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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

#41

Post by kristofferR »

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.

Linus Torvalds disagrees with that:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_kernel#Loadable_kernel_m...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loadable_kernel_module#License...

Re: Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL

#42

Post by Svip »

yareally wrote: post #38
vog wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Among all aspects of that discussion, the author's gender is about the most uninteresting detail. "Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not criteria such as degrees, age, race, sex, or position."

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).

Re: Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL

#43

Post by maaaats »

skore wrote: post #30
maaaats wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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. Doesn't matter that I don't have the right to license it..

Re: Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL

#44

Post by drrotmos »

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 never the same people that actually write the new clean code, thus avoiding the taint of proprietary knowledge.

Re: Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL

#46

Post by andreasvc »

effn wrote: post #34
kristofferR wrote: post #19

Samsung may not have intended it as such, but aren't all derivatives of GPL-licenced code also GPL by definition?

No. The authors of GPL-licensed code has no say in how other people license their code they don't own the copyright on. Derivatives of GPL-licensed code is either: 1. GPL-licensed 2. Illegal If it's not explicitly 1 by the license on the derived work, it becomes 2. It is not automatically "forced" into category 1.

By illegal you mean illegal to distribute. If Samsung used this code internally and it was leaked accidentally, they are not in violation of the GPL.

Re: Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL

#47

Post by dbaupp »

Svip wrote: post #22
yareally wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, this is a typical thing that goes on in the Android User development community. Lots of casual attitudes by hobbyists that modify the Linux Kernel and rattle off some sort of excuse for not posting their sources while distributing binary copies. Others end up "relicensing" similar to the guy on github, thinking that because they changed a few lines of code, they can claim to own the license to the software now…

> Others end up "relicensing" similar to the guy on github, [...] Hmmm... https://github.com/rxrz/exfat-nofuse/issues/5#issuecomment-2... : > And I don't need any permissions from anybody, I'm a big girl. Fun fact: Females also do stupid stuff.

> I'm a big girl

I believe the key part of this is the "I'm a big X" pattern (i.e. "I'm an adult"), not that the person is female.

Re: Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL

#48

Post by ouaibe »

reginaldjcooper wrote: post #31
bxc89 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Wasting man-years on reimplementing software is not a large enough problem to decide that authors no longer have any rights with their product.

Contrary to popular belief, copyright law doesn't exist to ascertain dominion from an author onto it's creation. It exists to regulate exchanges and distribution of such creation, giving a controlled and finite monopoly to the original author with a guarantee that said creation ends up in the public domain. GPL exists to bypass such monopoly and implement a form of public domain (copyleft) that is compatible with copyright law.

Re: Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL

#49

Post by ordinary »

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…

Not just copyrighted. Microsoft claims a whole bunch of patents related to exFAT. This means you can't legally implement exFAT without a license to those patents, even if you've never even seen the Samsung code. This is the reason why exfat-fuse is not part of any large Linux distributions.

Re: Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL

#50

Post by Nursie »

ars wrote: post #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?

It's hard to tell - there doesn't seem to be any proof of this and in the case of leaked code I'd be wanting proof.
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