Sponsored links - Should not be here

[wolfbeast]

Hey folks,

I just updated my UltraVNC to the current stable version - to my dismay I noticed that addition of advertisements, "sponsored links" in the software. This is a -community effort-, people. Sponsored links, ads, whatever you want to call them, have NO place in this software.

Nobody needs to hitch a ride on the popularity of a piece of open source software.

Can you please make sure to remove them from the next release? Thanks.

[nobody]

Nobody needs to hitch a ride on the popularity of a piece of open source software.

I AM NOBODY ! and i am NOT hitching any rides anywhere, i am here to STAY - SO IS THE ADVERTISEMENT - if the ultravnc devs make some advertisement money on the side of free software - more power to them, you are getting the software for free.

ALSO FOR YOUR INFORMATION: THERE IS A WAY TO TURN OFF THE ADVERTISEMENT WITHOUT AFFECTING ANYTHING ELSE IN THE SOFTWARE.

[wolfbeast]

if the ultravnc devs make some advertisement money on the side of free software - more power to them, you are getting the software for free.

ALSO FOR YOUR INFORMATION: THERE IS A WAY TO TURN OFF THE ADVERTISEMENT WITHOUT AFFECTING ANYTHING ELSE IN THE SOFTWARE.

Oh please, mr "nobody". The ultravnc devs are not making money on what they developed, themselves.
If they want to make money with a piece of software, they should write one themselves as a commercial product or as a proprietary piece of software that is not developed by more than just themselves and licensed under the GPL!

The fact that it can be turned of is completely besides the point. It shouldn't be in there to begin with. the fact that it's there makes it adware, and is therefore no longer freeware.

[nobody]

Oh please, mr "nobody". The ultravnc devs are not making money on what they developed, themselves.

Thank you for correcting me, and that puts me in a position of greater appreciation for their efforts, working for free and creating a product that is better than commercial products and still demanding no money.

The fact that it can be turned of is completely besides the point. It shouldn't be in there to begin with. the fact that it's there makes it adware, and is therefore no longer freeware.

You dont like this product stop using it, is all i can think of saying, it does not matter if it is adware freeware or opensource ware - you have a source, build your own version for yourself or people to use.

stop whining - and i am not speaking as a part of ultravnc community - i am speaking for myself, do not let my opinions reflect on the community. they are sane people who would have chosen not to respond to such post, well that makes me insane to respond to this.

[Rudi De Vos]

At time of adding the sponsored link ( almost 2 years ago) there was a forum discussion on the same subject.

* GPL: Gpl does not forbid to make some money nor does it forbid to use
it in commercial products. Thye only thing GPL says is that you need to make the source public. If you merge your commercial code with a GPL code, you need to make both public. The fact of adding a sponsered link is in no violation with any part of the GPL code.

* Ethical: UltraVnc was a merge of vdaccvnc and esvnc ( both projects
started in 1999). We didn't wrote the full product, check the about box.
After 10 years we wrote i big piece of it...

* web Servers, software licening, authenticode signing (required x64)
This is not free, we need to pay them.

Taking the 3* in consideration we added the sponsered link with the option to disable it (viewer -> options [v] "do not display sponsered link)
This was some kind of consensus with the forum users.

The only complains we got was from people who use the software commercial and didn't wanted the link to showup. For them we even added a registry key so you can disable the link at installation time.

UltraVnc is opensource and GPL. The fact of adding a sponsered link is complete beside it.

Nothing prevent you from recompiling the viewer, sign it with your own certificat and offer it as download on your server. Just don't forget to add
a link to the sourcecode (GPL requirement)