On Mon, Jun 22, 2015 at 10:50 AM, Julian Calaby <julian.cal...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Simos, > > On Mon, Jun 22, 2015 at 11:28 PM, 'Simos Xenitellis' via linux-sunxi > <linux-sunxi@googlegroups.com> wrote: >> On Mon, Jun 22, 2015 at 3:19 PM, Luc Verhaegen <l...@skynet.be> wrote: >>> Hi, >>> >> >> Hi, >> >> This is another 'Luc drama' installment, full of loaded, sentimental phrases. >> Just like watching another episode of "The Thick of It" while it has >> ceased to be funny any more. >> The main character in that series is trying to be the central figure >> by being ferocious on anything >> that does not go through him first. All that leads to a dysfunctional result >> and >> makes the viewers think: do we really need that? Finest satire that >> show, I tell you. >> >> Are we able to get any important bits out of the sentimental stuff? > > Obvious troll is obvious, but I'm taking the bait anyway. > >>> It's been a month since Allwinners big "open source" release, where they >>> tried to shut up the big (and very justified) GPL violations noise by >> >> "shut up" >> >>> releasing some code which moves decoder codecs into modules, and by >>> releasing some codecs as open source as well. As i predicted then, >> >> "i predicted" > > Come on. It's not like this is hard to predict. I've predicted parts > of what happens. Am I going to get called out over it now? > > Almost every occurrence of GPL violations happens the same way: > > 1. Community calls out company for not following the rules > 2. Company tries to ignore it > 3. Company does a half-hearted release > 4. Company doesn't change. > > It's rare (but thankfully getting less rare) that a company completely opens > up. > > People, not just Luc, have been calling out Allwinner for years over > their GPL violations. They've tried ignoring it, they've done a couple > of half-hearted releases, but ultimately they haven't changed: they're > still releasing (partially) closed source drivers. The only difference > is that this time the amount of GPL / LGPL violation is less clear. > >>> Allwinner now has taken the next step: >>> >>> They produced a binary for the decoder, which is loaded in: >>> https://github.com/allwinner-zh/media-codec/blob/72f2b8537/sunxi-cedarx/SOURCE/vencoder/venc_device.c >>> >>> Note the "Proprietary" license notice on top of this and other new >>> files. >>> >> >> The licence text in a header file. It's one of the easy things to fix. >> Such cases occur frequently with many companies. There was a similar >> issue earlier >> and got fixed. > > A proprietary license means either: > 1. This wasn't officially released > 2. They don't care > 3. They're hoping that we use it and then sue us over it later. > > Yes, it's easy to change, but we _cannot_ use proprietary licensed > stuff as it can kill potentially thriving projects. > > E.g. The first generation of TI's WiFi cards have a driver that cannot > be mainlined as the developers _might_ have peeked at stuff they > shouldn't have - so if it were mainlined and TI decided to sue over > it, there would be serious consequences which might affect the > entirety of Linux. Yes, the developer certificate of origin should > limit the damage, but I don't believe it's been legally tested yet. > Nobody wants to find out what would happen in this situation. > >>> Even if we ignore the past, all of this is built together with LGPLed >>> code, and the binary is being dlopened into this LGPLed code. Quite >>> illegally so. >>> >> >> The question is, what options are there for an LGPL library to use >> dynamically other (non-LGPL) code, >> or how can your program use that LGPL library and dynamically some >> other (closed-source) code as well. >> >> Here is a good summary, >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License#Linking_and_derived_works > > This isn't about proprietary code using (L)GPL code, it's about (L)GPL > using proprietary code. This is a whole different kettle of fish and > _very_ murky legally. > > Don't jump to conclusions. > >>> This is further deliberate avoidance of responsibility by Allwinner. One >>> can only assume that Allwinner is incorrigible at this point. They have >>> been told time and time again what is wrong and they have time and time >>> again been given possible ways out, in great detail. All we get though, >>> is microsteps to take off the heat, followed by further deliberate >>> breaking/bending of the rules. >>> >> >> "deliberate breaking/bending of the rules" >> >> One may ask, "deliberate"? (if it is even really "breaking/bending"). >> On the Internet apparently it does not matter if you justify a claim. > > They could release the source, they haven't and haven't justified > this, therefore it's deliberate. The