On Thu, 5 Mar 2015 10:45:48 +1100 Julian Calaby <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 5, 2015 at 9:10 AM, <[email protected]> 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. This whole fuss is blown out of proportion. Luc is surely right to point out this issue (yet again) and insist on resolving the LGPL compliance issues. However having two (!) phoronix articles posted and a bunch of new weirdos attracted by them to troll here is also going overboard. However Allwnner did not really have to violate the FFmpeg LGPL license in the first place. They only needed to use it is a shared library. For example, hardware accelerated video playback using MPlayer and the reverse engineered https://github.com/linux-sunxi/libvdpau-sunxi code is also relying on the FFmpeg library somewhere in the pipeline, but does not have to directly mix it with the CedarX VPU code in the same compiled binary. So at the end of the day, the LGPL license is violated in letter, but not in spirit. They just made a mistake. And yes, they also did not take reasonable efforts to fix it until now. But all of this looks kind of like getting lynched for jaywalking. What makes me particularly annoyed about all this fuss is that the timing could not have been more wrong. Allwinner is currently pushing their code to github, making some mistakes and fixing rough edges in the process: https://github.com/allwinner-zh/bootloader/issues/4 https://github.com/allwinner-zh/linux-3.4-sunxi/issues/5 And it is a move in the right direction, which benefits the free software community. The CedarX blob was also pushed there as part of this activity. Maybe Allwinner is finally up to resolving the LGPL issue in the CedarX code too? Even if not by releasing full sources, but by isolating the FFmpeg code into a separate shared library. But now they are being trolled for (admittedly still unsuccessfully) trying to do the right thing... BTW, the lawsuit-happy zealots may also find some extra inspiration for their future legal actions here: https://libav.org/shame.html -- Best regards, Siarhei Siamashka -- 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 [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
