The Mike Hardy Saga, Part I: The Beginning
Hello, everyone. I’d like you to meet Michael James Hardy. Mike has a wife, name removed. (Correction/Update: Mike used to have a wife.) He also has a daughter, name removed. Mr. Hardy is a prolific software developer, with over five years of experience with C++ and Visual Basic. Mike has released all sorts of software to the Internet: games, web browsers, and the like. Sometimes they are free, and sometimes they are not. But as always, there is more to the story.
You see, Mr. Hardy has admitted himself that he was a little confused for awhile. He thought that the GNU General Public License (GPL) gave him free reign to use the source code of others and claim their work as his own. And, as KimVette points out on the LinuxQuestions.org forums, although selling software is allowed under the GPL, access to the source code must be provided as well; in some cases, Mr. Hardy provided the source code, and other times he did not.
Mr. Hardy insists he is an innocent man; he claims in several places that he is not a hacker, scammer, or ripoff artist. But much of the evidence points in the other direction. Also, note this little tidbit (reference here, as apparently Mr. Hardy tried to pass off Transfusion and/or Quake 2 Evolved as his own); is Michael J. Hardy even his real name? For the sake of simplicity, unless I have more conclusive evidence, I will continue referencing the person in question as Michael J. Hardy.
As that astute LinuxQuestions.org forum user pointed out, Mr. Hardy grossly misrepresented the amount of work he performed on the programs released in question, and also failed to give credit to their creators. What programs, you ask? Well, in the next few weeks, I will be continually updating this site (posting under this category, Software Saga) with the continuing adventures of Mike Hardy.
Although I cannot point out where all the original programs came from (I need help in that area) that Mr. Hardy has claimed as his own, the fact that so many of his “creations” are actually the work of others sets a defining precedent when examining Mr. Hardy’s work. Many of his pages have been shut down due to copyright violations, mostly the pages he hosted on Angelfire. Not to worry, though; I have local mirrors of many of them here on youfailit.net. But some of his sites are still active. Stay tuned.