Re: [linux-sunxi] Allwinner GPL violations: definitive proof.
fre 2015-03-06 klockan 19:44 + skrev Manuel Braga: The video engine is the least priority item in the wish list, but is dependent of all the others. I understand that, and also don't see a point of wasting time in a 100% open source driver and software for it, if the only way to use it requires hardware that is limited by binaries blobs (for example; dram initialization). This is not me going for a full 100% or nothing, just a question of priorities. A10, A13, A20 have full open source system code for a long long time, and these days even integrated in mainline u-boot kernel, including initialization from bare metal. Full DRAM setup etc. And now DRAM setup code and more for the whole range of SoCs have suddently been released as open source by Allwinner which removes a large part of the burden of getting the other SoCs supported at system level. The SoC user guides have also improved by far compared to the early A10 user guides we got access to years ago, plus are now officially published and not just randomly leaked. If you look at the openness then VPU and GPU is the most sore parts in the Allwinner SoCs at the moment. Not so much because they depend on everything else but because everything about them is closed down tightly by Allwinner. There is also some issues in display interfacing where there is relations to third party interest organisations and content protection. Please ignore what is in the Allwinner SDK releases and focus on what is available in open versions or documented. The silly fact that some later SDK releases have closed down some things which was open before do not make the already openly published versions closed, or that support for those have been dropped by linux-sunxi community kernel. Regards Henrik -- 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.
Re: [linux-sunxi] Allwinner GPL violations: definitive proof.
cedarx2.0 is a refactoring of cedarx1.0. The job is finished about just three month ago and not used by most vendors yet. Some work is still needed to port cedarx2.0 to linux. The directory of cedarx2.0 in Android SDK is frameworks/av/media/liballwinner. The directory of cedarx1.0 in Android SDK is frameworks/av/media/CedarX-Projects. Most part of cedarx2.0 is open source. It's not the same situation compared with cedarx1.0. Maybe it is not a big step and not enough, it is a right direction. On Fri, Mar 6, 2015 at 2:57 PM, Siarhei Siamashka siarhei.siamas...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, 4 Mar 2015 19:56:53 -0800 (PST) oia...@gmail.com wrote: I think we need to bring this back to simple. Thanks for sharing your opinion. But first of all, please start playing by the rules yourself. This is a technical mailing used by free software developers. And the subscribers are expected to respect Proper conduct, as explained in the linux-sunxi wiki: http://linux-sunxi.org/Mailing_list Which means making sure that you don't violate: http://linux.sgms-centre.com/misc/netiquette.php And in particular, the Make sure your lines are no longer than 72 to 76 characters in length rule. 1) as FOSS not out to harm allwinnertech all FOSS want is conformance with license. Reality here the two worst laws to break as a hardware vendor is copyright and trademark. Serous-ally. Both you can enforce by customs both can cause product destruction. This is pure nightmare because what would happen if a developer of the work decided to take the customs path a stack of product for one of allwinner customers would get to the board be ruled as contain copyright infringing work then crushed. This has happened to gameconsoles and other items in the past. The buyer is left out of pocket. Its basically a common mistake since FOSS does not act often that it does not have teeth. The reality most FOSS developers know they have the teeth to put a company out of business so try negotiation. https://libav.org/shame.html you will notice all the ones here are fairly much software companies. Developers don't have very effective teeth to go after software companies. Also remember even if the infringement is preformed by a sub-company the fact its on your device can make that device destroyable and you will be expected to get the compensation out the sub company that provided you with the infringing software. As a matter of fact, Allwinner does not make devices. It makes chips. It is the Allwinner's customers who are making devices. And the unique situation with (at least older) Allwinner based devices is that these devices can be running 100% free software. Very few other hardware vendors are able to match this level of freedom (even Intel based devices are typically shipping with proprietary BIOS firmware). And by the way, I'm not sure if you paid attention to the discussion in this thread, but there is also a reverse engineered hardware video decoder implementation available, which is 100% free software. This means that you don't really need to use any blobs from Allwinner to play your video. And to complement the perfect software freedom, some of the device manufacturers are even making open source hardware (if you have ever heard about this concept). For example, you can check https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/open-source-hardware The reality is you are better to break patent law than trademark or copyright as hardware company. Something Allwinner take on board is release the source after the fact is an extremely bad idea. If you go to Intel and Amd you will notice they release the open source code before the chip ship. This means the chips cannot be destroyed at customs. The SoC chips obviously do not contain the kernel code or userland software. You are only able to catch up with the source release after the fact because at this stage the FOSS developers are being kind. Look, you have blatantly violated the netiquette rules in this mailing list. And now you are only able to catch up with the rules after the fact. The ignorant people like you can only get away with their misconduct because the free software developers here are being kind. Just be grateful that nobody suggests to get you banned yet. Siarhei Siamashka the case of the firmware not using the Linux kernel firmware loader what promises that we will not have that happen again. Is there staff training to make sure this does not happen again. How can we be sure that your violation of the netiquette rules will not happen again? Siarhei Siamashka there are compliance tools. http://www.linuxfoundation.org/programs/legal/compliance/tools Are you using them. If not please start using them. If you are using them please open bug reports for the cases that these issues got missed. Are you now telling me to do your homework?
Re: [linux-sunxi] Allwinner GPL violations: definitive proof.
Hi, On Thu, 5 Mar 2015 20:41:36 +0100 Michal Suchanek hramr...@gmail.com wrote: Hello, On 5 March 2015 at 18:35, Henrik Nordström hen...@henriknordstrom.net wrote: ons 2015-03-04 klockan 17:41 + skrev Manuel Braga: What we get? Just indifference that the reverse engineering effort even exists. Sorry you get this impression. Who is not guilt, don't raise the hand. Just that this video engine has been so problematic not only for me and the others involved, but also for all sunxi community. I know I have been silent, but that's mostly because video is not something I am interested in, and especially not Allwinners binary take on it. But it does not mean that I am indifferent to your effort, not at all, to me the documentation of the CedarX hardware and proof of concept software was and is very important, even if far from feature complete. It WorksForMe(tm). I can play video with mplayer which is how I use video most of the time even on systems with multiple choices of a media player. And with opensource drivers which I can expect to continue working as long as sunxi hardware has any use. Thanks for that. Yes, it is a gross hack. But for more progress the other parts to which the VE engine is to be hooked have to be ready - like the KMS driver. Technically one can be writing a VE driver without a KMS driver which is then just plugged in ... and you can see all the bugs then. The video engine is the least priority item in the wish list, but is dependent of all the others. I understand that, and also don't see a point of wasting time in a 100% open source driver and software for it, if the only way to use it requires hardware that is limited by binaries blobs (for example; dram initialization). This is not me going for a full 100% or nothing, just a question of priorities. Did you every see me asking for KMS(or whatever name) driver? You don't because i never asked. Why? Because i don't need to ask. ... So, please, try to limit the corrosive and bitter posts. And again the discussing went the same path. I like that there are harsh agents, it make the ones that see this community as a source of gratis labor think two times. It makes me fell that i am not been abused, and different personalties make the world colorful. But just a personal opinion. Wouldn't be better to talk instead of fighting. Because the way that you (all) are responding to the harshness looks like fighting to me, and again the fighting is obscuring the problem that is the reason of the harshness in the first place. Why not say, Luc, last commit demonstrated that allwinner is clueless in how to fix this license issues, please stop the stick waving. And this mistakes that allwinner is doing by trying to fix this license issues, is more of a concern (in $business$ matters) than being public shamed about license noncompliance. Anyway today there are good news in the allwinner git repository. -- Manuel Braga -- 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.
