Looks like Lupo, who has taken many PortableApps.com releases and, *ehem*, rebranded them as his own, is at it again. This time, he's taken C.A.F.E. Mod and just changed the name to "Coffee" and made it seem like his own work from its webpage.
http://www.lupopensuite.com/db/coffee.htm
It was on lifehacker today:
http://lifehacker.com/5415266/coffee-temporarily-assigns-primary-seconda...
You'll find no mention of Yann Perrin or Lahire Biette (the original C.A.F.E. developers), or of our own Zachary Hudock and Brian All (the C.A.F.E. Mod developers). The Developer link on that page points to Lupo. And there's no mention of C.A.F.E., C.A.F.E. Mod, eXpresso or anything else on the page. I did a DIFF on the source code of C.A.F.E. Mod and Coffee and the ONLY changes Lupo made were to change the name and add his copyright. That's it.
This isn't the first time Lupo has done this and it certainly won't be the last. He's stripped our name off JkDefrag and other apps. He also "improves" our other apps by stripping off our name and adding the word PLUS to the end of the name, even when trademark agreements don't permit him to.
You can get C.A.F.E here:
http://sites.google.com/site/clefusb/cafe
You can get C.A.F.E. Mod in PortableApps.com Format here:
https://portableapps.com/node/13453
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I saw that when I checked out lifehacker today. I wondered who was going to tell them.
Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
it's C.A.F.E. Mod...you have CAFE Mode a few times. [I fixed them - mod SL] I figured it was a copy of the original french app, or of mine and brian's enhancements...just havent bothered to comment on it yet.
Thanks for checking it all out tho
Even better....if you dig on the Lupo site, he actually lists the original C.A.F.E. app as a download, with credit to the two original developers, his "improved" Coffee, and the Framakey package of the original C.A.F.E.
The developer formerly known as ZGitRDun8705
That's plainly horrible. Wish there could be something done to Lupo. :|
Well, Super T.Haller, you did another great job at spotting and informing people of ripoffs.
I sent an email to Kevin at Lifehacker, the author of that post. Hopefully he can remedy this situation. I would be furious if this happened to one of my apps.
is there any thin we can to to stop him from doing that?
"It's just an online installer. It's not going to mug you.", JTH
"The shell is the key to unlock Linux's greatest advantages."
If this sort of things has happened more than once, we should put a bug in the Lifehacker editor's ear to put Lupo on the "ban list" and maybe they won't feature any apps coming from that website.
There's a saying I use at work: "Once is an accident. Twice is a trend. Three times is a problem.
Cancer Survivors -- Remember the fight, celebrate the victory!
Help control the rugrat population -- have yourself spayed or neutered!
Kevin responded to my email, and posted an update to his post. It's not exactly what I had hoped for, but it's something.
I actually a little aware of this... :/
Had no idea he was going to take all the credit.
http://lupo.forumactif.net/portable-software-f10/coffee-t78.htm
Um.. he thinks eXpresso development has stopped, I think that's why he took it over. And um... he did make some bug fixes. Don't know for sure, but he said he did
If john did a diff of all the source and saw no changes, then I don't think he changed it
I think eXpresso development has stopped myself. Brian hasn't been around for awhile.
Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
:/
You always comment my stuff so early?
LOL!
I had some grammar mistakes in that message and now I can't fix it *pouts*
Only if I catch it early.
Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
Lupo has made a habit of doing this. Check out JkDefrag PLUS on his site. You'd never know that he took Travis's JkDefrag Portable launcher from PortableApps.com and changed the name of it to his "JkDefrag PLUS". Nowhere on his page does he mention that. It just looks like his own app.
http://www.lupopensuite.com/db/jkdefragplus.htm
The developer link links to the original JkDefrag page. The launcher links to him. No mention of Travis or PortableApps.com. Oh, he does link to the JkDefrag source code hosted on our SourceForge page rather than hosting it himself as he's supposed to, though.
