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Xiaomi has been in violation of GPL for years
- xslvrxslwt 4y agoWhat one could possibly do about this? We submitted reports everywhere but even the GNU guys said they could do nothing about it — are licenses even worth anything or it's just a fancy marketing thing today?
- Infinity315 4y agoStronger legislation. Prevent the operation and sale of products which violate GPL and fines which equal the revenue generated from the violation.
- jqpabc123 4y agoCivil legislation is already in place. All you need to do is hire a lawyer and file a lawsuit. The obvious problem being that open source developers may lack the revenue/income/funds to make this a practical reality.
- creshal 4y agoAny form of contract is worthless if one party is Chinese and the other party is not, because the CCP does not care and nobody can force it to. In other cases, the GPL has been shown to be decently effective.
- toast0 4y agoYou could probably try to get these blocked from import. But that's pretty expensive, and not always very effective.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- riku_iki 4y agoThey sell stuff in US. Can they be sued in US court and import be blocked or fines paid?
- vkou 4y ago> Can they be sued in US court and import be blocked or fines paid? Yes.
- jqpabc123 4y agoLicenses are meaningless unless someone is willing to defend them. Defending a license takes money. The ability to earn money is limited by open source licensing. Open source licensing is largely self defeating --- as proven by the case in point.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 4y agoYes and no. The current geopolitical winds made this not an impossible development. There is a reason we are hearing about it now ( not dissimilar to TikTok news ).
- rvnx 4y agoChina is 0% possible to enforce it. I had Chinese guys cloning one of my software without respecting the licence, and their answer was a big fuck you message mixed with lot of insults. So, "reality sucks, deal with it" (Linus Torvalds).
- singpolyma3 4y agoI don't see why you think open source licensing limits the ability to earn money?
- throwawaysalome 4y agoThe mantra of common sense deniers.
- floatinglotus 4y agoIt’s a Chinese company, they don’t care about OSS licenses.
- fabianhjr 4y agoNeither do many US-based companies. https://wiki.fsfe.org/Migrated/GPL%20Enforcement%20Cases https://wiki.fsfe.org/Migrated/GPL%20Enforcement%20Cases
- jdminhbg 4y agoRight, the difference is that there's an enforcement mechanism here.
- fabianhjr 4y agoAlso in China and in both cases cross-border / international enforcement is so expensive it is non-existent for open source/free software.
- singpolyma3 4y agoThat is expensive and approximately never gets used and so every tech company continues to infringe.
- xslvrxslwt 4y agoBut they should "care" about public backslash, maybe if some tech YouTubers are willing to cover this topic..?
- avereveard 4y agoPeople don't care that apple resolved iPhone worker suicides with jumpers nets, I don't think they will care of some weird, obscure licensing topic
- gkbrk 4y agoPeople don't buy Xiaomi because of their fancy tech, they buy it because it's cheap. Tech YouTuber telling people they steal that tech to make it cheap won't make people stop buying their cheap phones. You can ask your government to take action for this IP violation by taxing those brands more, or banning them until they stop violating licenses. I'm sure they'll start caring more after that.
- heavyset_go 4y agoStop the sale of products that violate licenses in markets the US controls, and compel other states to enforce those licenses, as well. US already does it for other licensed IP.
- teawrecks 4y agoWe would be operating under the assumption that our current licensing law is ideal. Meanwhile, China/other countries will benefit from new products that we are too principled to use. Over time, what do you think will happen to the half of the world that arbitrarily chooses not to use a whole slew of new technologies? Copyright/patent law only "works" if everyone is compelled to adhere to it. Otherwise, you're just willingly putting yourself at a technological disadvantage.
- rvnx 4y agoIn some twisted way, copyright infringement in this case benefits US consumers because they are able to afford devices cheaper because the manufacturer doesn't pay the proper (commercial closed) licensing fees.
- teawrecks 4y agoYes. And as long as this relationship only works in this direction, China has no incentive to cooperate. If Chinese citizens were also able to buy US products for cheap because they used Chinese tech while ignoring licenses, then China would care. But they know this and are not interested in a partnership. So they took the other, more totalitarian route: make it illegal for their citizens to do that. They're not stupid though, they know that for a totalitarian govt to work they have to keep their citizens happy. So if their citizens are unhappy that they can't purchase a US product, they'll just spawn a Chinese company out of thin air to produce the same thing under a Chinese brand. If they can get away with it, they'll sell it outside China too. All of this is only possible because the west has already been manufacturing all its products over there for decades. The west made itself incredibly vulnerable by moving all manufacturing to China, and now China is taking advantage of that in every way it can. IMO the only way out of this mess is moving the vast majority of our manufacturing back out of China, but it would have to be heavily subsidized because people won't be able to afford it at first.
