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Related: "Fear of Forking" by Rick Moen http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Licensing_and_Law/forking.html http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Licensing_and_Law/forking.html

by msla 2y ago

mschuster91 2y ago
> That's why forking is uncommon in open-source code, and even more so in (specifically) GPLed code: The improvements one group makes in its would-be "fork" are freely available to the main community. Unfortunately, in the smartphone world this just isn't reality. Trying to obtain code dumps is hard enough for major brands, outright impossible for the myriad of cheap clones. And embedded is even worse, almost no one cares about distributing the GPL code of the BSP, mainly due to fear of violating chipset vendor NDAs.
- graemep 2y ago
  > Trying to obtain code dumps is hard enough for major brands, outright impossible for the myriad of cheap clones. And embedded is even worse, almost no one cares about distributing the GPL code of the BSP, mainly due to fear of violating chipset vendor NDAs. Sounds like an opportunity for the copyright holders to make some money by suing and dual licensing.
  - AlotOfReading 2y ago
    What money? You get to spend millions litigating the matter and the end result is a tarball with a couple new drivers. They do a board rev in 6mos, forget their obligations, and you're back where you started.
    - graemep 2y ago
      Damages for breach of copyright. In some places you would get costs too.It should not cost millions either
- bluGill 2y ago
  for a short time only improvements in one are available. Then the two diverge andchangesecannot merge. khtml couldn't bring in any changes from apples fork
- cube2222 2y ago
  > The improvements one group makes in its would-be "fork" are freely available to the main community. IANAL, but there's a caveat here, which is that a lot of these forks are due to companies relicensing to source-available licenses, which generally means they require a CLA (and full copyright license) from each of their contributors, so that they can relicense the codebase at will. The code committed to the fork can't be pulled by the relicensed project in this case, unless it's the original contributor making a contribution to both, because such code would only be covered by the fork's license, not by the new license nor CLA.
  - mschuster91 2y ago
    My biggest gripes are u-boot and the Linux kernel. Both are clearly GPL only, you must provide sourcecode for your modifications including drivers as a vendor, and yet so many make one jump through hoops it's not even close to funny any more. Or they don't fulfill their obligations at all.
    - pabs3 2y ago
      If you know of any Linux/u-boot GPL violations, reporting them to Software Freedom Conservancy might help: https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/help.html https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/help.html
- simne 2y ago
  > almost no one cares about distributing the GPL code of the BSP, mainly due to fear of violating chipset vendor NDAs Most problem of BSP programming is it is really complicated, because need to fit within limits of hardware and need to have deep knowledge of DSP environment. So it is very interest question, who will do complicated things for free, or who will dive deep for free. Unfortunately, too many people compare apples with carrots, in this case compare definitively shallow frontend/full-stack programming vs hardcore embedded. And returning to question, in real life, nobody want to rewrite all core code for BSP, but really use huge chunks of ready made code, provided by vendor, so, sure they have very tight coupling to vendor copyrights. Sometimes, things are even worse with hardware limitations, which just made impossible to write other way than does vendor. Other problem, regulations - using vendor code you automatically obey laws, or to be honest, you shift responsibility to vendor, but if write your own code from scratch, will need someway create proof that people could trust to your code.
- pabs3 2y ago
  If you know of any Linux/u-boot GPL violations, reporting them to Software Freedom Conservancy might help: https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/help.html https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/help.html

Related: "Fear of Forking" by Rick Moen http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Licensing_and_Law/forking.html http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Licensing_and_Law/forking.html

by msla 2y ago

Related: "Fear of Forking" by Rick Moen http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Licensing_and_Law/forking.html http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Licensing_and_Law/forking.html

mschuster91 2y ago

> That's why forking is uncommon in open-source code, and even more so in (specifically) GPLed code: The improvements one group makes in its would-be "fork" are freely available to the main community. Unfortunately, in the smartphone world this just isn't reality. Trying to obtain code dumps is hard enough for major brands, outright impossible for the myriad of cheap clones. And embedded is even worse, almost no one cares about distributing the GPL code of the BSP, mainly due to fear of violating chipset vendor NDAs.

graemep 2y ago
> Trying to obtain code dumps is hard enough for major brands, outright impossible for the myriad of cheap clones. And embedded is even worse, almost no one cares about distributing the GPL code of the BSP, mainly due to fear of violating chipset vendor NDAs. Sounds like an opportunity for the copyright holders to make some money by suing and dual licensing.
- AlotOfReading 2y ago
  What money? You get to spend millions litigating the matter and the end result is a tarball with a couple new drivers. They do a board rev in 6mos, forget their obligations, and you're back where you started.
  - graemep 2y ago
    Damages for breach of copyright. In some places you would get costs too.It should not cost millions either
bluGill 2y ago
for a short time only improvements in one are available. Then the two diverge andchangesecannot merge. khtml couldn't bring in any changes from apples fork
cube2222 2y ago
> The improvements one group makes in its would-be "fork" are freely available to the main community. IANAL, but there's a caveat here, which is that a lot of these forks are due to companies relicensing to source-available licenses, which generally means they require a CLA (and full copyright license) from each of their contributors, so that they can relicense the codebase at will. The code committed to the fork can't be pulled by the relicensed project in this case, unless it's the original contributor making a contribution to both, because such code would only be covered by the fork's license, not by the new license nor CLA.
- mschuster91 2y ago
  My biggest gripes are u-boot and the Linux kernel. Both are clearly GPL only, you must provide sourcecode for your modifications including drivers as a vendor, and yet so many make one jump through hoops it's not even close to funny any more. Or they don't fulfill their obligations at all.
  - pabs3 2y ago
    If you know of any Linux/u-boot GPL violations, reporting them to Software Freedom Conservancy might help: https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/help.html https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/help.html
simne 2y ago
> almost no one cares about distributing the GPL code of the BSP, mainly due to fear of violating chipset vendor NDAs Most problem of BSP programming is it is really complicated, because need to fit within limits of hardware and need to have deep knowledge of DSP environment. So it is very interest question, who will do complicated things for free, or who will dive deep for free. Unfortunately, too many people compare apples with carrots, in this case compare definitively shallow frontend/full-stack programming vs hardcore embedded. And returning to question, in real life, nobody want to rewrite all core code for BSP, but really use huge chunks of ready made code, provided by vendor, so, sure they have very tight coupling to vendor copyrights. Sometimes, things are even worse with hardware limitations, which just made impossible to write other way than does vendor. Other problem, regulations - using vendor code you automatically obey laws, or to be honest, you shift responsibility to vendor, but if write your own code from scratch, will need someway create proof that people could trust to your code.
pabs3 2y ago
If you know of any Linux/u-boot GPL violations, reporting them to Software Freedom Conservancy might help: https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/help.html https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/help.html