Well, Gotcha had already done 99% of the work already so it was relatively easy.
I think an explanation of what needs to be done is too lenghty for a news comment so I might write something up on my site.

I am interested in the suggestions you gave gotcha as it will be a problem I soon have to overcome. If you don't mind sharing them with me also.

I will pm you my email addy.

I just remembered something lol.
FB didn't give nuke the GNU GPL locense, I think it already had that when he stole it when it was called Thatware.

Well I wouldn't say I'm an enforcer of GPL but it does give me the opportunity to explain where I stand with it.

Personally I love the principle of the GNU GPL license as it means people can use free code. If phpNuke had been distributed with a different license he could quite easily have encoded the whole thing and then we wouldn't be able to fix it or make add-ons for it as we would have no idea what global variables were available to us etc etc.

Whats more, every single developer could legally charge for every single modules/block or whatever they made which essentially would mean that nowhere near as many people would use phpNuke because every time they wanted to add something, it would cost them money. Money which most beginners do not have.

Having said all that, it is plain wrong and illegal for people to remove copyrights regardless of the license or anything else. In the case of theme developers they actually have an easy fix - distribute the images seperately. You cannot stop people from distributing the code but without the images, the theme is worthless.

For module developers things get really complicated. I have spoken to gotcha recently about his 'Shop' module because it was encrypted. Yes, I reminded him of the GNU GPL but also gave him some advice on how to overcome the problem. A couple of minor changes in the code means his Shop module can run independant of nuke so essentially, as it doesn't need nuke to work it is not covered by the GNU GPL license.

I can see in the future that more and more people will be paying closer attention to how the 'wrap' their code so they can distribute it with their own license. Personally I have nothing against this and welcome it. If you have a good product then you should be able to sell it without having to worry about the license and others then offering it for free.

well i had a talk yesterday with disipal and his idea was to close the site a few minutes later,but luckely i could convince him not to do that as it effect his members and visitors and didnt seem right...
anyway, it looks like kenetix still didnt reply to any of disipals mails.

It will kill the nuke community eventually, Disipal has brought a lot to the nuke world and now intends to stand his ground.

Its the same for theme designers too unfortunately look at the few sites out there that are adding commercial themes and either selling them or offering them as a subscription.

Man I am so sorry this happen to you, but its a common problem in the nuke world today.

I have begun my research into making nuke modules/block/addons with encoding and finding the ability to do so without overstepping the GNU/GPL. I know guardian is a big enforcer of the GNU/GPL, but it isn't enough and look what happens if we don't! GNU/GPL isn't gonna stand up for the rights of the everyday coder.

Anyway I am off to find a better way.

yes its indeed sad huh....
anyway guardian...disipal showed me the code its all about.
And its his code only kenetix renamed it.

I think a lot of the problem is with developers who consider they have made significant changes or improvements to existing code that they then think the code is unique to them and 'it is theirs'.
Sadly people do remove existing copyrights which as we all know is illegal, the GNU GPL does not allow you to do that, nor does anything else I am aware of.

Themes are a different issue, with regard to image copyrights but if what is reported here is true, that someone stole code and removed the existing copyrights then thats downright terrible.

Disipal, can you send me examples of where you see 'stolen' code, I would like to take action too by adding these people to my SPAM Stopper module.