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Oneplus GPL violation for Android 12 Kernel

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Re: Oneplus GPL violation for Android 12 Kernel

#4

Genuine question: what happens if they refuse to release? How is it enforced? If the answer is going to court, who sues them? EFF?

The short answer: It's complicated. But to give answers at face value:

1. Unfortunately, in most cases, nothing. GPL violations are rampant, and usually without serious consequence for the infringer.

2. Like any other copyright violation, through the courts. But there is a history of successful GPL enforcement by the mere threat of going to court (since what you're usually after is compliance, not damages).

3. Depends heavily on the jurisdiction, but in most of them, it certainly helps to have a copyright holder involved (I would go as far as to say it's a necessity). But you also need money, so most likely, something like the EFF or SFLC.

Re: Oneplus GPL violation for Android 12 Kernel

#7
sm8250 sounds like a Snapdragon thing from Qualcomm. In other words: unlikely to happen because of NDAs. Even if one plus wanted to it wouldn't be up to them.

Edit: It seems there are a lot of FOSS warriors in here, let me clarify: historically, Qualcomm has been legally hostile with both FOSS software communities as well as with their own customers. They will not give anything for free, and if they can slap a ton of NDAs on it, they will. This isn't about if it is GPL compliant or if it is legal or not in some court somewhere in the world, it is about their track record (which is similar to Broadcom). If oneplus has unencumbered source code they have to ship it with their GPL release, if not, they did a stupid thing by being dual-encumbered by conflicting licenses and it's anyones guess what the end result is going to be.

Re: Oneplus GPL violation for Android 12 Kernel

#8
post #7

sm8250 sounds like a Snapdragon thing from Qualcomm. In other words: unlikely to happen because of NDAs. Even if one plus wanted to it wouldn't be up to them. Edit: It seems there are a lot of FOSS warriors in here, let me clarify: historically, Qualcomm has been legally hostile with both FOSS software communities as well as with their own customers. They will not give anything for free, and if they can slap a ton of…

An NDA does not override the GPL, and does not shield from its obligations. As you say, it's "not up to them" to decide which legal obligations they will honor.

Re: Oneplus GPL violation for Android 12 Kernel

#9
post #6

That "NEVER SETTLE" author bio here is funny in this context. I thought it the whole repo creator was some disgruntled coder who wrote it to push for never settling out of court (but it turns out to be the slogan for the phone).

It's actually OnePlus' company motto. Have done that joke to death...

Re: Oneplus GPL violation for Android 12 Kernel

#10
post #7

sm8250 sounds like a Snapdragon thing from Qualcomm. In other words: unlikely to happen because of NDAs. Even if one plus wanted to it wouldn't be up to them. Edit: It seems there are a lot of FOSS warriors in here, let me clarify: historically, Qualcomm has been legally hostile with both FOSS software communities as well as with their own customers. They will not give anything for free, and if they can slap a ton of…

Then they can remove that code from their kernel tree and repackage and redistribute it as a separate binary module.
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