- Alupis 4y agoA contract, license, or agreement are only "real" if both parties have the means to enforce them. Which means, you have to lawyer up and spend vast sums of money to go after people violating your license (GPL here). Which is why you routinely hear about people violating the GPL - the interested parties have no means to enforce their license, and the counter party likely has deep pockets; deep enough to out last, out spend, and bury the licenser.
- nroets 4y agoWhat if the license says "licencee will provide source code (GPL) or pay $n per device" ? If the lawyers then demand the source code and they don't comply then sue for n x number of devices.
- Alupis 4y agoThe reality of the legal system is, it often does not matter who is most righteous, but rather who has more money and more lawyers. There are no provisions of any contract or agreement that matter if you are not prepared to enforce them, no matter the cost. So, while you can insert a clause like you have described above, but you are still in the same position - drain your bank account paying lawyers to maybe recover some damages after probably many months or years of posturing and litigation. The calculus on that effort often means it's not financially sound, or worth trying to enforce the contract. Just to see the inside of a court room, you will already be in the hole for at least six figures. If the other side manages to drag things out for years, the costs increase dramatically. So it becomes - pay $xxx,xxx to litigate and take a chance that maybe if you win, you might recover some of that money... maybe. This is why, again, so many GPL violations exist today. The FOSS projects lack the means to enforce the license. This is also why organizations like the FSF exist - to help FOSS projects (and others) negotiate and litigate these costly-and-usually-not-profitable conflicts.
- CountSessine 4y ago- Are you willing to hire lawyers or approach lawyers? - Yes: - Xiaomi sells products outside of China, both through their own website and through Amazon and Walmart. Sue retailers who carry Xiaomi products and sell them in the US and Europe. - In theory, this is what the US International Trade Commission can do - block imports of products that violate US laws. EU probably has similar - You can't do anything about Xiaomi with China's kangaroo courts within China's borders, but Xiaomi wants US dollars and Euros too so eventually they'll play ball if you're willing to take this far enough - No: - There is exactly nothing you can do so you should learn to take it and like it.
- nfriedly 4y agoI donate to the Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) - https://sfconservancy.org/ https://sfconservancy.org/ And the Free Software Foundation (FSF) - https://www.fsf.org/ https://www.fsf.org/
- jeroenhd 4y ago> What one could possibly do about this? I doubt it's going to happen, but if the author(s) of stolen open source code file a lawsuit, they may force the matter through the courts. A copyright holder publishing code under the GPLv3 has the ability to revoke permissions to violators. If, say Linus Torvalds or another (big) author of Linux kernel code forces the issue, Xiaomi would perform IP violations every time they try to sell a device running Linux. If this happen, Xiaomi be given a chance to correct the situation at the very least, before revoking becomes possible. If they still don't comply, kernel contributors may use such court cases to get governments to take action. IP theft has led to phones being barred from sale before, and that was because of vague things like "rounded corners". It'll take years of legal fees, but it's possible to hit them where it hurts: denying them access to the lucrative western markets.
- belorn 4y agoIt is a depressing fact that the wast majority of all crime goes by without any consequences, and that the biggest factor why we have laws in the first place is norm changing and deterrence from the risk of legal consequences. Once in a while we see selective enforcement when some small individuals goes against large companies that has both money and political influence to get laws enforced, which of course has a bunch of negative consequences.
- jnsie 4y agoLike everything else, licenses are great if you've got the money to take on a behemoth in court. Otherwise you're depending on morality, which tends to take a back seat in big business.
- ajross 4y agoIn fact, no, open source licenses have a four-decade-long history of being well enforced and broadly honored in the west. Every major software company employs groups whose sole job is to manage open source license compliance in their code base[1]. This is absolutely a solvable problem and a winnable war without the "money to take on a behemoth in court". And in fact the war was won, long ago[2]. In the west. The difference is the idea of "rule of law", certainly not a cynical take on resourcing. [1] In fact it's more common to see companies irrationally afraid of the consequences of a license violation than ones trying to evade enforcement. [2] Edit, because two replies have wanted to pick on the fact that violations still occur occasionally to try to invalidate the point. Open source software licenses in the modern US and Europe are overwhelmingly honored in commercial software. Period. Yes, companies mess up. But claiming somehow that everywhere-is-as-bad-as-china-and-this-cannot-work is ridiculous. Please stop, that kind of argument is hurting the discourse.
