Re: [linux-sunxi] Further Allwinner misbehaviour.
Am Dienstag, 30. Juni 2015 10:34:59 UTC+2 schrieb Luc Verhaegen: It is time to extend the negative marketing campaign to some of Allwinners customers, and truly hit Allwinner where it hurts. While I do think that a large-scale boycott could really make a change here and force Allwinner to release code and comply with licenses, I also think that the community utterly lacks the means to achieve an effective boycott. Let's face it. The sunxi community is too small to have a considerable impact. Even with the help of sites like Phoronix, you'd still be missing many, many hobbyists and makers who buy cheap Allwinner devices without ever having heard of the community or licencing issues. Many users probably become aware of these issues just after they purchased such a device. And even if they know, it doesn't necessarily mean they care (there are use cases where the current limitations can be ignored). This is just the end-user side. The companies who buy from Allwinner directly, especially those within China, are yet another story which makes it even more unlikely to succeed. Furthermore, if you look around, how many cheap alternatives to the Allwinner ARM devices do you find that come with open and fully released code? Now, I'm not challenging your goals and motivation. You are absolutely right to point out the licensing issues and demand code, docs and compliance to licenses. However, unless you are confident that the call for a boycott will be successful, I think your approach is not helping your case. If you can't hurt them financially, who do you think they'd cooperate with more likely: someone who throws shit at them constantly (exaggerated) or someone, while persistently and repeatingly pointing out the issues, communicates in a constructive and polite way? Cheers, Timo -- 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] Further Allwinner misbehaviour.
On Mon, Jun 29, 2015 at 02:19:00AM +0200, Henrik Nordström wrote: tor 2015-06-25 klockan 12:13 +0200 skrev Luc Verhaegen: The bad copyright headers is just stupidity. The direct loading of non-LGPLed binaries into LGPLed code is very deliberate. And to my best understanding is not in any way a violation of the LGPL license. Care to explain what I am missing? (ignoring any past state of these files) If the code had been GPL licensed then sure. But this is LGPL with it's implicit linking exception. Yes, you are right. I always assumed that LGPL only worked upwards, but after a very thorough read there is nothing in the license that clearly defines this. It does however seriously push the boundary of derivative work, not only because it is being loaded into the LGPLed library and does not work standalone or with other software, but more importantly because this .so does not function without LGPLed infrastructure provided in the top level software. The line becomes very blurry here, and whether this is derivative work or not will probably differ upon which lawyer you ask. What is clear however is that Allwinner can no longer feign innocence, lack of information, lack of knowledge, lack of understanding or just plaing old stupidity. It clearly is very much aware of what its legal obligations are, and is very actively feeling for where those boundaries truly lie, and where the lines of the LGPL license become blurry. Allwinner is trying to get away with the maximum of what it thinks it can get away with, and nothing has changed. Allwinner has not learned a single thing, and still is actively hostile towards free software, and has no real intention of proactively working with the linux sunxi community and its customers. While we all knew that to be true, this action is solid proof to that end. It is time to extend the negative marketing campaign to some of Allwinners customers, and truly hit Allwinner where it hurts. 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] Further Allwinner misbehaviour.
Remember, this is a high priority reverse engineering project: https://www.fsf.org/campaigns/priority-projects/reverse-engineering Everybody must work on that. The linking of gpl libraries in the binaries must make the task easier. It's counterproductive try to hurt the image of the company in hope they will regret and do the right thing. They already have an $9 computer that is a tremendous marketing campaign. No way they will change their minds. 2015-06-30 5:34 GMT-03:00 Luc Verhaegen l...@skynet.be: On Mon, Jun 29, 2015 at 02:19:00AM +0200, Henrik Nordström wrote: tor 2015-06-25 klockan 12:13 +0200 skrev Luc Verhaegen: The bad copyright headers is just stupidity. The direct loading of non-LGPLed binaries into LGPLed code is very deliberate. And to my best understanding is not in any way a violation of the LGPL license. Care to explain what I am missing? (ignoring any past state of these files) If the code had been GPL licensed then sure. But this is LGPL with it's implicit linking exception. Yes, you are right. I always assumed that LGPL only worked upwards, but after a very thorough read there is nothing in the license that clearly defines this. It does however seriously push the boundary of derivative work, not only because it is being loaded into the LGPLed library and does not work standalone or with other software, but more importantly because this .so does not function without LGPLed infrastructure provided in the top level software. The line becomes very blurry here, and whether this is derivative work or not will probably differ upon which lawyer you ask. What is clear however is that Allwinner can no longer feign innocence, lack of information, lack of knowledge, lack of understanding or just plaing old stupidity. It clearly is very much aware of what its legal obligations are, and is very actively feeling for where those boundaries truly lie, and where the lines of the LGPL license become blurry. Allwinner is trying to get away with the maximum of what it thinks it can get away with, and nothing has changed. Allwinner has not learned a single thing, and still is actively hostile towards free software, and has no real intention of proactively working with the linux sunxi community and its customers. While we all knew that to be true, this action is solid proof to that end. It is time to extend the negative marketing campaign to some of Allwinners customers, and truly hit Allwinner where it hurts. Luc Verhaegen. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups linux-sunxi group. To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/linux-sunxi/-YMdSF99yc0/unsubscribe. To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, 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] Further Allwinner misbehaviour.