Re: [linux-sunxi] Allwinner GPL violations: definitive proof.
Hello, On 5 March 2015 at 18:35, Henrik Nordström hen...@henriknordstrom.net wrote: ons 2015-03-04 klockan 17:41 + skrev Manuel Braga: What we get? Just indifference that the reverse engineering effort even exists. Sorry you get this impression. I know I have been silent, but that's mostly because video is not something I am interested in, and especially not Allwinners binary take on it. But it does not mean that I am indifferent to your effort, not at all, to me the documentation of the CedarX hardware and proof of concept software was and is very important, even if far from feature complete. It WorksForMe(tm). I can play video with mplayer which is how I use video most of the time even on systems with multiple choices of a media player. And with opensource drivers which I can expect to continue working as long as sunxi hardware has any use. Thanks for that. Yes, it is a gross hack. But for more progress the other parts to which the VE engine is to be hooked have to be ready - like the KMS driver. Technically one can be writing a VE driver without a KMS driver which is then just plugged in ... and you can see all the bugs then. On 4 March 2015 at 14:10, Luc Verhaegen l...@skynet.be wrote: On Wed, Mar 04, 2015 at 02:31:41PM +0200, Simos Xenitellis wrote: On Wed, Mar 4, 2015 at 1:57 PM, Luc Verhaegen l...@skynet.be wrote: On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 04:55:15AM +0100, Luc Verhaegen wrote: ... So now there is a LICENSE file stating that the code in https://github.com/allwinner-zh/media-codec is LGPL? So Allwinner believes that by sticking the LGPL on a _binary_ solves all the problems? Just like it seems to believe that removing all binaries from a kernel tree solves all problems with the GPL? Really? This is simply ridiculous. This guy is so toxic. Apparently it's an attitude style to be permanently negative. You give him caviar and he complains that it's black. Or a VIN ROMANEE CONTI 1955 and he complains that it's too old. I do not know whether there will be more commits to that repo. Just in case there are, a typical person would refrain from making such comments. Simos Simos, I am corrosive and bitter, but perhaps i am not the toxic one here. Corrosive and bitter is enough to drive off new users which can potentially become new contributors. Maybe you don't need new community members and are fine with writing a KMS driver in a year or two that nobody but you ever uses. But linux-sunxi needs new members to continue as a community and you have been repeatedly seen driving people off. While your arguments might be technically correct you fail to deliver them politely, or even acceptably in many cases. All we ever see you do is trash me. You have written no code, you have not contributed to the wiki, you only now spend some time on irc to try to clean up your image. You started calling for banishing me, while trying to instigate a fork, almost as soon as you got here. And you try to post about every little positive thing that allwinner does (while allwinner ignores its hard legal responsibilities), to try to take credit for them and to try artificially gain any form of standing here. Perhaps you and Allwinner do not realize this. But linux-sunxi does not need Allwinner, Allwinner needs linux-sunxi. What linux-sunxi requires Yeah, sure. It's true that allwinner has used the work done by sunxi community in the past for their business. And it has provided some code and documentetion. And it has not provided some other code and other documentation which the sunxi community needs to continue the same work. But there is no hard requirement for allwinner to cooperate with linux-sunxi. They can hire a developer to do the work, they can just live with their Chinese SDKs or they can go out of business, whatever. from Allwinner is a legal matter, and a pretty open and shut case at that. Allwinner trying to make their mole a part of this community this crudely or artificially, while so badly messing up the basics, that is not only counterproductive, it is quite preposterous. Stop trying to hollow out Allwinners hard legal requirements. Sure, allwinner is required, legally, to release some sources. And it might have signed some NDAs to not release them so it may as much legally be obliged to not release the same sources. It might in fact have put itself into a situation when it is not allowed to ship a product with this software, legally. However, the copyright of the ffmpeg authors or Linux authors is somewhat theoretical in China while the NDA they signed with the business next door is much less. And as has been pointed out the situation can be 'corrected' by releasing modularized sources with the blobs as properly separated modules without providing anything useful to linux-sunxi at all. So dwelling on this point is in all ways quite useless. Even though they have shipped the SDKs with intermixed binaries and are technically
Re: [linux-sunxi] Allwinner GPL violations: definitive proof.
On Friday, March 6, 2015 at 5:42:22 AM UTC+10, Michal Suchanek wrote: Sure, allwinner is required, legally, to release some sources. And it might have signed some NDAs to not release them so it may as much legally be obliged to not release the same sources. It might in fact have put itself into a situation when it is not allowed to ship a product with this software, legally. However, the copyright of the ffmpeg authors or Linux authors is somewhat theoretical in China while the NDA they signed with the business next door is much less. Michal this logic is wrong. Customs I was referring is China own customs. http://www.chinabusinessreview.com/tackling-intellectual-property-infringement-in-china/ You will find customs as one of the methods to enforce against intellectual property infringement this includes copyright infringement. 1/2 a million routers were crushed by China customs when a company refused to release firmware source code as required and their website blocked by the great china firewall. The GUY next door with the NDA over Allwinner is not going to help Allwinner when the products are crushed and Allwinner web site is blocked from the outside world by the great china firewall. FOSS enforcement only seams theoretical in China because FOSS does not do it often. Also normally when FOSS enforcement does happen to Chinese companies they mostly go out of business. The router vendor tired that Chinese smiley face method as well. Allwinner need to make up its mind either it only sells inside china or it want to sell to the world. If it wants to sell to the world software infringement is not on. Also remember github is USA so anything infringing hosted on github can be removed by DCMA orders. Due to this infringement being found the source code need to be mirror to a country where copyright cannot be enforced until its fixed. In fact to remain legally clear it should be removed from github by them until its fixed. This is the multi country legal problem. And as has been pointed out the situation can be 'corrected' by releasing modularized sources with the blobs as properly separated modules without providing anything useful to linux-sunxi at all. Other than the fact it legally should not be on github in it current state and can be removed at any time due to the fault by a DCMA order. So the benefit it gives linux-sunxi is legal right to use more hosting. Please note China customs the person who can place complain is a FOSS developer or one of their competitors. This is why this is so serous the FOSS developer may do nothing against Allwinner but one of Allwinner competitors take this information to put them out of business. Peter Dolding -- 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.
Re: [linux-sunxi] Allwinner GPL violations: definitive proof.
ons 2015-03-04 klockan 17:41 + skrev Manuel Braga: What we get? Just indifference that the reverse engineering effort even exists. Sorry you get this impression. I know I have been silent, but that's mostly because video is not something I am interested in, and especially not Allwinners binary take on it. But it does not mean that I am indifferent to your effort, not at all, to me the documentation of the CedarX hardware and proof of concept software was and is very important, even if far from feature complete. In the end, the users expect all from us, but is not enough. Yes, all software magically works, and can be implemented without any documentation or even half-working binaries to reverse... You know, if we(the reverse engineering people) had a bit more support, we would be motivated to work a bit harder, so that maybe today we all would be much happier. And this page would have progressed much more. http://linux-sunxi.org/VE_Planning I don't know what to say other than community needs a critical mass of interested people to motivate itself in each area, and stamina to ignore users who thinks everything just should work. If there is just one man driving then motivation undoubtedly fails after a while. Unfortunately the ratio users vs developers is not the best in this world, especially not when talking lowlevel hardware releated matters. Regards Henrik -- 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.
Re: [linux-sunxi] Allwinner GPL violations: definitive proof.
