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HTC Willfully Violates the GPL in T-Mobile's New G2 Android Phone
- jrockway 16y agoBlog posts do not help. Take them to court.
- hartror 16y ago"within 90 to 120 days" Maybe this tactic has something to do with product life cycle though I can't think what. Surely a phone has a longer shelf life than 3 months . .
- tumult 16y agoLately, the window of time for which a new Android phone remains the new hotness is one or two weeks. Sometimes no time at all, as a better phone will be released before another has even made it to market.
- codedivine 16y agoWell it may not necessarily be malicious. Maybe the developers responsible for say preparing the source tarball properly have just been given a lot of other pressing work.
- doki_pen 16y agoThere is no preparing. They don't own the code. They need to release it in exactly the same state it was in when deployed as binary. Otherwise, they are violating copyright (often referred to as pirates). That said, I'm almost certain that the linux kernel is released under a modified form of the GPL, or at least Linus refuses to enforce parts of the GPL. Binary modules and blobs are a clear violation of GPL, but they exist in the Linux kernel to a great extent. There has been some fighting over the issue in the past. At any rate, I know that Linus is not as adamant about freedom as RMS. He's using the GPL as a tool and not a principal. There was the whole Tivo-ization argument, where Linus supported the hardware manufacturer and RMS released GPLv3 explicitly forbidding that type of stuff.
- doki_pen 16y agoApparently it is a plain GPL, but it is not enforced. I don't know if HTC has modules in the kernel that aren't specifically written for the Linux kernel, but I would find that hard to believe. I'd be very surprised if it was enforced in the circumstance. http://kerneltrap.org/node/1735 http://kerneltrap.org/node/1735
- kelnos 16y agoThat said, I'm almost certain that the linux kernel is released under a modified form of the GPL... Nope, it's standard stock GPLv2-only. There's a clarification included in the COPYING file that reminds people that userspace binaries that use the documented system call interface are not considered derived works, but that's not a modification of the license; it's just included for clarity reasons. or at least Linus refuses to enforce parts of the GPL. Not entirely. He's stated that he doesn't believe that a kernel module is automatically a derived work of the kernel. For example, he's of the opinion that the nvidia binary driver is not a derived work of Linux because the driver core was first designed and written for a completely different OS. Regardless, Linus Torvalds is not the last word on this: just about any kernel contributor with copyright ownership could file suit. There is no preparing. They don't own the code. They need to release it in exactly the same state it was in when deployed as binary. Otherwise, they are violating copyright (often referred to as pirates). Exactly.
- duncan_bayne 16y agoCall them, and demand that your complaint be escalated. Call back daily until this is fixed. Unlike emails which can be disregarded phone calls cost money to process. This means that the FOSS community can impose a financial cost on non-compliance without going through the courts. I just got off the phone to HTC Australia, and apparently they'll be getting in touch. If everyone did that ...
- jackolas 16y agoJust bring legal action or ask the SLFC to investigate.
- weego 16y agoIn the UK at least you are looked on far more favourably in the event that something does go to court if you have a paper trail of having made reasonable efforts to find a solution prior to going the legal route.
- revjx 16y ago"Just bring legal action" - sadly, for most people, 'just bringing legal action' is not quite as simple as you make it sound. Not least in terms of expense.
- bdonlan 16y agoOnly a copyright holder can bring legal action in this case. If you're just a customer, you can't bring action by yourself, as you're not a party to the violation or license agreement between HTC and the copyright holder(s).
- masklinn 16y agoWhich is surprising how? Android's aim has always been to be open for manufacturers and providers. The user-wise openness is an implementation detail and may or may not be there. And the more time passes, the better manufacturers and carriers get acquainted with the platform, the least common Android devices will be open as far as the user is concerned.
- wazoox 16y ago> The user-wise openness is an implementation detail and may or may not be there. This is not an implementation detail for the GPL.
- Osiris 16y agoWhat I don't understand is why phone manufactures are even worried about rooting. If it's about service and warranty, they can simply make it clear that replacing the OS voids the warranty and they won't provide service for the phone. Besides warranty and service costs, what else are they so worried about that they feel it necessary to add these protection measures? Surely the percent of customers that root/mod a phone is so small that it's not worth the man-power and engineering to try to "fix" the problem. It seems there must be some other concern they are trying to resolve that escapes me.
- roel_v 16y agoI guess it's because virus writers also to try to root the devices to install rootkits. I'm quite in favor of requiring hardware mods (although I'd prefer a jumper...) to modify the OS.
- yason 16y agoBut they can do that now already, just like the regular phone-rooting hackers.
- roel_v 16y agoThe article mentioned that the new version needed hardware hacking to root. Maybe at one point a software hack will be found, I don't know. I'm just saying that there is a legitimate reason to lock down the software, especially for a mass market product like a phone.
- rbanffy 16y agoHas anyone really ever seen a real phone virus?
- sprout 16y agohttp://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10393136-37.html http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10393136-37.html You'll note it only hit jailbroken iPhones.
- nextparadigms 16y agoIf Google really wants Android to be open sourced, then it should be open source for users too, not just carriers. I'm pretty sure HTC did something illegal here.
- ssp 16y agoI wonder where they got the within the requirements of the open source community. It doesn't sound like something they would just make up.
- Vivtek 16y agoSounds like something their lawyers made up, perhaps? The first comment on the post has a pretty relevant paragraph, which I think sounds plausible: Section 3(b) allows you to provide a written offer for source. I think HTC is interpreting this to mean that if you respond to their written offer for source, there's obviously going to be a delay for them to get your written request, put together the source code and send it back to you, and they've decided that 90 to 120 days is a reasonable amount of time for that. The commenter also says it seems this is pushing it, and I agree - but HTC's lawyers clearly think it's worth the risk.
- bryanlarsen 16y agoAlthough further comments point out that there was no written offer provided, so that section is irrelevant.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- peregrine 16y agoThis is only become an issue because of the new security permissions on the phone. If the phone was easily hackable nobody would be complaining. That said HTC played some mean tricks here, such as releasing the souce for the HTC magic with bits and pieces of the vision source clearly removed. At the same time while we were trying to reverse engineer this code and the binary we saw major inconsistencies even though the disks are the same model and spec. They(HTC & TMO) really made it hard this time but once we figure out how this works once it will likely be just as easy to hack as before.