You'll notice this with several of his "PLUS" apps. They're just taken from here or WinPenPack or Framakey and have their/our splash hidden and no mention of us on his site. Some of them do link to us with a "Launcher" link, but there's no actual mention of us or anywhere else he takes the work from on the app's page. And he's doing Firefox, Thunderbird and others in violation of the trademark license.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
I took a look at his copy of CamStudio and he's got Geoff's, but the source has been removed. He didn't even bother to recompile it.
Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
Well, I fell for Lupo's stunt - I've been using Coffee for quite some time now, and have to admit I really like it.
I'm more than a little confused by the products now - I've heard about 3: Cafe, Cafe MOD, and Coffee. Can anybody please explain which are legal and, of the legal apps, which is the best?
Thanks, and thanks to John for spotting the rip-off!
(Plus a big apology for D/L'ing Coffee...)
"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."
CAFE was the original app. I modified it, fixed some bugs and added some features, called it CAFE Mod. Brian All, another developer here, took over CAFE Mod and changed the name to eXpresso, not much else changed. Lupo stole eXpresso and renamed it Coffee and removed credit to the 2 original developers, me and brian as well.
CAFE Mod beta 5 or eXpresso would be your best bet i think.
The developer formerly known as ZGitRDun8705
This post
https://portableapps.com/node/13453
was over a year and a half ago. BrianAll may or may not still be a part of this community, and nothing has happened on this project.
I agree that Lupo should have credited the original developers, and he (she?) is a snake, but where are OUR guys?
If it is such a valuable tool, and we are so protective of it, why has it languished in soon-to-be-renamed, beta-5b-development limbo for 19 months?
Just sayin'.
I made this half-pony, half-monkey monster to please you.
Thanks, I'll check out CAFE Mod b5... maybe it's not as nice as Coffee (idk yet), but at least it's legal. That, IMHO, more than makes up for any other shortcomings it might have.
"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."
therfore there is no need to go there, better sites elsewhere anyway, the forum is so poorly organized it's hard to see how it even warrants a mention let alone attracting people.
Looking at the program list you'll see it's not only out of date but most if not all the applications are tired, old and virtually useless.
This place is so much better organized, makes me think this LUPO dude only wants a few google points, so the less we talk about it the better.
All the links on the forums are automatically nofollowed, which tells the spider NOT to follow that link. So it doesn't matter whether or not we talk about him in terms of pagerankings.
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I think this guy personally just wants to mainly link to other peoples work but is a bit on the ego side when it comes to certain products, ie "best of the web"
He doesn't credit the original developers
Actually, he sort of does. The link that reads Original Code links to the C.A.F.E. Mod page here on PortableApps.com.
Stolen work
C.A.F.E. Mod hasn't been worked on in over 18 months. While I don't endorse what he did, he took an abandoned project, slapped a new name and logo on it, and made it look fresh. I don't agree with it, either, but rather than say "here's this 18-month-old app" he did what he did and I can see why it made sense to do (while disregarding copyright law, as he does).
PLUS apps
PLUS apps scare me. Literally. Set off all kinds of red flags. He's not including themes and/or extensions, he's not doing anything with the code, he's just ripping off Portable Firefox. I don't want a PLUS portable app, I want a MINUS portable app. MINUS registry dependency. MINUS machine tie-downs. MINUS any involvement with the Windows registry.
That all said, why isn't this part of the official platform, if only as an option (see also, personal picture and wallpaper swap)? Seems like a good value.
Lupo only added that "Original Code" link today after he was caught and publicly called out on trying to pass the work off as his own on his website. Here's what it looked like earlier today. Note the absence of any original code link. And note that it still lacks any real acknowledgment of the original developers.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Oh, my bad then. The way it looks now looks fine from where I sit, but that's not the point of view of the letter of the law when it comes to the licensing.