On Wed, 4 Mar 2015 19:56:53 -0800 (PST) oia...@gmail.com wrote: I think we need to bring this back to simple. Thanks for sharing your opinion. But first of all, please start playing by the rules yourself. This is a technical mailing used by free software developers. And the subscribers are expected to respect Proper conduct, as explained in the linux-sunxi wiki: http://linux-sunxi.org/Mailing_list Which means making sure that you don't violate: http://linux.sgms-centre.com/misc/netiquette.php And in particular, the Make sure your lines are no longer than 72 to 76 characters in length rule. 1) as FOSS not out to harm allwinnertech all FOSS want is conformance with license. Reality here the two worst laws to break as a hardware vendor is copyright and trademark. Serous-ally. Both you can enforce by customs both can cause product destruction. This is pure nightmare because what would happen if a developer of the work decided to take the customs path a stack of product for one of allwinner customers would get to the board be ruled as contain copyright infringing work then crushed. This has happened to gameconsoles and other items in the past. The buyer is left out of pocket. Its basically a common mistake since FOSS does not act often that it does not have teeth. The reality most FOSS developers know they have the teeth to put a company out of business so try negotiation. https://libav.org/shame.html you will notice all the ones here are fairly much software companies. Developers don't have very effective teeth to go after software companies. Also remember even if the infringement is preformed by a sub-company the fact its on your device can make that device destroyable and you will be expected to get the compensation out the sub company that provided you with the infringing software. As a matter of fact, Allwinner does not make devices. It makes chips. It is the Allwinner's customers who are making devices. And the unique situation with (at least older) Allwinner based devices is that these devices can be running 100% free software. Very few other hardware vendors are able to match this level of freedom (even Intel based devices are typically shipping with proprietary BIOS firmware). And by the way, I'm not sure if you paid attention to the discussion in this thread, but there is also a reverse engineered hardware video decoder implementation available, which is 100% free software. This means that you don't really need to use any blobs from Allwinner to play your video. And to complement the perfect software freedom, some of the device manufacturers are even making open source hardware (if you have ever heard about this concept). For example, you can check https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/open-source-hardware The reality is you are better to break patent law than trademark or copyright as hardware company. Something Allwinner take on board is release the source after the fact is an extremely bad idea. If you go to Intel and Amd you will notice they release the open source code before the chip ship. This means the chips cannot be destroyed at customs. The SoC chips obviously do not contain the kernel code or userland software. You are only able to catch up with the source release after the fact because at this stage the FOSS developers are being kind. Look, you have blatantly violated the netiquette rules in this mailing list. And now you are only able to catch up with the rules after the fact. The ignorant people like you can only get away with their misconduct because the free software developers here are being kind. Just be grateful that nobody suggests to get you banned yet. Siarhei Siamashka the case of the firmware not using the Linux kernel firmware loader what promises that we will not have that happen again. Is there staff training to make sure this does not happen again. How can we be sure that your violation of the netiquette rules will not happen again? Siarhei Siamashka there are compliance tools. http://www.linuxfoundation.org/programs/legal/compliance/tools Are you using them. If not please start using them. If you are using them please open bug reports for the cases that these issues got missed. Are you now telling me to do your homework? But this is not how free software development works. Don't just come here with a consumer attitude. We (free software developers) owe you nothing. Please start using these tools yourself and submit issues at github if you are really interested in improving Allwinner's licenses compliance. Thanks in advance for your cooperation. http://www.binaryanalysis.org/en/home This tool is built particularly to allow FOSS developers to locate infringement in closed source binaries. Basically FOSS developers have tools to find infringement and they have made the tools for your side to detect infringement before it gets out the door. Please allwinner stop
Re: [linux-sunxi] Allwinner GPL violations: definitive proof.
Just look at today's news... Statement in support of Software Freedom Conservancy and Christoph Hellwig, GPL enforcement lawsuit On Thursday, March 5, 2015, Christoph Hellwig, with support from the Software Freedom Conservancy https://sfconservancy.org/, filed suit in Hamburg, Germany https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/mar/05/vmware-lawsuit/ against VMware Global, Inc. Hellwig is a prominent contributor to the kernel Linux, releasing his contributions under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2. VMware, like everyone, is free to use, modify, and distribute such software under the GPL, so long as they make available the human-readable source code corresponding to their version of the software when they distribute it. This simple and fair obligation is the cornerstone of the successful cooperation we've seen for decades between organizations both for-profit and non-profit, users, and developers—the same cooperation which has given us the GNU/Linux operating system and inspired a wealth of free software programs for nearly every imaginable use. Unfortunately, VMware has broken this promise by not releasing the source code for the version of the operating system kernel they distribute with their ESXi software. Now, after many years https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/vmware-lawsuit-faq.html of trying to work with VMware amicably, the Software Freedom Conservancy and Hellwig have sought the help of German courts to resolve the matter. While the Free Software Foundation (FSF) is not directly involved in the suit, we support the effort. From our conversations with the Software Freedom Conservancy, I know that they have been completely reasonable in their expectations with VMware and have taken all appropriate steps to address this failure before resorting to the courts. Their motivation is to stand up for the rights of computer users and developers worldwide, the very same rights VMware has enjoyed as a distributor of GPL-covered software. The point of the GPL is that nobody can claim those rights and then kick away the ladder to prevent others from also receiving them. We hope VMware will step up and do the right thing, said John Sullivan, FSF's executive director. The suit and preceding GPL compliance process undertaken by Conservancy mirror the work that the FSF does in its own Licensing and Compliance Lab. Both the FSF and Conservancy take a fair, non-profit approach to GPL enforcement https://www.fsf.org/licensing/compliance, favoring education and collaboration as a means of helping others properly distribute free software. Lawsuits are always a last resort. You can support Conservancy's work on this case by making a donation https://sfconservancy.org/donate/. Media Contact John Sullivan Executive Director Free Software Foundation +1 (617) 542 5942 licens...@fsf.org Read this online: https://www.fsf.org/news/conservancy-and-christoph-hellwig-gpl-enforcement-lawsuit On Thu, Mar 5, 2015 at 10:31 PM, oia...@gmail.com wrote: On Friday, March 6, 2015 at 5:42:22 AM UTC+10, Michal Suchanek wrote: Sure, allwinner is required, legally, to release some sources. And it might have signed some NDAs to not release them so it may as much legally be obliged to not release the same sources. It might in fact have put itself into a situation when it is not allowed to ship a product with this software, legally. However, the copyright of the ffmpeg authors or Linux authors is somewhat theoretical in China while the NDA they signed with the business next door is much less. Michal this logic is wrong. Customs I was referring is China own customs. http://www.chinabusinessreview.com/tackling-intellectual-property-infringement-in-china/ You will find customs as one of the methods to enforce against intellectual property infringement this includes copyright infringement. 1/2 a million routers were crushed by China customs when a company refused to release firmware source code as required and their website blocked by the great china firewall. The GUY next door with the NDA over Allwinner is not going to help Allwinner when the products are crushed and Allwinner web site is blocked from the outside world by the great china firewall. FOSS enforcement only seams theoretical in China because FOSS does not do it often. Also normally when FOSS enforcement does happen to Chinese companies they mostly go out of business. The router vendor tired that Chinese smiley face method as well. Allwinner need to make up its mind either it only sells inside china or it want to sell to the world. If it wants to sell to the world software infringement is not on. Also remember github is USA so anything infringing hosted on github can be removed by DCMA orders. Due to this infringement being found the source code need to be mirror to a country where copyright cannot be enforced until its fixed. In fact to remain legally clear it should be removed from
Re: [linux-sunxi] Allwinner GPL violations: definitive proof.