On Mon, 29 Jun 2015 02:33:40 +0200 Henrik Nordström hen...@henriknordstrom.net wrote: fre 2015-06-26 klockan 01:12 +1000 skrev Julian Calaby: It's obvious what is required: 1. Datasheets 2. Programming manuals 3. GPL compliant drivers 4. (L)GPL compliant userspace stuff and maybe 5. Some on-going contribution to the community And 6. That community uses and improves the free alternatives developed by the community instead of encouraging further bad actions in paths that is unlikely to ever result in anything meeting the broad community goals. This is rather a complicated matter, that all depends in the definition of community, in this case the linux-sunxi community. And only comes to my mind as answer: What more do you want from us? Because this one side taking convey the felling of whatever we do, is not enough, and will never be enough. What can we do? If there are still things not done, is not because the people involved in those things, didn't work or are working harder enough. Maybe even the opposite happened, they worked harder than they cloud, just at the end to get their work felt unappreciated or even to the point of being ignored. What kind of motivation one can get, from seeing users (in random places) asking/begging for open-source drivers, when those same users not even acknowledge in those same asking/begging posts that we exist. With this conditions, is only natural to exist bigger priorities greater than sunxi, and this is want makes us to arrive to this present situation. A community is not a community, when is always the same people giving, and the same people taking. And is my personal opinion, that the hardware vendors (the ones that are getting monetary profit), and the users (the ones that gave money to hardware vendors), are in fault. Because without support, linux-sunxi community can't do more. -- 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] Further Allwinner misbehaviour.
On Mon, 29 Jun 2015 02:19:00 +0200 Henrik Nordström hen...@henriknordstrom.net wrote: tor 2015-06-25 klockan 12:13 +0200 skrev Luc Verhaegen: The bad copyright headers is just stupidity. The direct loading of non-LGPLed binaries into LGPLed code is very deliberate. And to my best understanding is not in any way a violation of the LGPL license. Care to explain what I am missing? (ignoring any past state of these files) We are all IANAL. And i can only give my opinion. If the code had been GPL licensed then sure. But this is LGPL with it's implicit linking exception. LGPL was created to allow close-source proprietary programs linking to LGPL licensed libraries. The user can choose to not use the proprietary program, and by doing so, this doesn't have an effect in the user ability or in the functionality of the LGPL library, to be used in other uses. In this case. A LGPL licensed library is linking with a proprietary close-source plugin. The user can choose to not use the proprietary plugin, but by doing so, as the interesting functionality are implemented in the close-source plugin, the user is left with nothing more that a wrapper, which doesn't have much useful. (expecting the existence of the plugins with source available) Repeating the IANAL, i don't know if the LGPL license allow or not allows this case. But. We should not exit the context of why this new cedarx library came to existence. As the license issues of the older cedarx library were so out of proportion, that the only way to resolve them, was to accept a rewrite of a new cedarx library with equal functionally. After all of this, to get this new cedarx library with uses proprietary close-source plugins, only appears to be a way that allwinner is using to escape their responsibilities. And this behaviour is not acceptable, and should be spoken out. As Allwinner itself wrote: Allwinner is joining the Linux Foundation to support Linux and to improve what we see as two important open source software development capabilities: collaboration and compliance, Regards Henrik -- 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] Further Allwinner misbehaviour.
fre 2015-06-26 klockan 01:12 +1000 skrev Julian Calaby: It's obvious what is required: 1. Datasheets 2. Programming manuals 3. GPL compliant drivers 4. (L)GPL compliant userspace stuff and maybe 5. Some on-going contribution to the community And 6. That community uses and improves the free alternatives developed by the community instead of encouraging further bad actions in paths that is unlikely to ever result in anything meeting the broad community goals. They have #1 and #2 but aren't bothering to release them to us. I honestly do not believe they have any better manuals or datasheets than released. They have tons of other internal information (notes, CPU source code, talking with the person who wrote the CPU parts, etc) I believe most of the documentation we have has been obtained through third parties. In past yes kind of.. but now we have https://github.com/allwinner-zh/documents/ #3 is almost happening, but with just about every code release, there's something in there violating the licence. Community have also come very far in making clean GPL drivers for most components, including CedarX. We're arguing over their lack of ability on #4 and their employees (with the possible exception of Kevin, who pops up every so often to announce something) are absent from the community. This isn't hard, there are thousands of companies doing it. No, we are arguing over AW repeatedly doing the same licensing mistakes. Absense from the community is not strange. From a community perspective it would be very desireable that AW employees were more active in the community, but I fully understand that this is not an easy task to accomplish. Most AW employees have access to internal information, and likely bound by restrictions in both contract and cultural difference. 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] Further Allwinner misbehaviour.
