Allwinner Continues Jerking Around The Open-Source Community

[caligula]

So the act of writing and freely licensing software is not enough; it requires more charity and yet more lawyers in order to enforce it.

If enforcement is anything less than total, you're giving a commercial advantage to bad people and cheats, whilst prevent some amount of nice folks from using your code in some ways. I believe if useful code was put out into the world without legal restrictions we might be able to move onto more important issues. I'll agree to disagree with anyone on this.

If the original code was BSD or MIT there would be no drama. Only best tech would win.

[caligula]

Thousands 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.

In court basically the one with best lawyers, that is more money almost always wins. At least in US.

[duby229]

If the original code was BSD or MIT there would be no drama. Only best tech would win.

That's the problem GPL supporters have with those licenses. They justify theft.

[stevenc]

That's the problem GPL supporters have with those licenses. They justify theft.

It's only 'theft' in the same way that 'copyright theft' is a thing. You don't have any less of it because someone else copied it. But I think it will inevitably happen anyway., and I'd prefer not waste resources by fighting this with lawyers, and just let the software be maximally useful.

[anda_skoa]

If the original code was BSD or MIT there would be no drama. Only best tech would win.

Right?
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,
_

[droidhacker]

Why 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.

Just to add a bit to this; there ALREADY ARE bans on imports for certain items. For example, certain vehicles made in China that don't meet North American emission requirements. For example, we were looking to buy a Jinma 164Y 4WD tractor for light yard work and pulling trailers around. Can't import the 164Y because the engine doesn't meet EPA. We already HAVE imported a Jinma 284, which *does* meet EPA (its a much larger tractor, hence the attempt at obtaining the smaller 164).

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.

[droidhacker]

Um GPL *is* a communist license

Just stop right there. This statement is absurd.
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.

[droidhacker]

If the original code was BSD or MIT there would be no drama. Only best tech would win.

Ever wonder why code that is under BSD or MIT tends to stagnate?
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.

[droidhacker]

In court basically the one with best lawyers, that is more money almost always wins. At least in US.

Sometimes. The problem with this view is that it is really not a universal truth. There are lots of examples in the public memory of court working in this manner, but much less visible in the public eye, are the hundreds of thousands of small cases that actually work out in favor of the little guy who was wronged by the big bad corporation with teams of lawyers. Usually, these settle out of court, because its cheaper to buy out the little guy than to fight him, even if he is a law hack and self represents.

I *usually* represent myself in court.

I've *never* lost.

[droidhacker]

That's the problem GPL supporters have with those licenses. They justify theft.

I don't think the problem is so much that they justify theft, since they don't. You can't steal what you are given for free.
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.