Am 04.03.2015, 12:57 Uhr, schrieb Luc Verhaegen l...@skynet.be: On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 04:55:15AM +0100, Luc Verhaegen wrote: This was just posted on the allwinner github account: https://github.com/allwinner-zh/media-codec This contains: https://github.com/allwinner-zh/media-codec/blob/master/sunxi-cedarx/LIBRARY/CODEC/VIDEO/DECODER/libvdecoder.so This binary contains symbols from both ffmpeg (LGPL, but altered/hacked up) and libVP62 (anti-compiled from java, and taken off the web in 2006). The LGPL forces Allwinner to produce the full and complete source code of these binaries. How they are going to explain libVP62 to On2 Technologies, now google, is beyond me (cfr. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VP6) With all the previous indiscretions, it was always possible to claim that there was some chance that Allwinner was not the source of the many violations. It was always pretty clear that Allwinner was the source, there were just too many coincidences, the violation was too all encompassing, and not a single device maker spilled the goods. The fact that they threw out a kernel tree with most code and all binaries removed, was, despite being a ludicrous and laughable action, another very clear sign that Allwinner was indeed the source of these violations. Now however, the fact that allwinner posted this very clearly shows that Allwinner is the source. It is absolutely unequivocal this time round. To top this off, it is 6 months after the last GPL violation shitstorm. This puts serious doubts behind the claims that Allwinner truly is learning and willing to cooperate. Allwinner, it is very high time to start playing nice. You've been at it for 4 years now and seem utterly incapable of or unwilling to change. Luc Verhaegen. So now there is a LICENSE file stating that the code in https://github.com/allwinner-zh/media-codec is LGPL? So Allwinner believes that by sticking the LGPL on a _binary_ solves all the problems? Just like it seems to believe that removing all binaries from a kernel tree solves all problems with the GPL? Really? This is simply ridiculous. Luc Verhaegen. Luc, of course it is your personal decision to organize a shitstorm when you believe that it results in compliance, but I have many doubts about that. However, I would hope that you organize it without referring to the sunxi project and list, because imho the project would be more harmed than helped! I.Irgendeiner -- 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.
Re: [linux-sunxi] Allwinner GPL violations: definitive proof.
On March 4, 2015, at 8:12 AM, Luc Verhaegen l...@skynet.be wrote: On Wed, Mar 04, 2015 at 04:55:57PM +0100, Irgendeiner wrote: Am 04.03.2015, 12:57 Uhr, schrieb Luc Verhaegen l...@skynet.be: So now there is a LICENSE file stating that the code in https://github.com/allwinner-zh/media-codec is LGPL? So Allwinner believes that by sticking the LGPL on a _binary_ solves all the problems? Just like it seems to believe that removing all binaries from a kernel tree solves all problems with the GPL? Really? This is simply ridiculous. Luc Verhaegen. Luc, of course it is your personal decision to organize a shitstorm when you believe that it results in compliance, but I have many doubts about that. However, I would hope that you organize it without referring to the sunxi project and list, because imho the project would be more harmed than helped! This is not a new issue, far from it. This has been going on for years and what you see now is the culmination of years of asking nicely and either being ignored or getting fed bullshit excuses. Where are all these people coming from to defend it? At least one is obviously a shill but man... Anyway, if they ignored us when asking nicely, how much worse can it get? It's kind of an all or nothing thing. You can't go to market with partial compliance. I got burned by this at Pengpod. My touch screen controller went off the market and none of the replacements had source, just binary kernels packed in Android images. It forced me to bet everything on a new oem that seemed to be as compliant as possible. Further, imagine you work for a giant tech company with the potential to buy millions of units year. Could you recommend Allwinner to your bosses? Not with the current state of compliance, legally it's impossible to do business at any real scale this way. Companies figure this out before they even contact AW, it's part of their due diligence. I think this is hurting them more than they know. Luc Verhaegen. -- 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. -- 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.
Re: [linux-sunxi] Allwinner GPL violations: definitive proof.
On Wed, Mar 04, 2015 at 04:55:57PM +0100, Irgendeiner wrote: Am 04.03.2015, 12:57 Uhr, schrieb Luc Verhaegen l...@skynet.be: So now there is a LICENSE file stating that the code in https://github.com/allwinner-zh/media-codec is LGPL? So Allwinner believes that by sticking the LGPL on a _binary_ solves all the problems? Just like it seems to believe that removing all binaries from a kernel tree solves all problems with the GPL? Really? This is simply ridiculous. Luc Verhaegen. Luc, of course it is your personal decision to organize a shitstorm when you believe that it results in compliance, but I have many doubts about that. However, I would hope that you organize it without referring to the sunxi project and list, because imho the project would be more harmed than helped! This is not a new issue, far from it. This has been going on for years and what you see now is the culmination of years of asking nicely and either being ignored or getting fed bullshit excuses. Luc Verhaegen. -- 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.
Re: [linux-sunxi] Allwinner GPL violations: definitive proof.
Hi, On Wed, 4 Mar 2015 09:46:07 -0300 Rodrigo Pereira rodrigo2kpere...@gmail.com wrote: This is because reverse engeneering is a PITA, I suppose. http://linux-sunxi.org/CedarX/Reverse_Engineering I disagree. Reverse engineering is an enjoyable and fun thing to do. And as can be see in the above url, it only took a space of a few weeks to get successful results, with the majority of the work done by only one person. What is PITA, is to be ignored. After all this work done, we(the people that work by reverse engineering this video engine, so that would be possible to write a proper driver that can be mainlined). What we get? Just indifference that the reverse engineering effort even exists. Look at this maillist, people here begging allwinner for a binary with a correct license (because without a license without issues, nobody that wants to stay lawful can even use the binary). And for what?, this binary will not magical resolve all the things, this binary is a stopper for a proper driver, this binary can't be part of mainline kernel. Don't forget what happened around two years ago, when the developers of an unnamed favorite media player tried to add hardware acceleration. What we get? Endless users asking why it doesn't work, but incapable in recognizing the work that must be done before. In the end, the users expect all from us, but is not enough. You know, if we(the reverse engineering people) had a bit more support, we would be motivated to work a bit harder, so that maybe today we all would be much happier. And this page would have progressed much more. http://linux-sunxi.org/VE_Planning -- Manuel Braga -- 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.
Re: [linux-sunxi] Allwinner GPL violations: definitive proof.
On Thu, Mar 5, 2015 at 9:10 AM, prfl...@gmail.com wrote: My two cents: Stop asking for fixing and start doing the legal stuff (sue for example) They have 4 years to fix, they do nothing. they release non functional patches, and they not release the code correctly. They reply to simpleness and notes in a attempt to avoid or deviate the issue. You have 2 options: 1) start doing legal actions The issue is that a copyright holder must start this action, i.e. someone who's code is affected by their actions. From what I've read, most of the GPL enforcement lawsuits have been of the no source variety and involved busybox as the authors of that software are small in number and are interested in pursuing GPL enforcement. (This is why there's now a competitor called toolbox: companies were sick of being sued over busybox.) I do not believe that anyone has successfully pursued GPL enforcement over Linux itself, however I'd love to be corrected. The fact that the kernel tree is essentially the full source with a couple of blobs will also complicate things: Allwinner is likely to comply by releasing code without the blobs and associated functionality as that's easier. Luc's definitive proof in the original post is a good starting point, however it requires that ffmpeg and On2 / Google sue and is only one file of many. (I've also seen instances like this resolved by the company releasing new blobs that don't have the proof people saw, i.e. all symbols renamed, code minimally obfuscated, etc.) Legal action is likely to end up being an uphill battle regardless of which avenue is pursued. Personally I'm exceptionally disappointed that Linaro has let them anywhere near their table with these GPL violations unresolved. (However Linaro's track record isn't the best.) 2) keep play nice an 'spect they overabusse that to keep another 4 years unpunnished (no pun intended) violating (l)gpl and releasing non functinal code like now. Apart from raising awareness and talking to Allwinner, we don't have a lot of realistic options. 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.
