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HTC Willfully Violates the GPL in T-Mobile's New G2 Android Phone

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Re: HTC Willfully Violates the GPL in T-Mobile's New G2 Android Phone

#21

Post by al_james »

regularfry wrote: post #16
Osiris wrote: post #7

What 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 pho…

Carrier control, most likely. I'm sure HTC are being lobbied hard by carriers who want to be able to use artificial restrictions to segment their offerings.

Exactly. Phone manufactures are in the pocket of the carriers (as google proved with the Nexus one, you can't sell phones without carrier relations) and carriers don't like rooting as it limited their options to block certain software and services (e.g. VOIP / tethering).

Re: HTC Willfully Violates the GPL in T-Mobile's New G2 Android Phone

#22

Post by jrockway »

timdorr wrote: post #14
Osiris wrote: post #7

What 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 pho…

Most people preached the benefits of rooting make a very compelling case. And often this case is to very dumb people. Dumb people like to complain. Loudly. Remember from their perspective, 99% of all the feedback they get back (that they don't have to pay for) is negative. Therefore, they are solely concentrated on reducing that negative feedback by preventing failure in the first place. They view these protections a…

The same is true of bookshelves, cordless drills, computers, and anything else that people can buy. Someone will always find a way to fuck up the assembly, modifications, or general use. But there is no EULA on my bookshelf saying I can't modify it.

So why are mobile phones different?

(My guess: "because we can". Nobody has figured out how to make a bookshelf that I can't put something too heavy on. But people have figured out how to ensure I can only run Verizon's adware on my phone, so they don't cripple my bookshelf but they do cripple my phone. Follow up question: why does the market allow this? Nobody would buy a crippled bookshelf with an EULA.)

Re: HTC Willfully Violates the GPL in T-Mobile's New G2 Android Phone

#24

Post by bdonlan »

jackolas wrote: post #11
duncan_bayne wrote: post #5

Call 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 ...

Just bring legal action or ask the SLFC to investigate.

Only 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).

Re: HTC Willfully Violates the GPL in T-Mobile's New G2 Android Phone

#25

Post by Jach »

jrockway wrote: post #22
timdorr wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people preached the benefits of rooting make a very compelling case. And often this case is to very dumb people. Dumb people like to complain. Loudly. Remember from their perspective, 99% of all the feedback they get back (that they don't have to pay for) is negative. Therefore, they are solely concentrated on reducing that negative feedback by preventing failure in the first place. They view these protections a…

The same is true of bookshelves, cordless drills, computers, and anything else that people can buy. Someone will always find a way to fuck up the assembly, modifications, or general use. But there is no EULA on my bookshelf saying I can't modify it. So why are mobile phones different? (My guess: "because we can". Nobody has figured out how to make a bookshelf that I can't put something too heavy on. But people have f…

Is your follow-up question rhetorical? Nevertheless: the market isn't rational. Plus people are used to skipping over EULAs and not reading contracts. Plus the people that actually care are a minority. Etc. etc.

Re: HTC Willfully Violates the GPL in T-Mobile's New G2 Android Phone

#26

Post by peregrine »

This 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.

Re: HTC Willfully Violates the GPL in T-Mobile's New G2 Android Phone

#27

Post by jsz0 »

Osiris wrote: post #7

What 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 pho…

It may be a small minority of people rooting their phones but from the carrier perspective they're the ones who would otherwise be willing to pay $20-$30/month for a wireless tethering plan.

Re: HTC Willfully Violates the GPL in T-Mobile's New G2 Android Phone

#28

Post by guyjin »

Osiris wrote: post #7

What 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 pho…

I think the carriers are afraid of becoming commoditized; if their phones are open, then they really are nothing more than an ISP. If they had to compete like ordinary ISPs, price for bandwidth would become the primary selling point, and that eventually becomes a race to the bottom.

Re: HTC Willfully Violates the GPL in T-Mobile's New G2 Android Phone

#29

Post by Vivtek »

ssp wrote: post #20

I wonder where they got the within the requirements of the open source community . It doesn't sound like something they would just make up.

Sounds 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.

Re: HTC Willfully Violates the GPL in T-Mobile's New G2 Android Phone

#30

Post by rbanffy »

roel_v wrote: post #8
Osiris wrote: post #7

What 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 pho…

I 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.

Has anyone really ever seen a real phone virus?
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