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I looked up a couple Huawei phone manuals on their site, and they all had a written offer to provide the GPL-covered source if you mailed them and paid up to 20

I looked up a couple Huawei phone manuals on their site, and they all had a written offer to provide the GPL-covered source if you mailed them and paid up to 20 Euros for a CD to be sent to you. Have you contacted them at that address and offered to buy your CD? If they refuse for whatever reason, all you can do is make noise or wait. Only the copyright holder has the right to take any action against a licensee violating the terms of their license.

antocv 13y ago
Yes I have contacted them at that address - this is some parts of the email first response "Dear Customer, Thank you for contacting Huawei device. Would you please kindly click the to download online directly. http://www.huaweidevice.com/worldwide/downloadCenter.do?method=toDownloadFile&flay=document&softid=NDcxNzc= http://www.huaweidevice.com/worldwide/downloadCenter.do?meth... Once again thank you for contacting Huawei device. Best Regards. Huawei Device Customer Care Team." They reply by sending me the link to the PDF Written offer. Second email does the same, this time with a screenshot of the download button for the PDF. I tell them again, "Please kindly provide the source code not the pdf." They reply with this "Please kindly note that the package download just the source code, it the exactly one, which is not one code. Please kindly check as per the file according. Once again thank you for contacting Huawei device.". Wtf? Again I insist and this time with google translate to chinese, give me the source code as stated in the written offer. And this seems to be their final answer "The open source is under our technical department to make. Since the procedure is a little more complex, so please kindly be a little patient. We will keep you informed once available." It wouldnt suprise me at all if the source they would put on a CD is tarballs of the vanilla kernel and others, and none of their modifications to it. Basically, whats the point of free software and GPL when I the end user cant anyway do more with this router than if it was proprietary? This is in practice now real life.
- thaumasiotes 13y ago
  > Again I insist and this time with google translate to chinese, give me the source code as stated in the written offer. You know, the quality of the English they're sending to you might have suggested that you weren't accomplishing much by using Google Translate (they'll be using Baidu Fanyi instead. But yes, google translate really is worthless as a way to communicate in Chinese.)
  - idProQuo 13y ago
    Oddly enough, I've seen Bing Translate work wonders on facebook when it comes to translating Chinese into English. One of my friends posted a huge paragraph in Chinese, and the translation read as correct (if a bit flowery) English. I'm just one data point, but I'd guess that there are definitely good translators out there.
    - thaumasiotes 13y ago
      I actually have quite a bit of experience with facebook's chinese -> english translation... my experience is that it doesn't work. Here's some chinese text that a friend of mine posted to facebook: 好怀念以前在swis的日子，虽然当时在的时候一直抱怨，那也难怪，那时候日子的确很销魂，销魂归销魂，至少那时候大家都在。至此之后，就走了好多同学，也来了很多。这是我两年来最喜欢的一张图片，没有之一。 Here's what Bing Translate makes of it as of today: Well miss the old days at SWIS, although at the time have been complaining about, it's no wonder, when days are ecstasy, ecstasy ecstasy, then at least everyone was. After now, there's a lot of students also came a lot. This is my favorite picture in two years, not one of them. Here is my punctuation-preserving translation (be warned that I do not approach fluency in Chinese; I'm mainly working off of a dictionary and rudimentary knowledge): I remember the days at SWIS fondly[†], even though when there I always complained, that's understandable[†], those days were very overwhelming, but despite the overwhelmingness, at least then everyone was there. By now, so many classmates have left, and many others have come. This is my favorite picture of the last two years[†], without exception. [†] Notes a clause that in my estimation Bing Translate did not screw up. (For those of you who read Chinese, you might notice that my english translation includes a lot of elements that just plain aren't present in the Chinese text. For those of you who don't: that's going to be necessary in any chinese <-> english translation.) The thing I've found Bing Translate and Google Translate most useful for is knowing when some otherwise-nonsensical characters are the standard rendition of a foreign name, which isn't something I'd notice on my own. They can also sometimes recognize slang that isn't present in my dictionaries, but that's of questionable usefulness, since I can't distinguish between "google accurately recognized this badly-documented slang term" and "google's translation is completely unrelated to the original text, which is why that meaning doesn't appear when I look up any of the words".
    - thaumasiotes 13y ago
- tytso 13y ago
  The PDF written offer seems to request that you send e-mail to mobile@huawei.com. Have you tried sending a request to that e-mail? Note that the GPL does not require that the source code be made available on-line. If the binaries were distributed to you, the entity which distributed the binaries is obligated to send you the sources on request, but they can come on a CD, DVD, or potentially even 9-track tape.
  - antocv 13y ago
    Yes the quoted replies are from that email. Seems to be that the source codes can come on a CD 2.9 years later after I receive the binaries.
chalst 13y ago
Good advice, one quibble: > Only the copyright holder has the right to take any action against a licensee violating the terms of their license This might not be true. If you can successfully argue that: 1. You bought the hardware because you believed their promise that you would have access to the sources they used, and 2. The value of the device is materially impaired by not having access to the source then you would have (IMO, IANAL) a trade descriptions case. If you want to audit your phone system for security reasons, say, then the above might apply.
- onestone 13y ago
  It's definitely not true, at least in some countries. For example, France: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2009/09/big-gpl-copyright-enforcement-win-in-paris-court-of-appeals/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2009/09/big-gp... "It's a commonly held belief that only the copyright holder of a work can enforce the license's terms—but that's not true in France. People who received software under the GNU GPL can also request compliance, since the license grants them rights from the authors." After all, the rights of the customer (to receive the source code) are also being violated.
belorn 13y ago
If you get a written offer by a company included in a purchase, that counts as a contract. It the same as if they said "2 years warranty" or "24/7 free support", or "free installation", or any other kind of deal. And contract law is contract law. If a company do that in the US, you sue. If they do that in EU, local law might consider it as a criminal offense and threaten the company with large fines and possible jail time.