Re: [linux-sunxi] Allwinner GPL violations: definitive proof.
On Wed, Mar 4, 2015 at 3:10 PM, Luc Verhaegen l...@skynet.be wrote: On Wed, Mar 04, 2015 at 02:31:41PM +0200, Simos Xenitellis wrote: On Wed, Mar 4, 2015 at 1:57 PM, Luc Verhaegen l...@skynet.be wrote: On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 04:55:15AM +0100, Luc Verhaegen wrote: ... So now there is a LICENSE file stating that the code in https://github.com/allwinner-zh/media-codec is LGPL? So Allwinner believes that by sticking the LGPL on a _binary_ solves all the problems? Just like it seems to believe that removing all binaries from a kernel tree solves all problems with the GPL? Really? This is simply ridiculous. This guy is so toxic. Apparently it's an attitude style to be permanently negative. You give him caviar and he complains that it's black. Or a VIN ROMANEE CONTI 1955 and he complains that it's too old. I do not know whether there will be more commits to that repo. Just in case there are, a typical person would refrain from making such comments. Simos Simos, I am corrosive and bitter, but perhaps i am not the toxic one here. Luc, Hi. You are not a bad person. We first met at XDS2008, so I have somewhat first-hand experience. We even had lunch/dinner at the pub and you behaved as a normal human being to the waiter; I do not think there was trimmed pubic hair in the haggis we all ate. You really try to make good things and help the projects that you are active in. However, in this thing called community building, it's not your cup of tea. You try to insult new contributors into doing NewDevice pages on the Wiki but you end up sending them away. The worst part is that others in the list can see the mess and will not touch the wiki either. Also, edit-war with new contributors? The solution here is to get others to help out and you do *not* get involved. You might want to watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q52kFL8zVoM which discusses the subtleties of community building. All we ever see you do is trash me. You have written no code, you have not contributed to the wiki, you only now spend some time on irc to try to clean up your image. That's an attempt to divert the discussion to me in person. I am not the story. Unlike what you claim above, I actually contributed. If you really want to go through this avenue: if I prove you wrong, you back off entirely from all this. You started calling for banishing me, while trying to instigate a fork, almost as soon as you got here. And you try to post about every little positive thing that allwinner does (while allwinner ignores its hard legal responsibilities), to try to take credit for them and to try artificially gain any form of standing here. Personally I cannot think of a way to gain something here. Gain reputation among you all? I respect all of you, but no. In your case, you have things to lose from this community. You have invested in this project. You have invested so much that you would be even a suitable recruit for Allwinner. Even having access to internal documents and source in order to produce a proper libvdpau. But sadly, you come off as a loose cannon. It's scary. It does not appear that you have a flexible strategy. In fact it's so inflexible that your only way to win is if Allwinner says: fuck my life, get this ssh account and take everything. Perhaps you and Allwinner do not realize this. But linux-sunxi does not need Allwinner, Allwinner needs linux-sunxi. What linux-sunxi requires from Allwinner is a legal matter, and a pretty open and shut case at that. Allwinner trying to make their mole a part of this community this crudely or artificially, while so badly messing up the basics, that is not only counterproductive, it is quite preposterous. I would love to see all source free and open-source. And most importantly, all the companies behind it, to actually believe in the benefits. Due to v2 in GPL, your stick is not long enough. They can adhere to the license but still be stuck. In addition, an actual strategy to get them all into free and open-source is if you make all sort of efforts/compromises to have one SoC completely and fully free/open-source. Then, promote that SoC as loud as possible, so the others would have to follow on their own volition. This is especially true for the GPU in ARM SoCs. I noticed in your recent blog post that you are starting linux-exynos.org. Simos -- 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.
Re: [linux-sunxi] Allwinner GPL violations: definitive proof.
I think we need to bring this back to simple. 1) as FOSS not out to harm allwinnertech all FOSS want is conformance with license. Reality here the two worst laws to break as a hardware vendor is copyright and trademark. Serous-ally. Both you can enforce by customs both can cause product destruction. This is pure nightmare because what would happen if a developer of the work decided to take the customs path a stack of product for one of allwinner customers would get to the board be ruled as contain copyright infringing work then crushed. This has happened to gameconsoles and other items in the past. The buyer is left out of pocket. Its basically a common mistake since FOSS does not act often that it does not have teeth. The reality most FOSS developers know they have the teeth to put a company out of business so try negotiation. https://libav.org/shame.html you will notice all the ones here are fairly much software companies. Developers don't have very effective teeth to go after software companies. Also remember even if the infringement is preformed by a sub-company the fact its on your device can make that device destroyable and you will be expected to get the compensation out the sub company that provided you with the infringing software. The reality is you are better to break patent law than trademark or copyright as hardware company. Something Allwinner take on board is release the source after the fact is an extremely bad idea. If you go to Intel and Amd you will notice they release the open source code before the chip ship. This means the chips cannot be destroyed at customs. You are only able to catch up with the source release after the fact because at this stage the FOSS developers are being kind. Siarhei Siamashka the case of the firmware not using the Linux kernel firmware loader what promises that we will not have that happen again. Is there staff training to make sure this does not happen again. Siarhei Siamashka there are compliance tools. http://www.linuxfoundation.org/programs/legal/compliance/tools Are you using them. If not please start using them. If you are using them please open bug reports for the cases that these issues got missed. http://www.binaryanalysis.org/en/home This tool is built particularly to allow FOSS developers to locate infringement in closed source binaries. Basically FOSS developers have tools to find infringement and they have made the tools for your side to detect infringement before it gets out the door. Please allwinner stop messing with them because when they do decide to hit it is going to hurt. I like your chips don't want to have the case that I have ordered something only to find its been crushed because you were infringing. Basically due to the tools it would have taken Luc Verhaegen bugger all effort to find the issue. Since it takes bugger all effort why did not the allwinner staff locate it. Maybe they are not tooled up correctly and maybe this is the cause of all the on going issues. If you can prove a fault with the FOSS compliance tool that it failed to detect it at least you have workable excuse and evidence that you attempted to be conforming but this still does not help you if developer has chosen to go the customs path to copyright enforcement. The best option is do not infringe and if you do don't just play it down have some decent explanation in a form of an operational failure of something or someone at least then the FOSS developers finding the problems walk way kind of ok and are unlikely to take it further. Peter Dolding -- 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.
Re: [linux-sunxi] Allwinner GPL violations: definitive proof.
