On Monday, May 18, 2015 at 7:47:45 PM UTC-5, kevin.z.m.zh wrote: > 1. As a growing company, we are doing our best to understand the needs of the > open source software community. This is a learning process. We're working > with different people across the Linux development community to better > understand best practices. > > 2. Open source software development is a collaborative process. It works > because people genuinely want to help others improve and be successful. Some > people are new and others help them learn the ropes over time. We hope that > this same positive feedback process can be applied to GPL.
To help collaborate with growing companies so they can understand the best practices of the GPL covered code, a complete copy of the license is provided with the code. In the case of the GPLv2, this is a simple document with less than 3,000 words that thousands of growing companies have learned the ropes to honor simply by reading the copy included with the code. Usually when a company reaches 500+ employees, it has grown enough that at least one employee is able to understand the license terms. If a company chooses instead to state on March 19 a bold faced lie like "the library is just the hardware module implemented in user space, and the code is all writed by Allwinner" then that brings all collaboration to a halt. Taking credit for someone else's work is unethical and usually illegal regardless of the license. This is a concept that most companies that have grown to 500+ employees should also already understand. I have not yet run into any other company that needed help learning the ropes on plagiarism. The other item you may want to consider when learning the ropes on the GPL is that inclusion of GPL covered code makes the *complete* corresponding work a GPL covered work. So... * if a binary is distributed with both GPL covered code and MPEG1 support, then the MPEG1 code is part of the complete corresponding source code under the GPL * if a binary is distributed with both GPL covered code and VP6 support, then the VP6 code is part of the complete corresponding source code under the GPL * if a binary is distributed with both GPL covered code and XDIV/DIVX support, then the XDIV/DIVX code is part of the complete corresponding source code under the GPL * if a binary is distributed with both GPL covered code and Soreson support, then the Soreson code is part of the complete corresponding source code under the GPL * if a binary is distributed with both GPL covered code and VP8 support, then the VP8 code is part of the complete corresponding source code under the GPL * if a binary is distributed with both GPL covered code and VC1/WMV9 support, then the VC1/WMV9 code is part of the complete corresponding source code under the GPL > With that context, here's an update on our CedarX code release (we welcome > constructive feedback!) > > 1. New code architecture. Driver has been split into several plugins, one > plugin per video format. > > 2. GPL-complaint. We have scanned and analyzed the code to ensure that there > is no GPL code used or called. Back on March 19th, we already heard from Allwinner about when it considers there to be no GPL code used and what is considered to be Allwinner's own code. It turned out that Allwinner is still a growing company (only 500+ employees) and incompetent such that it can't be trusted to understand GPL compliance because it is still learning the ropes. If Allwinner has the skills to scan and analyze code in regards to GPL compliance, it should have used them before putting in writing incorrect statements regarding code ownership. In that context, I recommend to just keep releasing in source code form and we will collaborate on if it is really GPL compliant or not. > 3. Partial CedarX video decoder source code release. MPEG2, MPEG4, MJPEG, and > H264 drivers source code available. It looks like Allwinner is cherry picking instead of providing the complete corresponding source code to the previously already distributed GPL derived work. > We hope this is helpful to everyone. If not, please let us know how we can > improve. Thanks! It will be easier to comment on how helpful this is once the complete corresponding code to the March/April GPL covered binary is provided. Until then, it seems like this is still just a work in progress. -- 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.