code makes it clear that they > didn't just "forget" to include the source for this blob. > >>> This also sheds a further shadow on the C.H.I.P. project. Clearly the >>> Next Thing Co. guys were very gullible when they went into business with >>> Allwinner (and believed the statements made by allwinner). Later during >>> the run of the kickstarter campaign, after all the noise had been made >>> on the internet about GPL Violations, Next Thing Co. loudly claimed that >>> they are working the Free Electrons and that all promises of open >>> sourceness and such would be kept (all?). While this move in itself was >>> very laudable, it did underline the fact that Next Thing Co. had not >>> done its homework beforehand. Now Allwinner does this, which clearly >>> goes in against everything the Next Thing Co. people have promised us so >>> far... >>> >> >> Apparently, this e-mail is meant for those like Phoronix, so that they >> can rehash without checking >> and quickly repost. > > If that's what it takes to get action, then that is what must happen. > Phoronix might be one of the worst cases of copy-paste journalism in > existence, but it's still one of the better summaries of what's going > on in the open source community and, most importantly, people read it.
Personally I'm more of a believer in positive reinforcement than negative. In general I would say that at the top levels Allwinner still does not totally understand the benefits of the open source world. They still think that it is more important to keep 'secrets' from competitors than it is to maximize the number of people shipping and using their products. That may have been true in the 1990's but it isn't true now. These competitors obviously know how to make h.264 hardware since they are shipping it too. So my prescription for Allwinner is to take over your own kernel mainlining effort or at least pay someone to do it for you. One way to get help with that is to move to a higher level Linaro membership or hire someone like Free Electrons. The goal you are working towards is the ability to do a single Android release and have it work on all of your CPUs. If you are able to achieve that you will get some huge benefits in reduced effort needed to keep your Android releases up to date. Alternatively, if you continue to do in-house point releases of Android while proliferating a large number of new CPUs, you are going to collapse under the combinatoric workload. Once you realize these benefits, hopefully you'll see the benefits of being open source is all areas. > >> Is there really need for such drama? The A13 has been largely >> mainlined by members of this community >> and the R8, being a bit different, needs some extra work. Instead of >> making it a volunteer effort to linux-sunxi, >> they are working with Free Electrons in order to fix any issues >> pertaining to mainline support. > > There is need for this "drama": (L)GPL violations aren't something you > can just "sweep under the rug". This is a _legal_ issue. This isn't > just people moaning about how they don't have all the fancy stuff, > this is a company breaking a license they agreed to. Companies have > been shut down for less. > > The person or group that does the mainlining is irrelevant as long as > it happens. > > As for why C.H.I.P. is being dragged into this: quoting from their > campaign, they're "Fully open source" or "100% open source" and are > going to work with Allwinner to "insure that all the necessary > documentation and source code for the System on Chip and Power > Management Chips used in C.H.I.P. will be available for the community > to use and learn from." > > It could be argued both ways whether the CedarX IP is "necessary", but > they've talked up their open source-ness so much that any part > remaining closed source (with the possible exception of Mali) will be > a mark against them and their ability to deliver. The Raspberry Pi > copped a _lot_ of flak over the huge chunks of proprietary stuff in > it, so I suspect they won't want the same negative press. Also, > they're still news, so some copy-paste journalist might just stumble > across this from a Google search and post it. > > At the end of the day, posts like this are about making Allwinner > move. We, the community, aren't big enough to push them with any > useful force; you (and other people) claim to have some connection to > them, but seem to have done nothing, so we have to find other ways to > push them. If that means we need to write stuff that can be copied and > pasted into a sensationalist Phoronix article, then that's what we > must do. > > 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. -- Jon Smirl jonsm...@gmail.com -- 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.