And I do fully understand that Lupo has in the past and continues to pass others' work off as his own. It's pretty low. I appreciate the base idea of what he's trying to do, but he's going about it wrong. That's why I just stick with portableapps.com apps whenever possible, albeit with a couple that "just work" from the sites that make them to start with. That way I run a clean operation and can justify, should I ever need to (e.g. to IT) that all this (my flash drive) is on the up and up.
I should also note, in regards to my comment about eXpresso/C.A.F.E. Mod being in development limbo, that that doesn't mean it should be swiped and passed off as somebody else's (and as a new thing). Still, I would like to see a 1.0 base release of this, and I'd like to see it worked into the Platform in some way.
Seems like you should gut the code to this and make a Portable Desktop suite which is based around the menu that has portable fonts, portable file associations, and its own wallpaper (the already-included wallpaper swap, but give it a basic GUI). Maybe the portable desktop can even have portable icons that can add to the icons already on the desktop, or replace them while the Platform is running. Just ideas, I know you got a lot on your plate already, but something like that's where I see a portable USB-loaded platform in 5 years.
Exactly what part of ITALIAN copyright-law is he violating ?
(Since this is GPL'ed software, isn't the right term COPYLEFT ?
And isn't "Copyleft" large part of the philosophy behind the GPL ??)
Y'all sound like lawyers to me ..
I'm pretty sure that the GPL is unported, meaning that the rules don't follow one direct jurisdiction. Open-source folks usually like to have a big ego (it helps, because after all, they're doing it for free), so they expect some credit.
Sounding like a lawyer is fun :P...
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Preview & Download
Life is crunchy, anywhere
I like it very much
Any chance of an apostrophe before the s?
I am a Christian and a developer and moderator here.
“A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” – Proverbs 15:1
LOL awesome.
I dunno if it was intentional or not, but without the apostrophe, it looks like a play on the phrase of House saying "It's not Lupus"
The developer formerly known as ZGitRDun8705
Never heard of it myself, but the Google image results would seem to confirm that it was intentional.
It should still have an apostrophe
I am a Christian and a developer and moderator here.
“A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” – Proverbs 15:1
Hmm maybe the sound sample of that would be cool too
I like it!
Probably should have the apostrophe though.
Watch Lupo jack this and call it their own.
If you ever want to make a regular House, MD theme I'd happily use it. Currently using a Spiderman theme from that site for my R34 installation here at home and the Rock Band theme for 2.0 beta 3, but the latter is getting old.
Apostrophe fixed.
------------
(there's already a House.MD theme called Doctor Doctor for R34)
Life is crunchy, anywhere
For anyone following, he keeps trying to backpedal and say he didn't mean to take credit. Most recently, he just lied and said he'd always credited Travis for JkDefrag Portable (which I produced the screengrab from earlier this morning to prove he didn't). I doubt we'll ever get Lupo to properly credit other people for the work he's trying to pass off as his own or to follow the GPL. Anyone have thoughts on whether we should bother, ignore him, or what?
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
yeah it sux, but as far as im concerned, it's not that big of a deal. i havent touched CAFE in quite a long time anyway.
The developer formerly known as ZGitRDun8705
I'd prefer you focus development on PA.c. Until he becomes a threat (which I don't see happening) he'll remain irrelevant.
I think to ignore it for the most part and just keep a blog or, page or thread of all the rip offs. Similar to the Press Page but just on the imitators?
PortableApps.com Advocate
John, it might be time to re-evaluate - I've used Coffee for a few months and switched to CAFE MOD b5 yesterday after this story broke. I don't want to seem like I'm siding with Lupo on this, but Coffee is better than CAFE MOD... CAFE incorrectly treated double-clicks in my programming IDE's text-entry fields as file clicks. Coffee had no such problems... are you sure the apps are really identical?
(Side note, where's the eXpresso link? Can't find it anywhere, and maybe it's better than CAFE...)
"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."
there is no eXpresso link. a build was never published under that name as far as i know.
The developer formerly known as ZGitRDun8705
OK, thanks...
"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."
I DIFFed the sources. You can do the same in WinMerge easily. All the line differences were for lines where CAFE was search and replaced to Coffee.