On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 04:55:15AM +0100, Luc Verhaegen wrote: This was just posted on the allwinner github account: https://github.com/allwinner-zh/media-codec This contains: https://github.com/allwinner-zh/media-codec/blob/master/sunxi-cedarx/LIBRARY/CODEC/VIDEO/DECODER/libvdecoder.so This binary contains symbols from both ffmpeg (LGPL, but altered/hacked up) and libVP62 (anti-compiled from java, and taken off the web in 2006). The LGPL forces Allwinner to produce the full and complete source code of these binaries. How they are going to explain libVP62 to On2 Technologies, now google, is beyond me (cfr. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VP6) With all the previous indiscretions, it was always possible to claim that there was some chance that Allwinner was not the source of the many violations. It was always pretty clear that Allwinner was the source, there were just too many coincidences, the violation was too all encompassing, and not a single device maker spilled the goods. The fact that they threw out a kernel tree with most code and all binaries removed, was, despite being a ludicrous and laughable action, another very clear sign that Allwinner was indeed the source of these violations. Now however, the fact that allwinner posted this very clearly shows that Allwinner is the source. It is absolutely unequivocal this time round. To top this off, it is 6 months after the last GPL violation shitstorm. This puts serious doubts behind the claims that Allwinner truly is learning and willing to cooperate. Allwinner, it is very high time to start playing nice. You've been at it for 4 years now and seem utterly incapable of or unwilling to change. Luc Verhaegen. So now there is a LICENSE file stating that the code in https://github.com/allwinner-zh/media-codec is LGPL? So Allwinner believes that by sticking the LGPL on a _binary_ solves all the problems? Just like it seems to believe that removing all binaries from a kernel tree solves all problems with the GPL? Really? This is simply ridiculous. Luc Verhaegen. -- 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.
Re: [linux-sunxi] Allwinner GPL violations: definitive proof.
2015-03-04 11:19 GMT-03:00 ovidi...@gmail.com: @Roberto asuming allwinner has did copy the hardware (speaking about A80 sun9i) and the reason of violating GPL's and not publishing sources is might be possible to get sued by original silicon vendor ... but the question is which silicon vendor uses big.Little + powerVR gpu? Reading around there is no such silicon vendor who will have big.Little architecture with PowerVR gpu inside. http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2285404/mediatek-releases-first-big-little-chip-that-uses-powervr-series-6-gpu -- 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.
Re: [linux-sunxi] Allwinner GPL violations: definitive proof.
I'll try to summarize the thread and restart it. Simos please don't +1 I hope to see code from Allwinner to make things better for users. I don't fully agree with Luc's words but he has credit that Allwinner doesn't: real code to be used today helping a lot of people. Thank you for all guys spending time on this. We will not to win anything attacking people here. So let's stop to talk about what will happen and just show the code. This is the best argument that no one can ignore. Cheers, - Roberto - Roberto On Wed, Mar 4, 2015 at 10:11 AM, Simon Kenyon simoncken...@gmail.com wrote: On 03/04/15 12:51, Simos Xenitellis wrote: I'll try to summarize the thread and restart it. Simos please don't -- simon Simon Kenyon e: simoncken...@gmail.com m: +353 86 240 0005 l: http://ie.linkedin.com/pub/simon-kenyon/0/6b2/744/ s: simonckenyon t: @simonckenyon g: google.com/+SimonKenyon -- 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. -- 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.
Re: [linux-sunxi] Allwinner GPL violations: definitive proof.
On Wed, Mar 04, 2015 at 02:31:41PM +0200, Simos Xenitellis wrote: On Wed, Mar 4, 2015 at 1:57 PM, Luc Verhaegen l...@skynet.be wrote: On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 04:55:15AM +0100, Luc Verhaegen wrote: ... So now there is a LICENSE file stating that the code in https://github.com/allwinner-zh/media-codec is LGPL? So Allwinner believes that by sticking the LGPL on a _binary_ solves all the problems? Just like it seems to believe that removing all binaries from a kernel tree solves all problems with the GPL? Really? This is simply ridiculous. This guy is so toxic. Apparently it's an attitude style to be permanently negative. You give him caviar and he complains that it's black. Or a VIN ROMANEE CONTI 1955 and he complains that it's too old. I do not know whether there will be more commits to that repo. Just in case there are, a typical person would refrain from making such comments. Simos Simos, I am corrosive and bitter, but perhaps i am not the toxic one here. All we ever see you do is trash me. You have written no code, you have not contributed to the wiki, you only now spend some time on irc to try to clean up your image. You started calling for banishing me, while trying to instigate a fork, almost as soon as you got here. And you try to post about every little positive thing that allwinner does (while allwinner ignores its hard legal responsibilities), to try to take credit for them and to try artificially gain any form of standing here. Perhaps you and Allwinner do not realize this. But linux-sunxi does not need Allwinner, Allwinner needs linux-sunxi. What linux-sunxi requires from Allwinner is a legal matter, and a pretty open and shut case at that. Allwinner trying to make their mole a part of this community this crudely or artificially, while so badly messing up the basics, that is not only counterproductive, it is quite preposterous. Stop trying to hollow out Allwinners hard legal requirements. Luc Verhaegen. -- 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.
Re: [linux-sunxi] Allwinner GPL violations: definitive proof.
On Wed, Mar 4, 2015 at 1:57 PM, Luc Verhaegen l...@skynet.be wrote: On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 04:55:15AM +0100, Luc Verhaegen wrote: ... So now there is a LICENSE file stating that the code in https://github.com/allwinner-zh/media-codec is LGPL? So Allwinner believes that by sticking the LGPL on a _binary_ solves all the problems? Just like it seems to believe that removing all binaries from a kernel tree solves all problems with the GPL? Really? This is simply ridiculous. This guy is so toxic. Apparently it's an attitude style to be permanently negative. You give him caviar and he complains that it's black. Or a VIN ROMANEE CONTI 1955 and he complains that it's too old. I do not know whether there will be more commits to that repo. Just in case there are, a typical person would refrain from making such comments. Simos -- 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.
Re: [linux-sunxi] Allwinner GPL violations: definitive proof.
On 03/04/15 12:51, Simos Xenitellis wrote: I'll try to summarize the thread and restart it. Simos please don't -- simon Simon Kenyon e: simoncken...@gmail.com m: +353 86 240 0005 l: http://ie.linkedin.com/pub/simon-kenyon/0/6b2/744/ s: simonckenyon t: @simonckenyon g: google.com/+SimonKenyon -- 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.
Re: [linux-sunxi] Allwinner GPL violations: definitive proof.
On Wed, 4/3/15, Simon Kenyon simoncken...@gmail.com wrote: On 03/04/15 12:51, Simos Xenitellis wrote: I'll try to summarize the thread and restart it. Simos please don't +1 I see Luc as basically in the right. I wouldn't support every little detail or his manner of expressing himself in every case but overall it's time Allwinner behaved properly. It would be fun if someone got embargoes on Allwinner products for USA, EU other places such that because of their legal violations their products were banned from sale. Not fun as in I would like it but so Allwinner would have little choice but to at long last do the right things. No-one made Allwinner use GPL code, they chose to. So, they have to comply with its terms. John -- 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.
