite a public place and seeing how many people use GNU/Linux and might be interested in this topic, I thought it would be helpful to put the concerns out in this forum.  But maybe your right, I suppose e-mail is my only remaining option.

https://sealswithclubs.eu/contact-us/

You're welcome

What is this all about ?

I'm shocked no replies to this thread.  How do I get someone's attention on this?  The chat on seals is just spam and trolls.  There's no irc room for seals, either.

I was excited to see that seals with clubs came out with a GNU/linux version of their desktop client.  However some issues came up immediately and after asking around in the seals chat, on irc and in the swc thread on this forum, i've gotten absolutely 0 replies.  Therefore I begin a new thread hoping to attract attention to these important questions:

1) What is the software license for the client?

  My download had no license info in it.  Therefore I have no idea under what conditions I can use or distribute or modify the software.  If this program uses any GPL code, then not including a copy of GPL (and info about how to obtain the source) is a copyright violation.

2) Why can't I run this on my debian machine?

  Given that the Ubuntu and Debian are nearly identical in many, many respects (Ubuntu is basically a commericalized version of debian, IMHO), I hoped that I could just go ahead and run the desktop client on my debian machine.   On wheezy, I get:


So wheezy doesn't have the same version of glibc as the ubuntu this was compiled on.  An obvious fix would be to grab the source code and rebuild the client but see (1) above ...

So what can I do folks?

Seals staff, I don't know how else to get a hold of you.  I'm looking forward to finding about these important topics.