antocv 13y ago

Yes I have contacted them at that address - this is some parts of the email first response "Dear Customer, Thank you for contacting Huawei device. Would you please kindly click the to download online directly. http://www.huaweidevice.com/worldwide/downloadCenter.do?method=toDownloadFile&flay=document&softid=NDcxNzc= http://www.huaweidevice.com/worldwide/downloadCenter.do?meth... Once again thank you for contacting Huawei device. Best Regards. Huawei Device Customer Care Team." They reply by sending me the link to the PDF Written offer. Second email does the same, this time with a screenshot of the download button for the PDF. I tell them again, "Please kindly provide the source code not the pdf." They reply with this "Please kindly note that the package download just the source code, it the exactly one, which is not one code. Please kindly check as per the file according. Once again thank you for contacting Huawei device.". Wtf? Again I insist and this time with google translate to chinese, give me the source code as stated in the written offer. And this seems to be their final answer "The open source is under our technical department to make. Since the procedure is a little more complex, so please kindly be a little patient. We will keep you informed once available." It wouldnt suprise me at all if the source they would put on a CD is tarballs of the vanilla kernel and others, and none of their modifications to it. Basically, whats the point of free software and GPL when I the end user cant anyway do more with this router than if it was proprietary? This is in practice now real life.

thaumasiotes 13y ago
> Again I insist and this time with google translate to chinese, give me the source code as stated in the written offer. You know, the quality of the English they're sending to you might have suggested that you weren't accomplishing much by using Google Translate (they'll be using Baidu Fanyi instead. But yes, google translate really is worthless as a way to communicate in Chinese.)
- idProQuo 13y ago
  Oddly enough, I've seen Bing Translate work wonders on facebook when it comes to translating Chinese into English. One of my friends posted a huge paragraph in Chinese, and the translation read as correct (if a bit flowery) English. I'm just one data point, but I'd guess that there are definitely good translators out there.
  - thaumasiotes 13y ago
    I actually have quite a bit of experience with facebook's chinese -> english translation... my experience is that it doesn't work. Here's some chinese text that a friend of mine posted to facebook: 好怀念以前在swis的日子，虽然当时在的时候一直抱怨，那也难怪，那时候日子的确很销魂，销魂归销魂，至少那时候大家都在。至此之后，就走了好多同学，也来了很多。这是我两年来最喜欢的一张图片，没有之一。 Here's what Bing Translate makes of it as of today: Well miss the old days at SWIS, although at the time have been complaining about, it's no wonder, when days are ecstasy, ecstasy ecstasy, then at least everyone was. After now, there's a lot of students also came a lot. This is my favorite picture in two years, not one of them. Here is my punctuation-preserving translation (be warned that I do not approach fluency in Chinese; I'm mainly working off of a dictionary and rudimentary knowledge): I remember the days at SWIS fondly[†], even though when there I always complained, that's understandable[†], those days were very overwhelming, but despite the overwhelmingness, at least then everyone was there. By now, so many classmates have left, and many others have come. This is my favorite picture of the last two years[†], without exception. [†] Notes a clause that in my estimation Bing Translate did not screw up. (For those of you who read Chinese, you might notice that my english translation includes a lot of elements that just plain aren't present in the Chinese text. For those of you who don't: that's going to be necessary in any chinese <-> english translation.) The thing I've found Bing Translate and Google Translate most useful for is knowing when some otherwise-nonsensical characters are the standard rendition of a foreign name, which isn't something I'd notice on my own. They can also sometimes recognize slang that isn't present in my dictionaries, but that's of questionable usefulness, since I can't distinguish between "google accurately recognized this badly-documented slang term" and "google's translation is completely unrelated to the original text, which is why that meaning doesn't appear when I look up any of the words".
  - thaumasiotes 13y ago
tytso 13y ago
The PDF written offer seems to request that you send e-mail to mobile@huawei.com. Have you tried sending a request to that e-mail? Note that the GPL does not require that the source code be made available on-line. If the binaries were distributed to you, the entity which distributed the binaries is obligated to send you the sources on request, but they can come on a CD, DVD, or potentially even 9-track tape.
- antocv 13y ago
  Yes the quoted replies are from that email. Seems to be that the source codes can come on a CD 2.9 years later after I receive the binaries.

chalst 13y ago

Good advice, one quibble: > Only the copyright holder has the right to take any action against a licensee violating the terms of their license This might not be true. If you can successfully argue that: 1. You bought the hardware because you believed their promise that you would have access to the sources they used, and 2. The value of the device is materially impaired by not having access to the source then you would have (IMO, IANAL) a trade descriptions case. If you want to audit your phone system for security reasons, say, then the above might apply.

onestone 13y ago
It's definitely not true, at least in some countries. For example, France: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2009/09/big-gpl-copyright-enforcement-win-in-paris-court-of-appeals/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2009/09/big-gp... "It's a commonly held belief that only the copyright holder of a work can enforce the license's terms—but that's not true in France. People who received software under the GNU GPL can also request compliance, since the license grants them rights from the authors." After all, the rights of the customer (to receive the source code) are also being violated.

belorn 13y ago

If you get a written offer by a company included in a purchase, that counts as a contract. It the same as if they said "2 years warranty" or "24/7 free support", or "free installation", or any other kind of deal. And contract law is contract law. If a company do that in the US, you sue. If they do that in EU, local law might consider it as a criminal offense and threaten the company with large fines and possible jail time.