tor 2015-06-25 klockan 12:13 +0200 skrev Luc Verhaegen: The bad copyright headers is just stupidity. The direct loading of non-LGPLed binaries into LGPLed code is very deliberate. And to my best understanding is not in any way a violation of the LGPL license. Care to explain what I am missing? (ignoring any past state of these files) If the code had been GPL licensed then sure. But this is LGPL with it's implicit linking exception. 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] Further Allwinner misbehaviour.
Hi Henrik, On Mon, Jun 29, 2015 at 10:33 AM, Henrik Nordström hen...@henriknordstrom.net wrote: fre 2015-06-26 klockan 01:12 +1000 skrev Julian Calaby: It's obvious what is required: 1. Datasheets 2. Programming manuals 3. GPL compliant drivers 4. (L)GPL compliant userspace stuff and maybe 5. Some on-going contribution to the community And 6. That community uses and improves the free alternatives developed by the community instead of encouraging further bad actions in paths that is unlikely to ever result in anything meeting the broad community goals. They have #1 and #2 but aren't bothering to release them to us. I honestly do not believe they have any better manuals or datasheets than released. They have tons of other internal information (notes, CPU source code, talking with the person who wrote the CPU parts, etc) I'd actually forgotten about their documentation github repository when I wrote this, so I retract this point. They've gotten much better at releasing documentation. I believe the only thing they haven't directly released is documentation for the R8. I believe most of the documentation we have has been obtained through third parties. In past yes kind of.. but now we have https://github.com/allwinner-zh/documents/ Which had slipped my mind. Sigh. #3 is almost happening, but with just about every code release, there's something in there violating the licence. Community have also come very far in making clean GPL drivers for most components, including CedarX. Oh, definitely. Cedarus appears to be as complete, if not more complete than their official drivers. The mainline drivers I've seen appear to be better than what Allwinner produces in almost every way. My point here is that this is due to the community's efforts, not Allwinner's. We're arguing over their lack of ability on #4 and their employees (with the possible exception of Kevin, who pops up every so often to announce something) are absent from the community. This isn't hard, there are thousands of companies doing it. No, we are arguing over AW repeatedly doing the same licensing mistakes. Which makes the stuff they release not (L)GPL compliant. As I see it, this is the same thing, just stated differently, but then I take an absolutist view on licence compliance. Absense from the community is not strange. From a community perspective it would be very desireable that AW employees were more active in the community, but I fully understand that this is not an easy task to accomplish. Most AW employees have access to internal information, and likely bound by restrictions in both contract and cultural difference. I understand that it's difficult, however a lot of companies have succeeded in this. My knowledge of this is mostly from the WiFi subsystem where the entire community is (for the most part) lead by people employed by Intel, Qualcomm and Broadcom. Yes, they are huge companies and Allwinner is tiny in comparison, but I'm not expecting them to run our community here, all I'm hoping for someone who'll essentially be a gateway between Allwinner corporate and us. Even if they just pass out documentation, snippets of code and answer technical questions promptly, (or if they can't answer them, explain why) that'll be enough. Kevin appears to be doing most of that, but he's not very active. 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] Further Allwinner misbehaviour.
Hey buddy, This issue has been fixed in the repo, so please don’t using aggressive words in regards of this issue. It’s just mean to reply to their action with “nothing more than Software Pirates”. They did actually wrote those code by themselves, and give them out for free, and it’s no under restriction of GPL since they are not apart of the original program but modules. See https://github.com/allwinner-zh/media-codec/commit/a912bbe300d522e199001bd903bab22e54eff37b https://github.com/allwinner-zh/media-codec/commit/a912bbe300d522e199001bd903bab22e54eff37b . I think Allwinner needs more encouragement than criticism now, as they are doing some actual good works here. I also think this whole drama was just a mistake made by Allwinner during the open sourcing process, as all those files states that they were written from 2008, and I’m guessing that they just forgot to change a few files’ header before they submit the code. Honestly Chinese companies does not care about licensing, they only care if they should open source the code, once it is open source, they won’t think of licensing because licensing of source code means not much in China. Sure there are more works to be resolved, but they are in action, and wish them the best. Clement On Jun 27, 2015, at 7:09 PM, rcm...@gmail.com wrote: On Monday, June 22, 2015 at 3:19:54 PM UTC+3, Luc Verhaegen wrote: Hi, 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 releasing some code which moves decoder codecs into modules, and by releasing some codecs as open source as well. As i predicted then, 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. 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. 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. 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... Allwinner has some explaining to do (as does Next Thing Co, to a lesser extent). Luc Verhaegen. == OFFTOPIC: == It is obvious after all this years that Allwinner are nothing more than Software Pirates. Years ago I was very naive hoping that the rise of these Chinese ARM chip manufacturers would prevent Intel from taking over the embedded industry also. But because of their unlimited level of incompetency, unfortunately Intel has already won even before the war has started. You can't really expect a company with a thieves mindset to get the big picture and make smart decisions they are always looking to make a quick buck. -- 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 mailto:linux-sunxi+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout 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] Further Allwinner misbehaviour.
