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Several years back, I worked on an embedded product in collaboration with a Chinese company (some of the code was outsourced to them). We stopped working with t
by cgh 15y ago
Several years back, I worked on an embedded product in collaboration with a Chinese company (some of the code was outsourced to them). We stopped working with them when we discovered that much of their code was simply cut'n'paste from various GPL'd codebases. When we asked them about it, they said it was "freely available online" and completely dismissed licensing concerns.
To them, a "license" is just some bytes at the beginning of the file. Delete those bytes, and the license is gone. Problem solved.
- redthrowaway 15y ago>To them, a "license" is just some bytes at the beginning of the file. Delete those bytes, and the license is gone. Problem solved. To be fair, they're absolutely right. A license is just some bits at the beginning of a file. A license only adds "colour"[1] to the bits if there is some legal protection granted by it. In China, there isn't any. The GPL is only as powerful as the laws establishing the authority of license agreements. [1]http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23 http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23