- follower 4y agoThe fact that the Software Freedom Conservancy currently has an active lawsuit against Vizio (Founded "October 2002 in Costa Mesa, California, U.S.") suggests the war has not, in fact, been won "in the west": <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vizio#Lawsuit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vizio#Lawsuit> More details: <https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html> Edit #1: * Also, John Deere: https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2023/mar/16/john-deere-gpl-violations/ https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2023/mar/16/john-deere-gpl-vi...
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- ofchnofc 4y agoAdd Unihertz to the list. I'd love to buy a Jelly2 but not with their stock software. I don't understand the dynamics at play and it's hard to not get a bit conspiratorial..
- phh 4y agoYou don't need kernel sources to change Android software though. But I hate Unihertz for other reason. You can pretty much buy their hardware exclusively on their website which is a horrible e-merchant: Their delivery failed (maybe they never sent it, maybe they sent it with the cheapest post service possible, i don't know), and well pretty much they stole money from me. That was a "kickstarter" [1], so I couldn't ask my credit card for a refund. And that's after I was already a sold customer since I already ordered one before, AND I gave them visibility by having custom ROM support for their devices. [1] the quotes are here because the device was Google-certified months before, so clearly the product didn't need a "kickstart", they hide behind it to steal from users
- UberFly 4y agoFrom 1 to 5 on the shocked meter, this is a 1. It's Xiaomi and China after all.
- monocasa 4y agoI mean, there's stories on the HN frontpage right now about how Lego and John Deere are also violating the GPL. It seems a bit knee-jerky to see this story and start shaking your fist at China in general.
- lloydatkinson 4y agoYou could phrase it as: On a scale of 1 to China, what level of IP infringement, technology theft, and corporate espionage are Xiaomi operating at? China.
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- shell0x 4y agoYeah China steals everything else. Why wouldn't they steal code?
- frozenport 4y agoThey kinda copied Apple’s UI which is just lame https://www.gizchina.com/2022/01/09/xiaomi-when-will-you-stop-copying-apples-ui/amp/ https://www.gizchina.com/2022/01/09/xiaomi-when-will-you-sto...
- lloydatkinson 4y agoIt also shows a lack of critical thinking and creativity.
- ushakov 4y agoThey took “Good artists copy, great artists steal.” to the extreme
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- ClumsyPilot 4y agoIt is important to realise, that most cultures do not believe in Intellectual Property the eay 'the West' does. It is not just 'cheating', it is also a matter of significantly different values. Arguably IP laws in the west have gone too far. India was pushing for opening up IP on covid vaccines - the taxpayer paid for their development and deployment, but the profits and IP is private. US has voted against.
- ronsor 4y agoChina and Chinese companies would have no issue enforcing heavily on Western companies that did the same with their IP (or sometimes even another China domestic company) I'm no fan of the IP insanity, but in this situation, I can only see hypocrisy.
- phh 4y ago> It is important to realise, that most cultures do not believe in Intellectual Property the eay 'the West' does. That's definitely true, but it's not really in a "let's take it more a lenient way" kind, because otherwise Xiaomi would have published those kernel sources
- dspillett 4y ago> do not believe in Intellectual Property the eay 'the West' does. Oh, I assure you Chinese companies very much believe in IP, at least their own - use some of theirs without permission and watch how their “don't believe” attitude sticks around. There are IP violation cases between Chinese companies, it just isn't practical for most non-Chinese concerns to try enforce anything from the outside. What we see in China these days is very similar to the US back in Dickens' time, when copying literature like his works was rampant in the US and there was very little people from outside the US could do about it. The US only started to care about international IP regulation once they had enough to defend for it to be worth playing ball. Currently, China's companies and government have more to gain from not caring than they do from playing nice.
- pb7 4y agoOk, since they don’t care about IP, where can I find all their source code?
- dspillett 4y agoSeems to be standard practice for Chinese companies. I like the look of some of Onyx's ebook products, but I've refrained from being tempted as they have been in violation for ages. Unless you are a huge company there is very little you can do. There is probably very little you can do even if you are a huge company. Enforcing our laws & licences over there is nigh on impossible, and appealing to their laws is pointless as the government seems to very openly not care about such violations (some would say their attitude practically encourages such violations) unless they happen against one of their interests. This is not at all specific to open-source licences either. My current phone is a Xiaomi, looks like my next one won't be (it may not have been anyway, due to a list of minor irritations & larger red flags like impossible to uninstall apps and a default clock app that demands full contacts access in order to be able to set an alarm, but this is definitely another point against).
