ShineTheLight sends in news of two Firefox plug-ins: FlashGot, the original, and Sothink, the GPL-violating come-lately. "People at Sothink decided to violate the GPL by stealing a piece of core code from FlashGot and using it without even the decency of glad rags their tracks. It is an exact copy of a precedent version of FlashGot. This deception came to light when users reported to the FlashGot support forum that their os was not working right. Some digging led to the ascertainment that the older module that Sothink stole and used verbatim was overriding the more recent engine on the machines of those who had both installed and it was causing the issue. It has been reported to AMO and the FlashGot developer is aware of it. The Sothink people have thoroughly
idioms:in and out ignored and been silent on the subject. This is why most good programmers will stop contributing to the global territory because there are those who will steal their work, pass it off as their own, never acknowledge or give credit, and then shamefully stick their head in the sand and ignore the consequences." The three most recent reviews of Sothink point out this plug-in's dishonest nature. A number of earlier, one-line, 5-star reviews — expressed in a similar style — sound suspiciously like astroturfing.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

More: - The rest...

Mark