Re: [linux-sunxi] Allwinner GPL violations: definitive proof.
miercuri, 4 martie 2015, 15:44:44 UTC+2, Roberto Alcântara a scris: I'll try to summarize the thread and restart it. Simos please don't +1 I hope to see code from Allwinner to make things better for users. I don't fully agree with Luc's words but he has credit that Allwinner doesn't: real code to be used today helping a lot of people. Thank you for all guys spending time on this. We will not to win anything attacking people here. So let's stop to talk about what will happen and just show the code. This is the best argument that no one can ignore. Cheers, - Roberto - Roberto On Wed, Mar 4, 2015 at 10:11 AM, Simon Kenyon simonc...@gmail.com wrote: On 03/04/15 12:51, Simos Xenitellis wrote: I'll try to summarize the thread and restart it. Simos please don't -- simon Simon Kenyon e: simonc...@gmail.com m: +353 86 240 0005 l: http://ie.linkedin.com/pub/simon-kenyon/0/6b2/744/ s: simonckenyon t: @simonckenyon g: google.com/+SimonKenyon -- 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...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. @Roberto asuming allwinner has did copy the hardware (speaking about A80 sun9i) and the reason of violating GPL's and not publishing sources is might be possible to get sued by original silicon vendor ... but the question is which silicon vendor uses big.Little + powerVR gpu? Reading around there is no such silicon vendor who will have big.Little architecture with PowerVR gpu inside. @All others Boycotting Allwinner products is a bad thing but possible and usable after all also very easy to achieve it. Commercial products forums such as AVS , freaktab and a lot more other waiting just a sign to start the media lynching over Allwinner Maybe there is no need for a media lynching and boycotting after all each silicon vendor have to protect his patents and intelectual property. Maybe following the same thin line of Amlogic or Freescale vendors would be the solution i don't know. I saw a lot of buyers who own A80 based boxes awaiting some good signs from Allwinner ... for them patience is not a virtue... -- 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.
Re: [linux-sunxi] Allwinner GPL violations: definitive proof.
On 26 February 2015 at 13:53, goo...@lanrules.de wrote: From many years of industrial experience I do know that most probably those companies do not intentionally violate GPL. They are just busily struggling to survive in these extremely fast moving markets and do not have time and resources to care for this kind of 'details'. This does not excuse it or embellish anything, but that is how organizations operate. If I cannot stay in business operating legally, my business model is wrong and I deserve to go bankrupt. Operating like this for several years is nothing short of criminal. Where is the respect for the authors of the original software in this discussion? Yeah, the authors of the software you built your business on do deserve some respect. Then again, legal and criminal is not all that clear. It turns out that in China not adhering to US law does not necessarily drive you out of business. Or not honoring the rights some US geek theoretically has even under Chinese copyright law if such thing even exists. And again, even western companies like nVidia are not much different from Allwinner. They delivered (or let their hw oem partners deliver) butchered binary Android SDKs when it seemed practical and now they are starting mainline kernel work when that seems practical. And again, if you are in software business in the west then any patent troll can sue you out of business anytime unless you are the size of IBM. Seriously, it does not matter that in the EU software patents are (maybe still) illegal. The patent office did and still does grants them. And it does not matter that the patent may not actually apply to your work. You still have to hire a lawyer and go to court if they sue you. And the cost of that may very well be orders of magnitude higher than the sales of small software firm. Thanks Michal -- 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.
Re: [linux-sunxi] Allwinner GPL violations: definitive proof.
On Wednesday, February 25, 2015 at 4:15:38 AM UTC-8, Simos Xenitellis wrote: On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 5:55 AM, Luc Verhaegen l...@skynet.be wrote: Allwinner, it is very high time to start playing nice. You've been at it for 4 years now and seem utterly incapable of or unwilling to change. I think it's time for Luc to start playing nice. His toxic behavior does not help. Trying to berate both on list and off list, even new members to this Google group, is unacceptable behavior. It makes me wonder whether his abrasive behavior was actually a factor to the situation that we try to solve here. It's very ironic as well! We see constructive efforts from Allwinner to fix issues and it makes sense for the community to be constructive as well. I do not even see an issue filed at https://github.com/allwinner-zh/media-codec/issues Being constructive and nice takes you a long way, Simos Instead of whining about him calling you out on your years of noncompliance how about you start doing your fucking job. I hope someone with standing takes this to court and sues for damages as it is the only way anything will happen in a reasonable time frame. -- 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.
Re: [linux-sunxi] Allwinner GPL violations: definitive proof.
From many years of industrial experience I do know that most probably those companies do not intentionally violate GPL. They are just busily struggling to survive in these extremely fast moving markets and do not have time and resources to care for this kind of 'details'. This does not excuse it or embellish anything, but that is how organizations operate. If I cannot stay in business operating legally, my business model is wrong and I deserve to go bankrupt. Operating like this for several years is nothing short of criminal. Where is the respect for the authors of the original software in this discussion? -- 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.
Re: [linux-sunxi] Allwinner GPL violations: definitive proof.
You have a point there, besides the language barrier of course. On Thursday, February 26, 2015 at 4:54:51 PM UTC+8, Irgendeiner wrote: Am 25.02.2015, 13:15 Uhr, schrieb Simos Xenitellis simos...@googlemail.com javascript:: On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 5:55 AM, Luc Verhaegen li...@skynet.be javascript: wrote: Allwinner, it is very high time to start playing nice. You've been at it for 4 years now and seem utterly incapable of or unwilling to change. I think it's time for Luc to start playing nice. His toxic behavior does not help. Trying to berate both on list and off list, even new members to this Google group, is unacceptable behavior. It makes me wonder whether his abrasive behavior was actually a factor to the situation that we try to solve here. It's very ironic as well! We see constructive efforts from Allwinner to fix issues and it makes sense for the community to be constructive as well. I do not even see an issue filed at https://github.com/allwinner-zh/media-codec/issues Being constructive and nice takes you a long way, Simos Just my two cents about Luc: I recently dared entering the irc sunxi chat and obviously disturbed the experts there with Luc loading off his anger because I had bought a BananaPi which he thinks is kind of a parasitic product o_O Immediately I also received the message that I better do not weigh each of his words, so his very special personal style must be known to insiders. I give credit to those who deliver excellent code, they are entitled to communicate like nerds :O Regarding the GPL violations: Imho it is obvious that Allwinner did violate it, as many other companies do it every day. I think it is necessary to regularly put a finger in these wounds and be vigilant to change that situation. BUT: We need results and therefore it is better to have good relationship with the companies while politely pushing them everyday in that direction. From many years of industrial experience I do know that most probably those companies do not intentionally violate GPL. They are just busily struggling to survive in these extremely fast moving markets and do not have time and resources to care for this kind of 'details'. This does not excuse it or embellish anything, but that is how organizations operate. Therefore, when David Lanzendörfer travels to Shenzen and get's personal contact with engineers at Allwinner this imho is the very best possibility to improve that situation. Let us give him a fair chance to prove the usefulness right now. I.Irgendeiner -- 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.
Re: [linux-sunxi] Allwinner GPL violations: definitive proof.
On 02/26/15 08:54, Irgendeiner wrote: From many years of industrial experience I do know that most probably those companies do not intentionally violate GPL. They are just busily struggling to survive in these extremely fast moving markets and do not have time and resources to care for this kind of 'details'. This does not excuse it or embellish anything, but that is how organizations operate. i too am a software developer struggling to survive in these extremely fast moving markets but *i* don't willfully break licence agreements just to get the job done. -- simon Simon Kenyon e: simoncken...@gmail.com m: +353 86 240 0005 l: http://ie.linkedin.com/pub/simon-kenyon/0/6b2/744/ s: simonckenyon t: @simonckenyon g: google.com/+SimonKenyon -- 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.
Re: [linux-sunxi] Allwinner GPL violations: definitive proof.
