Hi Simos, On Thu, Jun 25, 2015 at 7:56 PM, 'Simos Xenitellis' via linux-sunxi <linux-sunxi@googlegroups.com> wrote: > Let's dissect.
Yes, let's dissect. > On Wed, Jun 24, 2015 at 11:56 PM, Andrés Domínguez <andres...@gmail.com> > wrote: >> 2015-06-24 21:25 GMT+02:00 Simos Xenitellis <simos.li...@googlemail.com>: >>> >>> If something needs to get fixed in those repositories >>> (https://github.com/allwinner-zh/), >>> point it out constructively. >> >> Sorry, I didn't make the infringement statement and I don't know about it, >> but >> knowing about allwinner's past behavior and libv it's clear that it has some >> credibility. > > Here you say "it's clear" for a reference to _past behaviour_, while a > more appropriate > wording would be "I assume". You *assume* it has some credibility. Allwinner's past behaviour is very clear. They release stuff without checking that it complies with the license they release it under then appear to ignore it (or at least don't communicate) when the community, us, rightly complains. As for libv, arguably he's just the messenger here, the person who shouts the loudest about this. The fact that he keeps shouting this message when things don't change is commendable. And you know what, he's right: GPL violations are serious business and ignoring them is simply not a viable strategy for anyone involved. Luc has been consistently right on this subject from the very beginning, that's credibility. > You also use the term "past behavior", which is a term that probably > means a different thing > to each recipient of these emails. It is not constructive to use such > terms; in those > TV shows that depict family problems, you get to see family members picking > on each other for things that happened in the past, remaining stuck > perpetually > for that other thing in the past. I outlined the behaviour I, and a lot of other people, perceive from companies like Allwinner in my previous email. Again, it's very clear. Are you saying that we shouldn't argue about serious legal issues because they happened in the past? Yet you attack Luc for the things he's done in the past. What exactly are you trying to argue here? So maybe you're trying to argue that we should focus less on the past and more on the future. Focusing less on the past isn't going to happen. These are, again, serious legal issues, they're not going to just go away. As for focusing on the future, we've made it very clear what we want from Allwinner: (L)GPL compliant code to replace the binary blobs they keep releasing. Very simple. >> What I criticized was your non constructive attitude with libv >> just because you don't like their way to say things, instead of explaining >> why >> do you think that you are right and others are wrong. > > My point has been that if there are things in the repository that > should be fixed, > then point them out and explain them. This isn't just about some little changes in a repository. This is about a systematic company practice of violating the licence agreements the software their continued existence is built on. As far as I know, every single SoC they've produced since the A10 has had GPL issues. _Every_ one. There's a saying: "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action." We've seen this happen for ~9 different products. This is not a coincidence any more. >> And no, saying that >> header files are easy to fix (it seems that you don't understand that >> changing >> license text is not enough, but also fulfilling with the LGPL conditions, >> like >> releasing source code) don't matter in this topic. About "Such cases occur >> frequently with many companies" (I doubt it) is sad if true. >> > > Let's see a recent case. > It's about the MediaTek kernel for the bq E4.5 phone Ubuntu Edition, > and the post was written by Carsten Munk, > http://mer-project.blogspot.gr/2015/03/some-doubts-about-gpl-licensing-and-bq.html > Phoronix covered it with style, > https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=BQ-Ubuntu-Phone-Bad-Kernel > It was about header files and here is the commit that fixed it, > https://github.com/bq/aquaris-E4.5/commit/34cf494bca625acad06274c3cba10aca148813c0 You're missing the forest for the trees: the point is that code with proprietary licenses shouldn't have been released in the first place. It might be easy to change, the point was that the change didn't happen before it left their hands. In the case of the BQ Ubuntu phone issue, a company released thousands of lines of code and got a couple of bits wrong. In our case we're looking at a source release that touched 29 files. 9 were added with unusable headers: that's 1/3 of the files they touched and almost 70% of the code they released. This sort of thing doesn't happen by accident. This was deliberate. Also, it was almost a week ago, if it's such a small change, why hasn't it been made? > The way I see the whole situation is this: It is true that Allwinner > did not make effort over the years > for mainline Linux kernel support. Whatever support is there for the > A10, A13, A20, etc, > is the result of the hard work of this community. Working on mainline > support is initially expensive > in terms of resources but builds an ecosystem and opens up markets. It > makes business sense. So where are they? As far as I'm aware, we have _no_ upstream contributions from Allwinner whatsoever. The only things they've released have been source trees with licence issues or badly written board support on top of ancient kernels. > As a community, we need to figure out what we need from Allwinner. > Do we need specific SoC information so that we do the mainline effort > on our own? And among all things that can be asked, > we prioritize to those that are really needed at the moment. > Do we need Allwinner to fund some developers so that they work > full-time on this? We would need to start talking about goals and > targets. It's obvious what is required: 1. Datasheets 2. Programming manuals 3. GPL compliant drivers 4. (L)GPL compliant userspace stuff and maybe 5. Some on-going contribution to the community They have #1 and #2 but aren't bothering to release them to us. I believe most of the documentation we have has been obtained through third parties. #3 is almost happening, but with just about every code release, there's something in there violating the licence. We're arguing over their lack of ability on #4 and their employees (with the possible exception of Kevin, who pops up every so often to announce something) are absent from the community. This isn't hard, there are thousands of companies doing it. Thanks, -- Julian Calaby Email: julian.cal...@gmail.com Profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/julian.calaby/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "linux-sunxi" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to linux-sunxi+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