It's most likely due to it being compiled with a newer version of AutoHotKey, which has advanced in the last year and a half.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
would anybody care if i posted a updated build, the only update being compiled with a new version AHK? I can go through and try to rename all the cafe mod references.
Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
Sounds great! You have my vote!
I made this half-pony, half-monkey monster to please you.
After your branding changes, if you're still having some problems with double clicks, I can *try* to take a look at the source. I'm fairly certain after looking through some AHK docs that I can manually implement the low level mouse hook for catching clicks, which may work better than the hotkey method in use currently. I've done this in AutoIt, so I think it's pretty similar (AHK syntax makes my brain hurt, it is utterly un-intuitive when compared to any other scripting language).
I can also scan through the rest of the meat of it to see if there are any other optimizations around the copy / paste parts too. I'm not promising anything, but I can give it a shot.
Except NSIS and its spaghetti code nurturing and strange ternary-like operators (unless if LogicLib is involved).
Insert original signature here with Greasemonkey Script.
Sure
Thanks for the support.
Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
FYI I've got a nice mouse hook written to reliably catch and handle double clicks. Integrating it into eXpresso shouldn't be hard.
Great!
OliverK, how's the upgrade coming? (If anybody tells me how to do it, I'll be happy to do it myself... my own upgrade attempt failed, though, as I couldn't get the custom "Paused script" icon to work and Resource Hacker just corrupted the EXE...)
"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."
i got it to compile no problem, even after I went through and changed all the CAFE references. I'm working on getting icons going. It's pretty much finals week at college right now, so I might be a little laggy.
Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
wraithdu, i'd be interested in seeing that code as well. I like to code in AHK and I am interested to see how you've accomplished this.
"If knowledge can create problems, is it not through ignorance that we can solve them." -Isaac Asimov
Sure, I'll start a new thread to post the example in the development section. I've got one more thing I wanna toss in, so keep your eyes open.
I'm still getting some of the AHK syntax down...I kinda hate it. The dev should stop trying to cram so much functionality into one function (different options, weird variable prefixes [why the hell make vSomeVar gSomeVar mean something special in a Gui function?]), and create separate functions that are more user friendly, human readable, and narrower in scope. Plus all the different 'modes' of things is crazy. There's no reason for traditional and expression modes and different ways to access variables. Just make a design decision and go with it. There are so many exceptions to the rules, that there are practically no rules at all.
Like perl?
Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
That would really be great, wraithdu - TIA!
"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."
You get my vote on this... it would be really useful!
"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."
That's strange, I tried to recompile CAFE MOD b5 with a more recent version of AHK but I'm still having trouble. Well, hopefully OliverK's version will take care of that...
"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."
except when it isn't sincere. Like in this case. Since you asked for thoughts, here's mine:
- He hasn't "hurt" the reputation or image of PA.com, yet.
- He has a history of copying and trying to take credit, so I doubt that he is suddenly going to gain a conscience and change.
- You have enough other things going on at the moment.
Some people just thrive on conflict, you might just be feeding his ego. I think the warning of "hey we caught you, you're a loser" is probably the best thing. If you waste too much time trying correct him, you'll just end up getting even more frustrated than you already are.
Just my 5 cents worth.
I used to sign here, but the ink keeps smudging on my screen.
Ignore ignorance.
We need a Hall of Shame!
I am a Christian and a developer and moderator here.
“A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” – Proverbs 15:1
I second this... we'd need a whole new webserver just for the HoS though, it would be absolutely huge.
"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."
Not really, it'd just be one page with a score or so sites (and then a page for each of those with details) if we included otherwise illegal portable sites as well as ones that cheated with us (only doing ones that directly stole from us would trim it down to half a dozen or so I reckon). The problem is it would also give them publicity, they have illegally modified applications which people want... which is why I don't think we're going to do it on most of them.
I am a Christian and a developer and moderator here.
“A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” – Proverbs 15:1
Classic!
