HTC Inspire 4g Gingerbread Source Code

Re: HTC Inspire 4g Gingerbread Source Code

Quoting James Zdziebkowski <snap81 <at> hotmail.com>:

> HTC has replied to an email I have sent them that they will not  
> release the code for 90~120 days.  This is a blatant disregard to  
> the gpl license.

Personally, I'm not sure I could go as far as "blatant disregard",  
although I do understand from where you are coming.

The wording relating to written offer reads that, if distributing a  
covered work in binary form, a distributor must:

"Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to  
give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of  
physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable  
copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the  
terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for  
software interchange"

It does not provide that the source code must be given "by return" or  
"immediately" (or, as was the case when the licence was drafted, that  
the tapes or disks must be written quickly) or anything like that.

As such, I would expect a court to read into it that the source must  
be provided in a reasonable time - although whether 90-120 days  
constitutes a "reasonable time" is perhaps another matter?

Kind regards

Neil

--

-- 

Neil Brown

neil <at> neilzone.co.uk | http://neilzone.co.uk

Re: HTC Inspire 4g Gingerbread Source Code

On Tue, 09 Aug 2011 09:32:42 +0100, Neil wrote in message 
<20110809093242.115091iodhl3fxyi <at> neilzone.co.uk>:

> Quoting James Zdziebkowski <snap81 <at> hotmail.com>:
> 
> > HTC has replied to an email I have sent them that they will not  
> > release the code for 90~120 days.  This is a blatant disregard to  
> > the gpl license.
> 
> Personally, I'm not sure I could go as far as "blatant disregard",  
> although I do understand from where you are coming.
> 
> The wording relating to written offer reads that, if distributing a  
> covered work in binary form, a distributor must:
> 
> "Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years,
> to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of  
> physically performing source distribution, a complete
> machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be
> distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
> customarily used for software interchange"
> 
> It does not provide that the source code must be given "by return"
> or "immediately" (or, as was the case when the licence was drafted,
> that the tapes or disks must be written quickly) or anything like
> that.
> 
> As such, I would expect a court to read into it that the source must  
> be provided in a reasonable time - although whether 90-120 days  
> constitutes a "reasonable time" is perhaps another matter?
> 
> Kind regards
> 
> Neil
> 

..one way to decide on "reasonable time", is compare it with the
product warranty, it should be a fair amount shorter than "half 
way thru the warranty", in Norway it's 5 years for cell phones,
and I consider 90 days, way too long.  2 weeks is reasonable, 
and the accepted standard here for acceptable response times in
business, government and litigation.  3 weeks, is where you begin 
eating away your grace time quota.

--

-- 
..med vennlig hilsen = with Kind Regards from Arnt Karlsen
...with a number of polar bear hunters in his ancestry...
  Scenarios always come in sets of three: 
  best case, worst case, and just in case.

HTC Inspire 4g kernel source

HTC - source for 2.6.35 Evo Shift kernel

Re: HTC - source for 2.6.35 Evo Shift kernel

On Wed, Aug 10, 2011 at 2:16 PM, Tony Simmons <tony <at> 99percent.com> wrote:
> Does this behavior by HTC violate the terms of GPLv2?  This is obviously an
> ongoing pattern with HTC and Android kernel source.
> Regards,
> Tony

  Yes, it does.  But lacking any action by any actual copywrite
holders, not much can be done besides keep asking.

  They are correct in one way.  Android is not under the GPL, so their
android release isn't strickly required, but the Linux kernel is.

--

-- 
-- Thomas

Re: HTC - source for 2.6.35 Evo Shift kernel

I realize that the rest of the OS is covered by Apache, but I was
always very specific about asking for the kernel source code.  If they
came back with that scripted Apache answer, I would remind them that
the kernel is covered by GPL, then wait for the next canned answer.

The whole process is very frustrating.  I would bet that some constant
and focused tech media attention would get HTC to change their ways
(e.g., the G2 kernel source), but it always seems to stop after every
little "GPL battle" with them.

On Wed, Aug 10, 2011 at 10:10 PM, Thomas Charron <twaffle <at> gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 10, 2011 at 2:16 PM, Tony Simmons <tony <at> 99percent.com> wrote:
>> Does this behavior by HTC violate the terms of GPLv2?  This is obviously an
>> ongoing pattern with HTC and Android kernel source.
>> Regards,
>> Tony
>
>  Yes, it does.  But lacking any action by any actual copywrite
> holders, not much can be done besides keep asking.
>
>  They are correct in one way.  Android is not under the GPL, so their
> android release isn't strickly required, but the Linux kernel is.
>
> --
> -- Thomas
>

Re: HTC - source for 2.6.35 Evo Shift kernel

On 08/11/2011 04:10 AM, Thomas Charron wrote:
>    They are correct in one way.  Android is not under the GPL, so their
> android release isn't strickly required, but the Linux kernel is.

Hahahaha. You have obviously not looked at many Android devices then...

armijn

--

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armijn <at> uulug.nl |http://www.uulug.nl/| UULug: Utrecht Linux Users Group
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Re: HTC - source for 2.6.35 Evo Shift kernel

On Thu, Aug 11, 2011 at 2:55 AM, Armijn Hemel <armijn <at> uulug.nl> wrote:
> On 08/11/2011 04:10 AM, Thomas Charron wrote:
>>
>>   They are correct in one way.  Android is not under the GPL, so their
>> android release isn't strickly required, but the Linux kernel is.
>
> Hahahaha. You have obviously not looked at many Android devices then...

  You obviously haven't looked at much of the code which is android
(not to be confused with the underlying operating system).  Android is
an operating environment, running under Dalvik.

  Unless you claim to have more intimate knowledge of Android then
google does.  You see, tis is why Google really doesn't have much leg
to stand on as far as forcing the release by vendors.  Nearly all of
their code is licensed under the Apache license.

  My *personal* opinion is that Google should include a requirement
for the releases of the sources for the LGPL/GPL as part of their
android branding agreement.  This would give them better footing to
call them up and 'talk' to them.

--

-- 
-- Thomas

Re: HTC - source for 2.6.35 Evo Shift kernel

> You see, tis is why Google really doesn't have much leg
> to stand on as far as forcing the release by vendors.

...

>   My *personal* opinion is that Google should include a requirement
> for the releases of the sources for the LGPL/GPL as part of their
> android branding agreement.  This would give them better footing to
> call them up and 'talk' to them.

Do you think Google wants to take on the role of Android policeman,  
though? Is there a commercial advantage to it getting involved in  
licensing disputes between distributors and recipients / copyright  
owners?

One can debate whether Google *should*, but the proposal above  
suggests that Google itself considers that it should, and that's not  
clear to me.

(Happy to be corrected, of course.)

Neil

--

-- 

Neil Brown

neil <at> neilzone.co.uk | http://neilzone.co.uk