Am 25.02.2015, 13:15 Uhr, schrieb Simos Xenitellis simos.li...@googlemail.com: On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 5:55 AM, Luc Verhaegen l...@skynet.be wrote: Allwinner, it is very high time to start playing nice. You've been at it for 4 years now and seem utterly incapable of or unwilling to change. I think it's time for Luc to start playing nice. His toxic behavior does not help. Trying to berate both on list and off list, even new members to this Google group, is unacceptable behavior. It makes me wonder whether his abrasive behavior was actually a factor to the situation that we try to solve here. It's very ironic as well! We see constructive efforts from Allwinner to fix issues and it makes sense for the community to be constructive as well. I do not even see an issue filed at https://github.com/allwinner-zh/media-codec/issues Being constructive and nice takes you a long way, Simos Just my two cents about Luc: I recently dared entering the irc sunxi chat and obviously disturbed the experts there with Luc loading off his anger because I had bought a BananaPi which he thinks is kind of a parasitic product o_O Immediately I also received the message that I better do not weigh each of his words, so his very special personal style must be known to insiders. I give credit to those who deliver excellent code, they are entitled to communicate like nerds :O Regarding the GPL violations: Imho it is obvious that Allwinner did violate it, as many other companies do it every day. I think it is necessary to regularly put a finger in these wounds and be vigilant to change that situation. BUT: We need results and therefore it is better to have good relationship with the companies while politely pushing them everyday in that direction. From many years of industrial experience I do know that most probably those companies do not intentionally violate GPL. They are just busily struggling to survive in these extremely fast moving markets and do not have time and resources to care for this kind of 'details'. This does not excuse it or embellish anything, but that is how organizations operate. Therefore, when David Lanzendörfer travels to Shenzen and get's personal contact with engineers at Allwinner this imho is the very best possibility to improve that situation. Let us give him a fair chance to prove the usefulness right now. I.Irgendeiner -- 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.
Re: [linux-sunxi] Allwinner GPL violations: definitive proof.
I wanna say big THANKS to Allwinner for this step, please continue to work in this direction. I look forward to see more source code from you guys. One small comment is it will be great if you guys can also use git internally, so we can see the changes along the way. Clement On Feb 25, 2015, at 1:15 PM, Simos Xenitellis simos.li...@googlemail.com wrote: On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 5:55 AM, Luc Verhaegen l...@skynet.be wrote: Allwinner, it is very high time to start playing nice. You've been at it for 4 years now and seem utterly incapable of or unwilling to change. I think it's time for Luc to start playing nice. His toxic behavior does not help. Trying to berate both on list and off list, even new members to this Google group, is unacceptable behavior. It makes me wonder whether his abrasive behavior was actually a factor to the situation that we try to solve here. It's very ironic as well! We see constructive efforts from Allwinner to fix issues and it makes sense for the community to be constructive as well. I do not even see an issue filed at https://github.com/allwinner-zh/media-codec/issues Being constructive and nice takes you a long way, Simos -- 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. -- 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.
Re: [linux-sunxi] Allwinner GPL violations: definitive proof.
On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 5:55 AM, Luc Verhaegen l...@skynet.be wrote: Allwinner, it is very high time to start playing nice. You've been at it for 4 years now and seem utterly incapable of or unwilling to change. I think it's time for Luc to start playing nice. His toxic behavior does not help. Trying to berate both on list and off list, even new members to this Google group, is unacceptable behavior. It makes me wonder whether his abrasive behavior was actually a factor to the situation that we try to solve here. It's very ironic as well! We see constructive efforts from Allwinner to fix issues and it makes sense for the community to be constructive as well. I do not even see an issue filed at https://github.com/allwinner-zh/media-codec/issues Being constructive and nice takes you a long way, Simos -- 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.
Re: [linux-sunxi] Allwinner GPL violations: definitive proof.
On 02/25/15 12:15, Simos Xenitellis wrote: We see constructive efforts from Allwinner to fix issues and it makes sense for the community to be constructive as well. i see *words* saying that they would fix issues. i see no *actions*. and that has been true for a very, very, very long time. -- simon Simon Kenyon e: simoncken...@gmail.com m: +353 86 240 0005 l: http://ie.linkedin.com/pub/simon-kenyon/0/6b2/744/ s: simonckenyon t: @simonckenyon g: google.com/+SimonKenyon -- 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.
Re: [linux-sunxi] Allwinner GPL violations: definitive proof.
On Wednesday, 25 February 2015 23:15:38 UTC+11, Simos Xenitellis wrote: On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 5:55 AM, Luc Verhaegen l...@skynet.be wrote: Allwinner, it is very high time to start playing nice. You've been at it for 4 years now and seem utterly incapable of or unwilling to change. I think it's time for Luc to start playing nice. His toxic behavior does not help. Trying to berate both on list and off list, even new members to this Google group, is unacceptable behavior. It makes me wonder whether his abrasive behavior was actually a factor to the situation that we try to solve here. It's very ironic as well! We see constructive efforts from Allwinner to fix issues and it makes sense for the community to be constructive as well. I do not even see an issue filed at https://github.com/allwinner-zh/media-codec/issues Being constructive and nice takes you a long way, Simos Wrong! Luc is being overly nice. We write and release code under the *terms* of the GPL, those are the legal terms we wish for *our* work to be used under. Allwinner make huge volumes of money off *our* work. Except us to be filing suite with FSF to ensure these violations are chased up! Allwinner can cut the shit, they have plenty of money and resources to see this is resolved by weeks end! None of this my favor company is my friend, they said nice words, pat pat on the back.. crap.. Luc does not need to be 'nice' to Allwinner, Allwinner needs to comply with the *law* period ! Regards, -- 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.
Re: [linux-sunxi] Allwinner GPL violations: definitive proof.
On Wed, 2015-02-25 at 14:15 +0200, Simos Xenitellis wrote: On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 5:55 AM, Luc Verhaegen l...@skynet.be wrote: Allwinner, it is very high time to start playing nice. You've been at it for 4 years now and seem utterly incapable of or unwilling to change. I think it's time for Luc to start playing nice. His toxic behavior does not help. Trying to berate both on list and off list, even new members to this Google group, is unacceptable behavior. It makes me wonder whether his abrasive behavior was actually a factor to the situation that we try to solve here. It's very ironic as well! We see constructive efforts from Allwinner to fix issues and it makes sense for the community to be constructive as well. I do not even see an issue filed at https://github.com/allwinner-zh/media-codec/issues Being constructive and nice takes you a long way, Simos Being ignorant makes you.. ? https://github.com/allwinner-zh/bootloader/issues Päikest, Priit Laes :) -- 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.
[linux-sunxi] Allwinner GPL violations: definitive proof.
This was just posted on the allwinner github account: https://github.com/allwinner-zh/media-codec This contains: https://github.com/allwinner-zh/media-codec/blob/master/sunxi-cedarx/LIBRARY/CODEC/VIDEO/DECODER/libvdecoder.so This binary contains symbols from both ffmpeg (LGPL, but altered/hacked up) and libVP62 (anti-compiled from java, and taken off the web in 2006). The LGPL forces Allwinner to produce the full and complete source code of these binaries. How they are going to explain libVP62 to On2 Technologies, now google, is beyond me (cfr. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VP6) With all the previous indiscretions, it was always possible to claim that there was some chance that Allwinner was not the source of the many violations. It was always pretty clear that Allwinner was the source, there were just too many coincidences, the violation was too all encompassing, and not a single device maker spilled the goods. The fact that they threw out a kernel tree with most code and all binaries removed, was, despite being a ludicrous and laughable action, another very clear sign that Allwinner was indeed the source of these violations. Now however, the fact that allwinner posted this very clearly shows that Allwinner is the source. It is absolutely unequivocal this time round. To top this off, it is 6 months after the last GPL violation shitstorm. This puts serious doubts behind the claims that Allwinner truly is learning and willing to cooperate. Allwinner, it is very high time to start playing nice. You've been at it for 4 years now and seem utterly incapable of or unwilling to change. Luc Verhaegen. -- 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.
