Originally posted by stevenc
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Allwinner Continues Jerking Around The Open-Source Community
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Originally posted by chrisb View PostThousands of copyright cases have been won by non-corporate-monopoly people. It's not that hard - your copyright gets infringed, you go to court and show it, you win. But you might need to pay for a lawyer.
The general lack of enforcement when open source software is pirated is due to:
- Infringement is often outside the jurisdiction of the author's national courts
- Authors of open source works are nicer/less profit motivated than for-profit corporate entities. They generally first highlight compliance issues rather than suing. The stated aim of every notable open source enforcement group has been to bring infringers into compliance - not to make money. e.g. The Software Freedom Conservancy only ask for the costs that they incur helping the infringer become compliant - there is no "$millions of penalties x Triple damage awards" as would be the norm for a corporate entity.
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Originally posted by duby229 View PostThat's the problem GPL supporters have with those licenses. They justify theft.
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Originally posted by caligula View PostIf the original code was BSD or MIT there would be no drama. Only best tech would win.
I always find it strange that these companies don't go for the obviously painless solution.
It is almost like there are no BSD or MIT licensed equivalents to the GPL/LGPL licensed code they are infringing on.
Cheers,
_
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Originally posted by Nille View PostWhy from china? we talk only about chips. Its not to hard to ban affected chips from from the import. If they cant sell the chips in the EU or US, i bet they change there minds.
This is an example of how products can be blocked from import on a case by case basis. No need to ban everything from the country... or even everything from that manufacturer.
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Originally posted by caligula View PostUm GPL *is* a communist license
There is nothing communist about the *copyright holder* SELLING their work for others to use, with the COST of sending back the improvements made to the code.
This is a business transaction that is profitable to the copyright holder.
The definition of 'profit' does not limit it to government issued (communist) money.
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Originally posted by caligula View PostIf the original code was BSD or MIT there would be no drama. Only best tech would win.
Its because they aren't viable licenses. Because there is no COST to using code that is under them.
The only viable licenses are ones that have some kind of cost associated with them. Either you PAY MONEY for the code, this allows the copyright holder to continue working on and improving the code, OR you pay for it by working on the code YOURSELF, which ALSO improves the code.
BSD and MIT code can only work like a GPL or $$ license in a communist political system, where everything is state owned no matter how you look at it.
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Originally posted by caligula View PostIn court basically the one with best lawyers, that is more money almost always wins. At least in US.
I *usually* represent myself in court.
I've *never* lost.
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Originally posted by duby229 View PostThat's the problem GPL supporters have with those licenses. They justify theft.
The problem is that not all "open source" licenses are the same. GPL is a lot more complicated than MIT or BSD. So when you can't really read engrish, but you have this notion that "open source stuff is free for everyone to use", then you end up with this problem where someone is making assumptions about something that turn out to be untrue. Then you have some outfit like allwinner, who probably doesn't *UNDERSTAND* GPL, and starts mixing in and shipping proprietary shit that is *entirely* incompatible with the GPL, BEFORE learning what the GPL really is.... and ending up in a situation where they technically owe the proprietary code that they DON'T own, under GPL license.
Allwinner screwed up massively. They are probably FREAKING out over this GPL violation. They have a pile of code that they CAN'T release, that they MUST release, and its too late to fix the problem because the code has already shipped.
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