- jqpabc123 4y ago[flagged]
- AceJohnny2 4y agoOnly by some particular definition of "open source", where you use and share what you feel like. The GPL has strict "give back" requirements, which they are not honoring.
- tablespoon 4y ago> The GPL has strict "give back" requirements, which they are not honoring. What's the status of the GPL under Chinese law? Because maybe they're not required to honor it. IIRC, the GPL was written in the context of certain Western legal systems and depends on certain characteristics of those systems. Even in a Western country, there's probably situations "give back" requirements become unenforceable (e.g. the copyright on the code runs out).
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- alyandon 4y agoDoes NSFW necessarily mean pornographic though? I can well imagine that there exist employers that would readily discipline or terminate someone if they were caught viewing a scantily clad female on a company owned computer.
- _dikl 4y agoI am a tenured professor and I can get fired if I play this video in any of my classes including in the PhD seminar.
- tarotuser 4y ago[flagged]
- dang 4y agoYou can't attack another user on HN the way you've done in this thread. You also can't post slurs like you did here. (Incidentally, I don't believe that the person you're attacking is in any way a "white american male", so your slur actually hit someone other than you thought it did. But it would be just as bad either way.) I've banned the account. Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- cududa 4y agoWhy does this have so many upvotes? This is like announcing that you discovered that water comes out of a faucet when you turn the handle.
- akho 4y agoWhat did they do and what are the implications? Is that something that every phone company does (having their own kernel version and not sharing it)? Do others use modules? Does this make it possible to easily release a postmarketOS port for recent Xiaomi phones?
- follower 4y agoWhile I have briefly been to China I cannot claim particularly deep knowledge about Chinese culture, customs & values and thus prefer to turn to people with more knowledge & experience, such as a local: Based on this video by Naomi Wu (a.k.a RealSexyCyborg), it's certainly been possible to convince at least one Chinese company to fulfil its obligations under the GPL: * "Getting GPLv2 Compliance From A Chinese Company- In Person!": <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vj04MKykmnQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vj04MKykmnQ> Content Advisory: If you are an employee of YouTube.com the above video may be considered NSFW. (If your own cultural context means you feel compelled to comment on how Naomi chooses to present herself to the world, feel free to watch this explanatory video she has generously provided for your benefit: "Why Do I Look Like...This? The SexyCyborg Origin Story" <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9vW_MpXTfs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9vW_MpXTfs>.)
- mkeedlinger 4y agoThat second video was quite interesting and had a pragmatic tone. Would recommend.
- newusertoday 4y agoI am impressed by other chinese lady who calmly listened to naomi and tried to find the solution even though she is not in charge :-) .
- endisneigh 4y agoWith ChatGPT and language models, code licenses are either: - 1. Moot, and therefore language models are fine - 2. Enforceable, and language models will be neutered
- phh 4y agoFWIW it is actually worse than it looks like. Even when Xiaomi did/do provide some kernel sources, it's never anywhere near the production code you're running on your smartphone! It's hard to believe, but the "GPL release" they made were actually full clean rewrite of the hardware support made on top of SoC vendor's (say Qualcomm) kernel release. I have a very hard time understanding why they did, but there were definitely inconsistencies that are very hard to explain another way.
- kevin_thibedeau 4y agoAll it takes is someone with standing to sue and win a preliminary injunction cutting off sales in the US. They'll swiftly comply and the case can be dropped. You'd think the EFF and FSF would be interested in pursuing this approach to prove the GPL had teeth.
- singpolyma3 4y agoI'm not sure why you think the EFF would get involved in this. They have no stake or relationship to GPL or software freedom or the software in question. FSF lost interest in GPL enforcement years ago. Conservancy is the only org doing GPL enforcement in the public interest, and they only have enough funding to do about one lawsuit at a time.
- parentheses 4y agoGPL doesn’t work unless it can be enforced at a global scale. It hamstrings companies that observe and follow IP law while giving advantages to those that don’t.
- dragonwriter 4y agoTo the extent that is true, it is true of IP law (and just law) as a whole, not specific to the GPL.
- singpolyma3 4y agoEvery tech company of any meaningful size is in violation of the GPL.
- up2isomorphism 4y agoAt this point GPL is pretty much an unenforceable license. I did not see anyone violating license it has any significant consequences.
- fomine3 4y agoIt is better than I expected. There are very source closed Chinese device company like Onyx.