Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL

lists.gpl-violations.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 206 posts

Re: Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL

#61

Post by Supermighty »

rquirk wrote: post #51

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…

Open source is awesome, yay! It's given Google, Samsung and android device manufactures a hugely successful platform that they would have otherwise had to build from the ground up. And how do they repay the community? Binary blobs. While staying true to the letter of the license they circumvent the spirit of it.

I don't condone GPL violations. I also don't care about distributing binary blobs. Without them there wouldn't be alternative android distros.

Re: Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL

#62

Post by Tehnix »

bxc89 wrote: post #15

I 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.

Obviously a troll account since it was created for the specific purpose of posting that comment (created 1 hour ago, posted 1 hour ago)...

Re: Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL

#64

Post by foxhill »

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A mess of lawsuits, withdrawn devices and shut down code repos most likely.

i didn't necessarily mean for practical use, i just meant, what sort of finished (hah) product could come out at the end!

Re: Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL

#65

Post by belorn »

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?

As the others have said, no it would not make it GPL.

However, the customers who bought such devices could try sue for feeling mislead as a customer. If Samsung ever used the word free, open, or even linux, they might be liable under false advertising consumer protection laws. Keyword here is might, and is likely to vary based on where you live.

If enough people did this, samsung would likely feeling pressured to relicense the necessary (sold) kernel modules as GPL.

Re: Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL

#66

Post by bad_user »

rquirk wrote: post #51

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…

Cyanogenmod ROMs aren't distributed with Google's apps anymore. If you want Google's Play store and Gmail, one needs to download and install a separate archive (I just did that yesterday :))

Of course, the distribution of that archive is still suspect. The licensing of those apps is the only leverage Google has for controlling the companies that distribute Android, like Samsung. It is meant for the likes of Samsung and HTC, not Cyanogenmod, which is why I think Google lets it be for now.

On the other hand if you want to use bare-bones Android, the biggest pain one experiences is the lack of Google Play. I can live without Gmail, I can live without Google Maps, but unfortunately most apps are only on Google Play, which is awkward, given that as a publisher with Android it isn't a big effort to publish apps on your own website, in addition to Google Play.

Re: Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL

#67

Post by aroch »

rquirk wrote: post #51

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…

>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.

What? Hosting (relatively) large files, on services that can deliver those around the world at faster than dialup is now some how bad? So I suppose all those companies using CDNs are also horrible and despicable. I mean, how dare they use servers that are well connected!

Re: Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL

#68

Post by girvo »

rquirk wrote: post #51

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…

The ROM scene has always been a grey (verging on black) area when it comes to IP, however the enthusiast scene for the original WinMo and Android has helped the market in general.

There has always been a bit of a gentleman's agreement with the manufacturers that if we went too far, we'd be slapped back, but thankfully this has only happened a couple of times.

Indeed, the manufacturers themselves have been known to leak ROMS to the scene on purpose for various reasons. Sony even works directly with the hackers themselves.

Re: Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL

#69

Post by jdjb »

wisty wrote: post #52
maaaats wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I would love to hear Stallman's take on this.

Re: Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL

#70

Post by rst »

bad_user wrote: post #66
rquirk wrote: post #51

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…

Cyanogenmod ROMs aren't distributed with Google's apps anymore. If you want Google's Play store and Gmail, one needs to download and install a separate archive (I just did that yesterday :)) Of course, the distribution of that archive is still suspect. The licensing of those apps is the only leverage Google has for controlling the companies that distribute Android, like Samsung. It is meant for the likes of Samsung a…

Unfortunately, bare-bones Android may get barer and more awkward over time, if they migrate more services from the core OS into "Google Play Services". As an example, the new geofencing APIs that they announced at the last Google I/O (intended to replace the buggy core "proximity alerts") are part of "Google Play Services", not the core OS --- and therefore not available on devices which aren't part of the Play borg.

(To be fair, their announced reason for this is that it gives them a way to make these APIs available on devices that aren't getting regular manufacturer updates. That said, I'm sure it hasn't escaped their attention that it also adds a point of differentiation between Play-enabled devices and, say, the Kindle Fire...)

cite: http://developer.android.com/training/location/geofencing.ht... (Note that step one in using this API is verifying that Play Services is installed.)

Post reply on HN