From: allwinner-zh notificati...@github.com Date: 26 June 2015 08:00:21 CEST To: allwinner-zh/media-codec media-co...@noreply.github.com Subject: Re: [media-codec] Unsuitable copyright text in some source code files (#8) Reply-To: allwinner-zh/media-codec reply+002e3f92e1b2be6b9fa6e059976cde198b80b04e41a5c0e592cf000111a4ac7592a169ce0568e...@reply.github.com Thank you very much for your constructive suggestion, it has been fixed. — Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub. Clement On 25 Jun 2015, at 17:12, Julian Calaby julian.cal...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Simos, On Thu, Jun 25, 2015 at 7:56 PM, 'Simos Xenitellis' via linux-sunxi linux-sunxi@googlegroups.com wrote: Let's dissect. Yes, let's dissect. On Wed, Jun 24, 2015 at 11:56 PM, Andrés Domínguez andres...@gmail.com wrote: 2015-06-24 21:25 GMT+02:00 Simos Xenitellis simos.li...@googlemail.com: If something needs to get fixed in those repositories (https://github.com/allwinner-zh/), point it out constructively. Sorry, I didn't make the infringement statement and I don't know about it, but knowing about allwinner's past behavior and libv it's clear that it has some credibility. Here you say it's clear for a reference to _past behaviour_, while a more appropriate wording would be I assume. You *assume* it has some credibility. Allwinner's past behaviour is very clear. They release stuff without checking that it complies with the license they release it under then appear to ignore it (or at least don't communicate) when the community, us, rightly complains. As for libv, arguably he's just the messenger here, the person who shouts the loudest about this. The fact that he keeps shouting this message when things don't change is commendable. And you know what, he's right: GPL violations are serious business and ignoring them is simply not a viable strategy for anyone involved. Luc has been consistently right on this subject from the very beginning, that's credibility. You also use the term past behavior, which is a term that probably means a different thing to each recipient of these emails. It is not constructive to use such terms; in those TV shows that depict family problems, you get to see family members picking on each other for things that happened in the past, remaining stuck perpetually for that other thing in the past. I outlined the behaviour I, and a lot of other people, perceive from companies like Allwinner in my previous email. Again, it's very clear. Are you saying that we shouldn't argue about serious legal issues because they happened in the past? Yet you attack Luc for the things he's done in the past. What exactly are you trying to argue here? So maybe you're trying to argue that we should focus less on the past and more on the future. Focusing less on the past isn't going to happen. These are, again, serious legal issues, they're not going to just go away. As for focusing on the future, we've made it very clear what we want from Allwinner: (L)GPL compliant code to replace the binary blobs they keep releasing. Very simple. What I criticized was your non constructive attitude with libv just because you don't like their way to say things, instead of explaining why do you think that you are right and others are wrong. My point has been that if there are things in the repository that should be fixed, then point them out and explain them. This isn't just about some little changes in a repository. This is about a systematic company practice of violating the licence agreements the software their continued existence is built on. As far as I know, every single SoC they've produced since the A10 has had GPL issues. _Every_ one. There's a saying: Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action. We've seen this happen for ~9 different products. This is not a coincidence any more. And no, saying that header files are easy to fix (it seems that you don't understand that changing license text is not enough, but also fulfilling with the LGPL conditions, like releasing source code) don't matter in this topic. About Such cases occur frequently with many companies (I doubt it) is sad if true. Let's see a recent case. It's about the MediaTek kernel for the bq E4.5 phone Ubuntu Edition, and the post was written by Carsten Munk, http://mer-project.blogspot.gr/2015/03/some-doubts-about-gpl-licensing-and-bq.html Phoronix covered it with style, https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_itempx=BQ-Ubuntu-Phone-Bad-Kernel It was about header files and here is the commit that fixed it, https://github.com/bq/aquaris-E4.5/commit/34cf494bca625acad06274c3cba10aca148813c0 You're missing the forest for the trees: the point is that code with proprietary licenses shouldn't have been released in the first place. It might be easy to change, the point was that the change didn't happen before
Re: [linux-sunxi] Further Allwinner misbehaviour.