It's sad to see people taking some GPL licensed Open Source application, removing the branding and giving it a slightly different name and release it in a way that suggests they wrote it themselves.
On one hand they have to remove the portable apps branding due to trademark issues but on the other hand it would be nice if they fully supported PortableApps.com.
That Lifehacker picks C.A.F.A.Mod up is sad but a bit understandable is Lupo has 'officially' released the application while PortableApps.com has not. It's a neat tool that's 'hidden' here in the beta forum somewhere.
I almost get the feeling the menu and launcher/installer should be more integrated, like a shortcut with a parameter calling the menu to have the menu act as launcher. This would make an PA.c application linked tighter to the PortableApps menu.
So instead of a launcher for each app the menu could act as launcher it has some ini file with parameters used for updating and launch parameters. The downside would be that apps would depend on the menu to launch but maybe the apps won't get stolen that easily.
Anyway the best thing is to handle these things for a very short time and concentrate on providing a better product for the masses. Then offer these to several review-sites to write about. My guess is that lupo's site has some popularity for the larger numbers of apps. Regardless if they are legal or not, users sometimes make choices based on quantity as well as quality. Sad but true.
Best thing is to move PortableApps forward by releasing some major apps (Inkscape anyone?), making cool apps available officially (like C.A.F.E.Mod) and have the next menu (beta) released with the updater and the categories. Oh yeah have the source into SNV or similar and get those old menu mod developers going (if they are still around) so PortableApps, the best system around, will be even better.
I hope its still "It's done when it's done" and not "It's done when it's gone"
My hope is at least beta 4 before or around Christmas, but I'm afraid Blender 2.6 could be out before PortableApps 2.0. Unfair comparison, I know, as Blender has much more developers working on the main application. But I'm not holding my breath.
Lupo will continue anyway as there doesn't seem to be a way he can be convinced he's messing with things. Almost looks like he's just a kid.
The PortableApps.com Launcher is coming, moving to INI-configured launchers. However, we're still keeping the main executable, and at the start we'll be compiling the application details into them as well, rather than just in appinfo.ini (older versions of the Platform get the details from the executable, we'd get lots of people complaining if they see "PortableApps.com Launcher" on every new application, I suggested "Please upgrade your Platform" but I don't think that would be a very professional way of doing it :P). The thing is, we have lots of people who use the Platform, but also lots of people who don't use the Platform and just launch the executables directly, or via PStart, or whatever. We'd lose quite a bit of our market if we made it so that you had to use the Platform to launch the applications.
Inkscape is, as you say, coming... I'm still waiting for John to release Inkscape Portable (you can download the final build if you like, that's exactly what's being released).
The source for the Platform, Installer, Launcher, AppCompactor and anything else we think of is being moved into Mercurial version control soon. I hope that that will help things.
I am a Christian and a developer and moderator here.
“A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” – Proverbs 15:1
Thanks for the heads up Chris. I meant a portable app needs the menu present (not running) but ok it was just a wild thought to handle pirates
Mercurial? never heard of it, but sounds interesting/ Where are the days that all version control was standard CVS. The big split came when many projects went to SVN. And now I see some using GIT. And Mercurial is not client/server but distributed. Hmm I wonder what exactly that would mean.
I might look at using something myself for projects, hope they will have a Tortoise like GUI for noobs like me to concentrate on the project instead of the version control GUI
need TortoiseHG
What attention should PA.c give to Lupo?
Embarrassing him on Lifehacker was sufficient, I think. But I think Lifehacker needs to check its sources better, but I guess that's on them, not y'all.
Something tells me with a name that includes "hacker", Lifehacker isn't all that concerned about the fact that PortableApps.com goes by the book and everyone else seems to take shortcuts. Some people just want their portable and don't care if it's legal or not.
Should we have a Hall of Shame?
