you know, it'd be interesting to see what the open source community could produce if we all took his approach to licences for a little while.
Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL
11–20 of 206 posts
Re: Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL
#12you know, it'd be interesting to see what the open source community could produce if we all took his approach to licences for a little while.
A mess of lawsuits, withdrawn devices and shut down code repos most likely.
Re: Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL
#13The title makes it sound as though this has been accepted into the Linux kernel when in fact it has not been. It is designed to work with the Linux kernel but it is in no way associated with Linux. FUD much?
I've updated the title to hopefully dispel any unintended interpretations.
Re: Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL
#14"Originally, it was either public domain or GPL."
He's claiming that this is actually GPL code that Samsung claimed as proprietary (which they can't do). Is he wrong?
Re: Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL
#15I agree with the actions of the repo maintainer.
Why should we play along with unjust copyright laws? GPL sheep are just part of the problem, creating their own nest of licensing woes everytime you touch their code.
Re: Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL
#16Why not just use this?
http://linux.slashdot.org/story/13/01/23/2142213/open-source...
Re: Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL
#17The github issue is amazing reading: https://github.com/rxrz/exfat-nofuse/issues/5 Normally you expect the copyright issues to be going in the other direction at gpl-violations, but kudos to them for noticing the problem and dealing with it quickly.
> Basically, I did microsoft's job, they even owe me money for the time I've spent fixing the code to work on modern kernels and "throwing the GPL tag on it".
Wow.
Re: Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL
#18There's a severe fault in rxrz's logic here, if I'm following this correctly:
"This code was originally under a Samsung proprietary license" Wrong.
exfat_version.h:/* - 2012.04.02 : P1 : Change Module License to Samsung Proprietary /
this is version p2. I could've technically stripped those comments and changed the version number to / - 2012.02.10 : Release Version 1.1.0 */ But I didn't. Originally, it was either public domain or GPL.
Nobody would've ever found out by the code alone, which version this actually is."
Let me pull out the key statement here:
"Originally, it was either public domain or GPL."
That's an assumption. Samsung placed a license on it, and rxrz assumes that prior to that, it must have been GPL or public domain. However, the driver was unknown and didn't exist prior to rxrz's release. It seems likely something could be classified as public domain when it was kept under lock and key.
My guess is, this was given a license when the code was finished and bundled for distribution. Assuming otherwise seems dangerous, in my opinion.
Re: Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL
#19Samsung may not have intended it as such, but aren't all derivatives of GPL-licenced code also GPL by definition?
Re: Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL
#20GPL, and probably other licenses, were constructed to work with copyright law. Such cavalier dismissal (by rxrz) is disrespecting those who created the licenses, the legal system, and the open source community, at large. We live in the real world, not "The Matrix".
There are those of us who completely disagree with copyright law. How many years have been wasted on projects like Samba because of draconian copyright? Much simpler and cleaner to acquire the source.