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Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL

lists.gpl-violations.org

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Re: Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL

#51

Post by rquirk »

Isn't this is a general trend with Android/Cyanogenmod hackers? If you go on something like xda-developers then there's a sticky saying "please don't post GPL violations".

Early Cyanogen releases were fast and loose with redistribution of Google proprietary apps, which got the author in a spot of trouble IIRC. Right now the distribution of these ROMS is IMO pretty suspect - they include whole swathes of binary blobs that they really shouldn't be redistributing willy nilly. If you want the proprietary pieces that belong to the manufacturer of your phone, you should have to pull them off yourself. The ROM creators shouldn't be pulling these bits off of their phones and re-distributing them.

The fact that so many prebaked ROMs are distributed though megaupload-alikes is a bit of a giveaway as to the general philosophy of that community.

Re: Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL

#52

Post by wisty »

maaaats wrote: post #43
skore wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh it gets better. I had to stop reading the thread on Phoronix out of fear that my brain would pop out of my head and leave for Portugal. > People with emotional insecurities are trying to make up something depressing and horrible, point a finger and make lots of noise. > For me it was just sad to see people complaining more often than being grateful or happy about something. > I hope they will patent and release a…

Wow, again. Also found: > Now, putting it publicly on github qualifies as distribution, and therefore this code is also under the GPLv2 license implicitly. The act has already been done, and even if it does contain copyrighted bits by MS, the released version is now forever GPL. so, yeah.. by this logic I can take my company's code, put it on GitHub under a GPL license and now everyone is free to use it under GPL. Do…

I can sort of see is logic. If a company has a private stash of GPL code (say, Google is running a special fork of Linux), and it gets leaked, even though the leak was illegal the code might still be distributable under GPL.

But ... this code was never (afaik) legitimately GPL. Maybe Samsung had based it on GPL code (in which case, it's GPL), but we'd need some proof.

Re: Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL

#53

Post by VLM »

drrotmos wrote: post #44
kawsper wrote: post #9

When the code is out there, is it possible that a third-party will modify the existing exFAT projects based on this "leak", and get them to work properly and out of userspace?

It would be very bad if they do, since that would open the existing exFAT projects up to legal action. Anyone who has read the Samsung code is "tainted" with the knowledge of Samsung's proprietary techniques which may be copyrighted, so those people may well introduce copyright violations into the code. In clean-room reverse engineering projects, the people who are examining the system to be reverse engineered are ne…

I'm highly curious about this from a strategic long term point, not a tactical individual issue. Who is rxrz? Before June 24th, he/she/it (it aka an alias) didn't exist on github.

If this is someones paid project (who's paying?) to disrupt exFAT work, its doing pretty well, only took about a month to possibly destroy the whole area of operation. Effective. Probably pretty cheap.

So, follow the money. Who benefits? Could they (or a subcontractor of a subcontractor, etc) be hiring someone to sabotage a project?

There's a critical matter of identity here. We're discussing this as if its a J random hacker individual scenario. It might not be, and there's no reason to suggest it goes either way. Also looking at the github record this individual has apparently never done anything else, and didn't "exist" until recently, which is ... odd.

This situation needs to be looked into. I would give it maybe 75% chance of pure cluelessness and flaming, and maybe 25% chance of being something... more complicated; or worse.

Re: Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL

#54

Post by gngeal »

thomasjames wrote: post #4

The 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?

Did Samsung, in fact, distribute the code in Android devices? If the answer is "yes", wouldn't that make it GPLd?

Re: Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL

#55

Post by yareally »

Svip wrote: post #42
yareally wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I didn't even take the time to find out what their gender was since it's not any related issue. "Guy" was just used in a generic sense[1]. [1] http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/generic-s...

I apologise, I am not familiar enough with the usage of 'guy' to know it is generic in singular (I know it is in plural).

No worries :). I just think of it as another way of saying "dude".

Re: Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL

#56

Post by Nursie »

gngeal wrote: post #54
thomasjames wrote: post #4

The 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?

Did Samsung, in fact, distribute the code in Android devices? If the answer is "yes", wouldn't that make it GPLd?

Not necessarily, no. There is a long history of people releasing closed source drivers, particularly on embedded platforms.

So far as I can tell the kernel devs think it's harmful and A Bad Thing (TM), but not a violation.

Also as has been pointed out below, it wouldn't automatically make it GPL. It would make it in violation of GPL and releasing under GPL would fix the violation, but it wouldn't make it GPL.

Re: Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL

#57

Post by zokier »

gngeal wrote: post #54
thomasjames wrote: post #4

The 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?

Did Samsung, in fact, distribute the code in Android devices? If the answer is "yes", wouldn't that make it GPLd?

> If the answer is "yes", wouldn't that make it GPLd?

No.

Re: Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL

#58

Post by caf »

agf wrote: post #29
lucian1900 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are technically GPL violations, but kernel devs haven't (yet) complained much.

That is absolutely not the community consensus. Linus and the kernel community as a whole have taken the position that this is specifically allowed by the GPL as using a public interface isn't creating a derivative work.

It does not seem that there is a community consensus position.

Re: Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL

#59

Post by nailer »

thomasjames wrote: post #4

The 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?

Is it possible that it was an accidental mistake, rather a deliberate attempt to spread 'Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt'?

Be Civil. See http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL

#60

Post by VLM »

Nursie wrote: post #12
foxhill wrote: post #11

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.

A mess of lawsuits, withdrawn devices and shut down code repos most likely.

And no users.

Everywhere I've worked since the mid 90s, internal and external license compliancy enforcer-types have always left me and my stuff alone when I print out the DFSG and a couple of the DFSG compliant licenses, show them we run Debian, and at work only use Main not Non-Free. I've never had a "license compliancy audit" run longer than 30 minutes or so and maybe two dozen pieces of paper. Usually much less.

Its a measurable financial advantage of free software. You should see the labor and expense nightmare my proprietary coworkers have gone thru to "prove" they have the right to a copy of windows and office and other stuff. Its very expensive to use proprietary software legally at a business, and I'm not just talking about purchase price!

If I could no longer use free software because there no longer is any, I'd have to switch to something involving less legal risk. Unfortunately probably MS products, apple being a bit too rich for their blood. It would be a nightmare conversion, and a much higher TCO leading to longer term financial issues.

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