Bad news travels faster than good news. Bills arrive in the mail (in the post, if you're British) faster than checks (cheques, UK). Having a Hall of Shame tells people "this is the best we are" because that's the first place new visitors will look. I know that doesn't make sense, I made this point better on another board in another context. People on MySpace who make those bulletins saying "I need to separate my real friends from my fake friends, comment or reply or I'll unfriend you on MySpace." What those bulletins tell people like me is, "I'm a loser and I'm desperate for attention, if you don't feed my need I'll take my ball and go play by myself." A software page doing a Hall of Shame is about the same thing. It is pathetic. I'll explain:
ffmpeg's Hall of Shame is a great place to find media players that work great because their authors weren't afraid to break rules. Rules and laws are what make media players weak. Rules and laws kept DVD playback away from Linux users for so long, same with Mp3 playback. If your media player can play anything you throw at it, you're in violation of copyright law at some point. Unless you're using VLC, and some people say that can't play everything... just everything you're likely to come across. Plays everything I have at least. Oh, but in the days before VLC was a viable player... yeah.
So no, we shouldn't have a Hall of Shame. Because PortableApps.com is committed to doing things the right way. If you point to the rule breakers, people will come here for their Firefox and Pidgin and OpenOffice, then they'll hit up your Hall of Shame, replace OpenOffice with MS Office 2007 and pick up Photoshop. I personally don't see a problem (that's their business, not mine) but if this site wants to take the high road and be 100% legit, we can't be publishing a list of the people who don't, just for the sake of pointing them out. We might as well give up the upper hand.
And yet I still disagree with the folks who say we should never mention them in conversation. We don't fear them (do we?) -- but we don't love them nearly so much as to devote a tongue-in-cheek page to them either.
Just my 2¢...
While I can understand the sentiment, but I rather see energy wasted toward the platform instead against others who take (dis)advantage of Open Source. Complete ignore it is uhm, like the other extreme but I rather see PortableApps platform 2 than flamewar X.
I just saw it here ( http://www.freedownloadaday.com/2009/12/09/portable-apps-run-better-with... ) and thought you should know.
I have written in the site's comment section about the situation and I hope it will go through moderation.
It saddens me
when a rip-off artist gets web space instead of the original creators.
Addendum (16:45 Mirabel, QC time): My comment went through!
From the folds !
Zach added a comment and mine was not-so-nice.
Cancer Survivors -- Remember the fight, celebrate the victory!
Help control the rugrat population -- have yourself spayed or neutered!
The real problem is that Lupo (re)released an open source (Beta) application that is useful to many people. If PortableApps.com had released it as an official application I think PA.c's would be on those sites.
I always found C.A.F.E Mod very useful, but my problem was there was no official release (and thus no official support). If some other site 'released' it it's no wonder that that one is being picked up.
If he had repackaged it and called it Coffee and on the page posted that it was based on C.A.F.E. and C.A.F.E. Mod and linked to them as the original developers, we'd have absolutely no problem with it. The real problem is that Lupo pulled a Lupo. He knew full well he was taking someone else's work. He discussed it on PortableFreeware.com when he started work on it and stated outright that it was just C.A.F.E. and C.A.F.E. Mod with a new name and one additional translation, because he knew the PortableFreeware folks are familiar with both of those apps. But then he turned around on his own site and, to the public, tried to pass it off as his own work, because he thought he could get away with it.
It's not about the publicity. It's about him taking other people's work (including two PortableApps.com developers) and passing it off as his own. Again. As he did with Travis' JkDefrag Portable in JkDefrag "PLUS" until I called him out on it twice on lifehacker. As he's doing with several other apps. As he'll continue to do.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Does he accept donations?
If you are going to say that, you might as well leave this website. Donating to them? Are you serious? Lupo is WRONG.
Na na na, come on!
Yes
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Wait, just wondering. How come this is SUCH a big deal when nobody is tackling google for stealing Chromium source?
Not that I'm siding with Lupo, just pointing something out.
Google isn't stealing anything.
Educate yourself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium_%28web_browser%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Chrome
In September 2008, Google released the entire source code of Chrome, including its V8 JavaScript engine, as an open source project entitled Chromium.