Hello, On 25 June 2015 at 11:56, 'Simos Xenitellis' via linux-sunxi linux-sunxi@googlegroups.com wrote: The way I see the whole situation is this: It is true that Allwinner did not make effort over the years for mainline Linux kernel support. Whatever support is there for the A10, A13, A20, etc, is the result of the hard work of this community. Working on mainline support is initially expensive in terms of resources but builds an ecosystem and opens up markets. It makes business sense. As a community, we need to figure out what we need from Allwinner. Do we need specific SoC information so that we do the mainline effort on our own? And among all things that can be asked, we prioritize to those that are really needed at the moment. Do we need Allwinner to fund some developers so that they work full-time on this? We would need to start talking about goals and targets. The goal in general is to get enough information and/or opensource properly licensed code to run GNU/Linux and *BSD on the allwinner SoCs with full feature support on current and future versions of these systems. Given that we have reverse-engineered documentation for Cedar there is really not much technical benefit in Allwinner releasing the Cedar driver source with proper licensing so it can be reused as-is. It might be mere convenience to reuse some of the code. On the other hand, given the documentation exists there is little reason for Allwinner to pretend there are secrets protected by not releasing the code. There is also legal obligation to release the source of the binaries of ffmepg which is (L)GPL even after adding the proprietary bits. That said the ffmpeg author(s) do not seem to press the legal issue. Overall the Cedar discussion is pretty much pointless. It only restarts for no good when somebody (from Allwinner or otherwise) points at the repo and says Look, allwinner released the Cedar sources and then there is half of the implementation or binary blob. So to say it clearly: To fulfill the legal obligations to the letter allwinner has to release the full source under (L)GPL compatible license of all the Cedar codec binaries it released in the past since it has been pointed out that these binaries contain substantial portions of ffmpeg which is (L)GPL licensed. Using (L)GPL code brings this obligation. To fulfill the obligation in spirit without possibly infringing on license of some third party proprietary modules linked into said ffmpeg binaries Allwinner could release an alternative fully opensource and (L)GPL compatible codec implementing all the features of those binaries. Given that this isn't really needed for the goal of getting full support for Allwinner SoCs I personally do not really care if such thing happens or not. It might change for future revisions of the codec with new features, though. 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] Further Allwinner misbehaviour.
Let's dissect. On Wed, Jun 24, 2015 at 11:56 PM, Andrés Domínguez andres...@gmail.com wrote: 2015-06-24 21:25 GMT+02:00 Simos Xenitellis simos.li...@googlemail.com: If something needs to get fixed in those repositories (https://github.com/allwinner-zh/), point it out constructively. Sorry, I didn't make the infringement statement and I don't know about it, but knowing about allwinner's past behavior and libv it's clear that it has some credibility. Here you say it's clear for a reference to _past behaviour_, while a more appropriate wording would be I assume. You *assume* it has some credibility. You also use the term past behavior, which is a term that probably means a different thing to each recipient of these emails. It is not constructive to use such terms; in those TV shows that depict family problems, you get to see family members picking on each other for things that happened in the past, remaining stuck perpetually for that other thing in the past. What I criticized was your non constructive attitude with libv just because you don't like their way to say things, instead of explaining why do you think that you are right and others are wrong. My point has been that if there are things in the repository that should be fixed, then point them out and explain them. And no, saying that header files are easy to fix (it seems that you don't understand that changing license text is not enough, but also fulfilling with the LGPL conditions, like releasing source code) don't matter in this topic. About Such cases occur frequently with many companies (I doubt it) is sad if true. Let's see a recent case. It's about the MediaTek kernel for the bq E4.5 phone Ubuntu Edition, and the post was written by Carsten Munk, http://mer-project.blogspot.gr/2015/03/some-doubts-about-gpl-licensing-and-bq.html Phoronix covered it with style, https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_itempx=BQ-Ubuntu-Phone-Bad-Kernel It was about header files and here is the commit that fixed it, https://github.com/bq/aquaris-E4.5/commit/34cf494bca625acad06274c3cba10aca148813c0 The way I see the whole situation is this: It is true that Allwinner did not make effort over the years for mainline Linux kernel support. Whatever support is there for the A10, A13, A20, etc, is the result of the hard work of this community. Working on mainline support is initially expensive in terms of resources but builds an ecosystem and opens up markets. It makes business sense. As a community, we need to figure out what we need from Allwinner. Do we need specific SoC information so that we do the mainline effort on our own? And among all things that can be asked, we prioritize to those that are really needed at the moment. Do we need Allwinner to fund some developers so that they work full-time on this? We would need to start talking about goals and targets. 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] Further Allwinner misbehaviour.
