Mod protecting a license violation?

[efudd]

...

Sigh.
Where's the source code for the cgminer you distribute? ... ...
Which is what I asked at the very start of this and yet you keep pretending you can avoid it ...

What users have received from bitmain does not have any license or source associated with it.
Given your concern, I have raised the issue with Bitmain via a trouble ticket to request information on the license and source. I will share the answer provided.

-j

[offordscott]

Calling all CGminer contributors.

Contact @offordscott in Telegram to express your interest in suing CGminer GPLv3 copyright violators in order to set a precedence in USA.

[kano]

Speak to the main cgminer dev ck - he's the one with tens of millions of dollars in BTC, made mostly from cgminer, that can afford to do this sorta stuff.

[offordscott]

From what I understand, CK doesn’t want to make the time for this type of stuff.

For some back story: https://web.archive.org/save/https://asicseer.com/page/offord-cease-and-desist

And: t.me/firmwars

UPDATE April 20, 2020:

The original Telegram group has been purchased by Alex Levin for $1000 from the original owner. I was only an "admin" in the group, thus lost control when Levin was made the new owner. Levin banned me from the group so, I've started a new group:

https://t.me/firmwarz

[kano]

From what I understand, CK doesn’t want to make the time for this type of stuff.

For some back story: https://web.archive.org/save/https://asicseer.com/page/offord-cease-and-desist

And: https://t.me/firmwars

I've made hardly any money out of cgminer development (though I am the 2nd most prolific developer of the cgminer code)
That's not a complaint, it's just a fact. It's also opensource software, so it's not really unexpected either.
So I'm certainly not spending any money on dealing with the license which will give me no return at all, just a loss.

I post in the Bitcoin part of the forum on occastion if I see a violation of the cgminer license.
Even one of the mods here - frodocooper - seems to get pissed off about me justifiably requesting the simplest requirement of the license, the source code from anyone who distributes cgminer.
Oh well, he is what he is ... ...

Anyway, this forum, and bitcoin in general, is full of people who think they are lawyers yet do not know the law, as well as people who think they are coders, but really have no idea how to do that properly either.
Even ck himself falls into that second category

But anyway, the firmware distributions on this forum are ripe with people who are both of the above and also violating the cgminer license.
My action is to, as I've said, point them out on occasion if I happen to see them.

As far as I understand, the altcoin section of this forum is rampant with this, but since I'm not interest in being involved in any altcoins, since they all at least start as scams, I'm certainly not gonna get involved in that either.
The one time recently where I did post in the altcoin rotten hole of thievery, my post was deleted, which is what this thread was about ...

Oh also, there's the 3rd most prolific cgminer development guy who has hundreds of millions of dollars in BTC - go ask him then
"Luke"

[taserz]

...

Sigh.
Where's the source code for the cgminer you distribute? ... ...
Which is what I asked at the very start of this and yet you keep pretending you can avoid it ...

What users have received from bitmain does not have any license or source associated with it.
Given your concern, I have raised the issue with Bitmain via a trouble ticket to request information on the license and source. I will share the answer provided.

-j

Bitmain doesn't care they will say no it's not and close ticket... Been down that road

[offordscott]

Alex Levin, of ASICseer, got upset when I said the following in a public Telegram chat:

James Hilliard, an author of the CGminer firmware is claiming that CGminer is currently being used in an illicit manner as a part of the ASICseer firmware that is installed on the controller of the Bitmain Antminer S9 cryptocurrency miner.

ASICseer has refused to comply with the GPLv3 open source software license because they have refused to provide the complete software source code for the firmware that is installed on the controller when it was requested of them.

As one of the contributors to CGminer, James Hilliard demands that users of the ASICseer firmware cease using the infringing software until ASICseer complies with the GPLv3 license. Anyone who possesses a copy of the CGminer binary is in violation of the GPLv3 license. James Hilliard reserves the right to take legal action in order to prevent further copyright infringement.

James is requesting that users immediately cease making any payments or providing any hashpower to ASICseer. As a part of an investigation initiated by James Hilliard, he requests that details be provide regarding the amount of funds that that have sent to ASICseer by its users.

As most users are likely unaware that the ASICseer software is not compliant with the GPLv3 license, It sounds like James will not hold users liable who cease utilizing the infringing software within a certain period of time (maybe 30 days?) of becoming aware of the copyright violation.

James showed the group the following:

Code:

$ strings opt/asicseer/bmminer | grep cgminer
cgminer_path
cgminer.c
cgminer time error total_secs = %d last_total_secs = %d
Start cgminer with -T to see what failed to load.
Press any key to exit, or cgminer will wait indefinitely for an alive pool.
Description placed in the API status header, default: cgminer version
Run cgminer in benchmark mode using a work file - produces no shares
Run cgminer in benchmark mode - produces no shares

Then Alex said:

do you think that after 6 years of developing mining software i might know a thing or two about how to not be in violation of GPL?

Then, I saw this the next day:

https://asicseer.com/page/offord-cease-and-desist

Code:

CEASE AND DESIST

April 17th 2020

You are hereby notified to cease and desist any and all further unlawful defamation, 
slander and/or libel with regards to your actions and/or statements related to the 
incident which occured on April 16th, 2020 in which the following libel occurred:

ALLEGATIONS REGARDING  "VIOLATIONS OF GPL BY ASICSHACK LLC".

THEREFORE, you are hereby requested to immediately CEASE and DESIST the illegal defamation, 
slander and/or libel immediately, and to return a signed written assurance affirming that 
you will refrain from any further acts of said defamation, slander, and/or libel as they 
pertain to ASICSHACK LLC.

Failure to comply with this cease and desist letter, and return the signed assurance within 
10 business days will result in the pursuit of all available legal remedies, including, 
but not limited to, filing a motion for injunctive relief, monetary damages, filing fees, 
court costs, and/or attorney fees.

Sincerely,
Alexander Levin, Jr.
ASICSHACK LLC

[kano]

It's a standard cease and desist request.

Anyone can pretend they will take legal action which they can not do or will not win.
They don't even need a lawyer to send you one

If you have any useful legal contact or useful legal representation they will have already told you this, and that you can ignore it

PS there's a bunch of other quite obvious strings in cgminer that I put there that you can see in the original code
... and of course you could just decompile it and you'd get something similar to the source at the time they copied the git.

Anyway, as I said above, not interested, I'm not throwing money at something that will just lose me money, I'm not a bitcoin millionaire
Also, there is one you can't win against: Bitmain for a specific reason you probably already realise if you do have any useful legal advise ...

Edit: I know who James is and use to chat with him a lot (even ... yesterday )