Cancer Survivors -- Remember the fight, celebrate the victory!
Help control the rugrat population -- have yourself spayed or neutered!
why post links, isn't that against PA policy?
only links to illegal sites/apps/stuff are against policy.
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
Lupo is "illegal" so why were links given?
John is virtually the GOD here (after all, he made the site) :P.
No I'm kidding. He did that to show a point (and that he's paying for the site).
I just realized all the links here have nofollows.
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But why send people to that place?
The discussion has been had before, or doesn't drupal let you make no follow links.
Maybe he made an exception to make a point.
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
In case of somebody points out that "Wikipedia is bad" (it's not), here's an article:
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2008/09/google-unveils-chrome-so...
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If anyone is interested, this came up in my feeds today: http://tinyhacker.com/hacks/add-hundreds-of-programs-to-your-usb-stick-w...
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A site with "hacker" in the domain recommends illegal software over legal software? Who'd have guessed?
That's the thing about Lifehacker. It seems a reputable enough site from the first time they made the mistake, but then when it happened again, I realized the site wasn't exactly legit. They may not be belting out torrents to Windows 7 or Hollywood films months before they're available on DVD and Blu-ray, but they don't seem to care much about licenses and copyrights just the same.
I was curious once and searched "portable" on a certain torrent indexing site and was almost surprised to find a 1.5GB torrent with tons of portable apps. Most everything from here, although nothing current, plus the usual warez picks like Office and Photoshop. It's a torrent site (or rather one that indexes them), so should we be surprised? Make a post about it? Write them an email and tell them it's wrong? We could, and they might even take it down, but do we have any right to be surprised the next time it happens?
Hacker does NOT mean anything negative at all, can we please get over the negative connotation the term has picked up.
Essentially a hacker is a programmer that likes to explore the inner workings of a computer system through often unconventional means. While this may lead to the hacker gaining access to some secured system or something else, there is no malicious intent. The only goal is to learn how stuff works.
The current use of "hacker" actually refers to a "cracker", which, while very similar, acts with malicious intent, to seek profit or gain access to privileged data.
See here
The developer formerly known as ZGitRDun8705
I may be splitting hairs here, but neither does lawyer. I can show you a lawyer whose career is based around defending murderers. Well, no I can't, but the mob has lawyers for hire, big corporations and insurance companies have them, there are a lot of scum lawyers out there. But there are also lawyers who believe in the nobler aspects of the law and these are good people. Like hackers, lawyers can be good and bad.
What I meant was -- and I admit it may have been a little crass -- is that, despite the fact that hacker is not a bad thing, per se, they're not doing it any favors by posting a guide that promotes software with license violations. Sure you can be a hacker and stay on the good side of the law, but that clearly isn't their goal.
Also I have nothing against Lifehacker, per se, it's a good site, but you have to realize what it is. It's like a guide to building computers on The Pirate Bay. The guide can be good, but you gotta make your own call if it says, say, "insert your pirated Windows DVD now". You can swap it out with your legally purchased Windows DVD and the rest is probably fine.
I completely agree with everything you said.
Lifehacker, btw, is famous/notorious for their "Building a Hackintosh" posts - although they disclaim all responsibility for any legal anything that may happen as a result of building a Hackintosh, they clearly are in a shady section there. I can't put it any better than you did:
"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."
I'll be danged, the Lupo guy even stole my comment! >:(
Check out the FreeDownloadADay page and you'll see... he posted my earlier comment about "maybe time to re-evaluate" under the handle "PortableLvr".
Once a thief, always a thief...
"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."
It's getting to the point where PortableApps.com (John's name was never mentioned in these comments) is getting patronized for going after him so badly. Sadly enough... those guys are right.
On the other hand, some of the comments are so unjust that when you actually understand the method behind the madness the criticism of it...I'm out of words...
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Yeah... but how do we know that's Lupo?
It's also interesting that he removed the thing about eXpresso
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