On Thu, Jun 25, 2015 at 12:56:37PM +0300, 'Simos Xenitellis' via linux-sunxi wrote: My point has been that if there are things in the repository that should be fixed, then point them out and explain them. The bad copyright headers is just stupidity. The direct loading of non-LGPLed binaries into LGPLed code is very deliberate. We could very well push for a full and complete release of the original code, and get Allwinner in even more legal trouble with other parties. Or, and this is, or was if allwinner keeps this bullshit up, clearly what i was aiming for, Allwinner plays nice and releases _everything_ in freshly written code which does not violate the IP/copyright of non-open source participants. Allwinner clearly does not want to go there, so perhaps we should go do what we legally can do. The way I see the whole situation is this: It is true that Allwinner did not make effort over the years for mainline Linux kernel support. Whatever support is there for the A10, A13, A20, etc, is the result of the hard work of this community. Working on mainline support is initially expensive in terms of resources but builds an ecosystem and opens up markets. It makes business sense. As a community, we need to figure out what we need from Allwinner. Do we need specific SoC information so that we do the mainline effort on our own? And among all things that can be asked, we prioritize to those that are really needed at the moment. Do we need Allwinner to fund some developers so that they work full-time on this? We would need to start talking about goals and targets. Stop it, you are just stalling. Allwinner knows what we want, but it very clearly does not want to give it. Let me quote a recent comment on phoronix: But to find people accusing phoronix of copy-paste journalism (which as far as I know would be no crime) and at the same time justifying a multimillion company for taking the work of others and infringing the law is astonishing. So big companies must be prompty excused and gently persuaded that obeying the law is good for them so that they maybe can find a way to further their profits even without selling other people's (companies and volunteers) works without their consent, but a website must be required to excel in journalistic fact-checking and never blow the whistle? What's next ? Are they going to arrest me for public disorder if I cry thief! at someone running away with my wallet ? Someone which of course has a different enterpreneurship culture, faces neck-breaking competition and tries hard to improve best practices in his pickpocketing cutting edge innovation, so should be invited to tea in a cozy lobby at his earliest convenience and nicely begged (again) asking to maybe please return the wallet or at least some documents there when he can spare a little moment and kindly get his busy fingers to it. Simos, you are not in any way credible. You very one-sidedly chose Allwinners side, and have always downplayed allwinners legal obligations. Whatever Allwinner has promised you or is paying you, it is being wasted, as very few people take you seriously. You are noise, and are wasting a lot of our time in the process, and on top of that giving Allwinner false ideas of what they could potentially get away with. 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] Further Allwinner misbehaviour.
Hi Simos, On Thu, Jun 25, 2015 at 7:56 PM, 'Simos Xenitellis' via linux-sunxi linux-sunxi@googlegroups.com wrote: Let's dissect. Yes, let's dissect. On Wed, Jun 24, 2015 at 11:56 PM, Andrés Domínguez andres...@gmail.com wrote: 2015-06-24 21:25 GMT+02:00 Simos Xenitellis simos.li...@googlemail.com: If something needs to get fixed in those repositories (https://github.com/allwinner-zh/), point it out constructively. Sorry, I didn't make the infringement statement and I don't know about it, but knowing about allwinner's past behavior and libv it's clear that it has some credibility. Here you say it's clear for a reference to _past behaviour_, while a more appropriate wording would be I assume. You *assume* it has some credibility. Allwinner's past behaviour is very clear. They release stuff without checking that it complies with the license they release it under then appear to ignore it (or at least don't communicate) when the community, us, rightly complains. As for libv, arguably he's just the messenger here, the person who shouts the loudest about this. The fact that he keeps shouting this message when things don't change is commendable. And you know what, he's right: GPL violations are serious business and ignoring them is simply not a viable strategy for anyone involved. Luc has been consistently right on this subject from the very beginning, that's credibility. You also use the term past behavior, which is a term that probably means a different thing to each recipient of these emails. It is not constructive to use such terms; in those TV shows that depict family problems, you get to see family members picking on each other for things that happened in the past, remaining stuck perpetually for that other thing in the past. I outlined the behaviour I, and a lot of other people, perceive from companies like Allwinner in my previous email. Again, it's very clear. Are you saying that we shouldn't argue about serious legal issues because they happened in the past? Yet you attack Luc for the things he's done in the past. What exactly are you trying to argue here? So maybe you're trying to argue that we should focus less on the past and more on the future. Focusing less on the past isn't going to happen. These are, again, serious legal issues, they're not going to just go away. As for focusing on the future, we've made it very clear what we want from Allwinner: (L)GPL compliant code to replace the binary blobs they keep releasing. Very simple. What I criticized was your non constructive attitude with libv just because you don't like their way to say things, instead of explaining why do you think that you are right and others are wrong. My point has been that if there are things in the repository that should be fixed, then point them out and explain them. This isn't just about some little changes in a repository. This is