Does ImageMagick violate the rights of other free software projects?
Unfortunately the answer to this question is ‘yes’. ImageMagick frequently incorporates code from other open source projects yet fails to accurately convey the copyright statements and usage licenses from those projects. Copyright statements are routinely deleted from source and text files and replaced with the ImageMagick copyright statement. ImageMagick users do not know which parts were copied or which parts were actually written by the ImageMagick project. Over the years we have noticed that ImageMagick has whittled down the necessary copyright statements and usage licenses until they are almost non-existent. The usage licenses which grants the right to use or distribute the copied software have now been entirely removed. Instead, the ImageMagick license is the only license which is claimed to apply. It seems that after a short time (and often immediately) the ImageMagick project decides that it is no longer worth mentioning where the code and documentation came from. Most people w