about a systematic company practice of violating the licence agreements the software their continued existence is built on. As far as I know, every single SoC they've produced since the A10 has had GPL issues. _Every_ one. There's a saying: Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action. We've seen this happen for ~9 different products. This is not a coincidence any more. And no, saying that header files are easy to fix (it seems that you don't understand that changing license text is not enough, but also fulfilling with the LGPL conditions, like releasing source code) don't matter in this topic. About Such cases occur frequently with many companies (I doubt it) is sad if true. Let's see a recent case. It's about the MediaTek kernel for the bq E4.5 phone Ubuntu Edition, and the post was written by Carsten Munk, http://mer-project.blogspot.gr/2015/03/some-doubts-about-gpl-licensing-and-bq.html Phoronix covered it with style, https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_itempx=BQ-Ubuntu-Phone-Bad-Kernel It was about header files and here is the commit that fixed it, https://github.com/bq/aquaris-E4.5/commit/34cf494bca625acad06274c3cba10aca148813c0 You're missing the forest for the trees: the point is that code with proprietary licenses shouldn't have been released in the first place. It might be easy to change, the point was that the change didn't happen before it left their hands. In the case of the BQ Ubuntu phone issue, a company released thousands of lines of code and got a couple of bits wrong. In our case we're looking at a source release that touched 29 files. 9 were added with unusable headers: that's 1/3 of the files they touched and almost 70% of the code they released. This sort of thing doesn't happen by accident. This was deliberate. Also, it was almost a week ago, if it's such a small change, why hasn't it been made? The way I see the whole situation is this: It is true that Allwinner did not make effort over the years for mainline Linux kernel support. Whatever support is there
Re: [linux-sunxi] Further Allwinner misbehaviour.
2015-06-24 21:25 GMT+02:00 Simos Xenitellis simos.li...@googlemail.com: If something needs to get fixed in those repositories (https://github.com/allwinner-zh/), point it out constructively. Sorry, I didn't make the infringement statement and I don't know about it, but knowing about allwinner's past behavior and libv it's clear that it has some credibility. What I criticized was your non constructive attitude with libv just because you don't like their way to say things, instead of explaining why do you think that you are right and others are wrong. And no, saying that header files are easy to fix (it seems that you don't understand that changing license text is not enough, but also fulfilling with the LGPL conditions, like releasing source code) don't matter in this topic. About Such cases occur frequently with many companies (I doubt it) is sad if true. Andrés -- 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] Further Allwinner misbehaviour.
On Wed, Jun 24, 2015 at 12:57 PM, andres...@gmail.com wrote: On Monday, June 22, 2015 at 5:45:38 PM UTC+2, Jon Smirl wrote: 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 know the benefits of open source, they are making tons of money thanks to linux, android or gcc. Now that Allwinner went public a few weeks ago, we can see that they are running at break-even to a small loss. That's not making tons of money. The benefit to us is sub-$5 chips when many other vendors charge $25-80 for similar chips. Having said that, they did raise $100M in the IPO so they have enough money now to increase their level of Linaro membership and hire a company or consultants to get their kernel mainlined for all CPUs. Andrés -- 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.
Re: [linux-sunxi] Further Allwinner misbehaviour.
On Monday, June 22, 2015 at 5:45:38 PM UTC+2, Jon Smirl wrote: 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 know the benefits of open source, they are making tons of money thanks to linux, android or gcc. Andrés -- 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] Further Allwinner misbehaviour.
On Monday, June 22, 2015 at 3:29:18 PM UTC+2, Simos Xenitellis wrote: Hi, This is another 'Luc drama' installment We are talking about licence infringement, but you talk as if the crime were how a guy with lack of social intelligence writes an email. Wow, I'm very surprised by your moral principles. , 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? Your email is more melodramatic than Luc's, you got it! From there your email didn't even got sense. Andrés -- 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] Further Allwinner misbehaviour.
On Wed, Jun 24, 2015 at 10:25:16PM +0300, 'Simos Xenitellis' via linux-sunxi wrote: On Wed, Jun 24, 2015 at 7:51 PM, andres...@gmail.com wrote: If something needs to get fixed in those repositories (https://github.com/allwinner-zh/), point it out constructively. It is constructive to pinpoint the list of files that need changing, as in https://github.com/allwinner-zh/media-codec/issues/8 Simos Ben and Kevin had been told in the region of a dozen times that all those files needed to be LGPLed. There has been no excuse for misunderstanding this. Their lack of comprehension is very deliberate, and can only be understood as deceipt. And that is how i understand you as well. 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] Further Allwinner misbehaviour.
On Wed, Jun 24, 2015 at 7:51 PM, andres...@gmail.com wrote: On Monday, June 22, 2015 at 3:29:18 PM UTC+2, Simos Xenitellis wrote: Hi, This is another 'Luc drama' installment We are talking about licence infringement, but you talk as if the crime were how a guy with lack of social intelligence writes an email. Wow, I'm very surprised by your moral principles. If something needs to get fixed in those repositories (https://github.com/allwinner-zh/), point it out constructively. It is constructive to pinpoint the list of files that need changing, as in https://github.com/allwinner-zh/media-codec/issues/8 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] Further Allwinner misbehaviour.
Guys, I think Jon is just saying how all hardware (and hardware + software) companies think, not just for AW, same apply to Nvidia, AMD, Apple, etc. So there isn’t really much we should troll here. I personally believe AW has valid reason internally why not to open source directly but taking time to open up piece by piece, as reviewing code to make sure it is not violating copyrights is a huge task even for us a western company. Therefore I believe and encourage AW taking action to this license issue, and keep improving the driver, although it takes time. I hope there would be a day that all hardware companies will work with mainline kernel community in order to compete, but for now we’ll need to be shaking hands and keep encouraging each others, instead of throwing shit. Big thanks to all that concerns. Clement On Jun 22, 2015, at 7:59 PM, Manuel Braga mul.br...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, 22 Jun 2015 12:07:24 -0400 jonsm...@gmail.com jonsm...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Jun 22, 2015 at 11:54 AM, Rodrigo Pereira rodrigo2kpere...@gmail.com wrote: I don't understand any advantages of put a device driver code in secret. Someone can explain the advantage of a secret device driver? Maybe is about money. They want to license the code to some company and charge money for that. In case I want to buy the source code, how much this will cost? There are many reasons for keeping device drivers code secret... I am answering, not to oppose this points, but because i believe that this answer should be complemented in the context of allwinner's video engine. That has been in the focus of this discussions. So here goes. 1) You believe you have an innovative hardware implementation and are protecting it via trade secret. Releasing the driver source code will provide register definitions and an understanding of how the hardware works. Competitors will see this and copy your hardware. Register definitions, which in large part have been already Reverse Engineered by the people involved in the Cedrus effort, that had started 2 years ago and which results can be seen in the wiki for everyone that wants to see. http://linux-sunxi.org/VE_Register_guide What little is still missing is only a question of priorities and needs, because as everyone can see, this information was and is more than enough for the creation of a working vdpau implementation. http://linux-sunxi.org/Cedrus https://github.com/linux-sunxi/libvdpau-sunxi There is nothing to hide. 2) Your hardware implementation is violating patents or you are afraid that people will sue you for patent infringement even when you aren't. Closed source makes it much hard for trolls to launch a patent suit. This patent trolls will not be very successful if they can be stopped by close source software, or are the patent trolls too greed to paid someone to look for targets. This video engine was already successful reverse engineered, where it was found that this video engine hardware is of fixed-function-kind. Meaning that everything (the codec) are done by the hardware in the silicon die. The software driver task in only one of feeding the hardware. All the secrets or patenta are in the hardware, and not in the software. 3) You have licensed third party code for use in your device driver and you don't have the ability to open source. The third party that wrote this code wants to sell it multiple times so they refuse to open source. Common example -- lighting or physic engines in GPU drivers. Then here, the solution is to rewrite what can not be open-sourced, and as this video engine is very simples, this is not difficult task. As can be seen, by the current cedarx driver, which is a rewrite. 4) You are afraid competitors with similar hardware will take the source you have worked hard to write, modify a few lines, and have a free driver for their hardware. Free, like taking the linux kernel source and the android kernel source, and modify to add support for the some particular socs. Or by taking some LGPL license source code and include in a video engine driver. 5) Your hardware is really messed up and almost broken. These warts are embarrassing and you hide the work arounds in closed source. Actually, this video engine is not bad. It has some (hardware) limitations, but this has been improving in newer versions, and up to now, i only found one undefined (maybe better to say unexpected because should not happen in normal use) This to say, that this video engine hardware is very well behaved, whatever can be writing to registers or whatever state the hardware get into, can always be recovered from. 6) You licensed the IP for the hardware. As part of the IP licensing agreement you are required to keep the register definitions closed. Register definitions that are already here, http://linux-sunxi.org/VE_Register_guide which everyone can see, that
Re: [linux-sunxi] Further Allwinner misbehaviour.
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
Re: [linux-sunxi] Further Allwinner misbehaviour.
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
[linux-sunxi] Further Allwinner misbehaviour.
Hi, 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 releasing some code which moves decoder codecs into modules, and by releasing some codecs as open source as well. As i predicted then, 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. 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. 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. 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... Allwinner has some explaining to do (as does Next Thing Co, to a lesser extent). 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] Further Allwinner misbehaviour.
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? 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 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. 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 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. 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. 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. 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] Further Allwinner misbehaviour.
On Mon, Jun 22, 2015 at 04:28:56PM +0300, 'Simos Xenitellis' via linux-sunxi 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? 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 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. 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 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. 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. 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. Simos You can stop attempting to justify Allwinners' (and their partners') actions now, it's simply no longer credible. 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.
