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Gratton: The Sad State of Open Source in Android tablets
Angus Gratton has posted a
survey of GPL compliance across several Android-based tablets, along
with some comments on his findings. "With the exception of Barnes &
Noble's Nook e-reader, a device that isn't even really a tablet, I couldn't
find a single tablet manufacturer who was complying with the minimum of
their legal open source requirements under GNU GPL. Let alone supporting
community development."
(Log in to post comments)
Gratton: The Sad State of Open Source in Android tablets Posted Jul 26, 2010 2:00 UTC (Mon) by DDevine (subscriber, #60717) [Link]
The SmartQ Android devices from SmartDevices will soon enough be GPL compliant according to a post on the non-official forums.
Gratton: The Sad State of Open Source in Android tablets Posted Jul 26, 2010 4:39 UTC (Mon) by alogghe (subscriber, #6661) [Link]
@DDevine
"soon enough"?
The SmartQ devices have been shipping for almost a year.
I'm sorry to have bought one, the community has been crippled because of the source release issues...
Gratton: The Sad State of Open Source in Android tablets Posted Jul 26, 2010 5:43 UTC (Mon) by vmlinuz (guest, #24) [Link]
The simple fact is that for the smaller - or bigger - Chinese manufacturers, GPL compliance simply isn't an issue that they're aware of or faced with. There's no way to enforce the license in China under the current regime.
That said, I have one of these tablets and while it's not by any stretch an iPad-killer, for under US$100 it's a reasonably usable piece of kit. It's slow, particularly the graphics, but it is running a full Android, it's okay for web/RSS reading, and it makes a pretty good streaming audio box...
There are no need to fight these Chinese manufacturers... Posted Jul 26, 2010 8:12 UTC (Mon) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] Well, it's impossible to force anything in China, but you can definitely close wider US/European market for them. Forever. For a single GPL violation makes it impossible to distribute Android phone or tabler in any country which respects copyright. Think about it - GPLv2, item 4: You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. To argue that they in fact planned to comply with GPL and just failed to include written notice (court can buy such interpretation, I guess) they'll be forced to procure sources for all products they ever sold and this will mean Chinese manufacturers will remain just a manufacturers and will be unable to sell anything under their own brand in US/Europe/etc - which is the best outcome we can hope for now...
There are no need to fight these Chinese manufacturers... Posted Jul 26, 2010 10:30 UTC (Mon) by etienne (subscriber, #25256) [Link]
> For a single GPL violation makes it impossible to distribute Android phone or tabler in any country which respects copyright.
Is there one country in the world which respects copyright?
There are no need to fight these Chinese manufacturers... Posted Jul 26, 2010 11:32 UTC (Mon) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link] Is there one country in the world which respects copyright? I mean, is there one country in the world where you do not find for sale these shiny ARM based devices with Linux and no source whatsoever? Pre-emptive copyright enforcement (necessary in order to never "find for sale these shiny ARM based devices with Linux and no source whatsoever") is impractical unless you want to entrust copyright enforcement to the secret police. There are, however, countries where the GPL has been successfully enforced after-the-fact against an infringing party. You can help by reporting these devices to the copyright holders when you find them; there's no need for you to hire a lawyer.
There are no need to fight these Chinese manufacturers... Posted Jul 26, 2010 12:43 UTC (Mon) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
> there's no need for you to hire a lawyer.
And if you did he would quickly tell you that going after them for license violation on your own is a complete waste of your time and your money. Unless you are the copyright holder then there is no damages against you and you have no rights.
All this talk of lawsuits and trying to force people to do what you want and how you want it is all very irritating and all very ignorant.
What you want from these folks is not code dumps on some ftp server.. what you want from these corporations is _cooperation_. That is were the value is at. If you force them they will just react by doing code dumps and then write their own proprietary bootloader and used signed firmware. Then you'll be completely fk-ed and the device will be useless for any sort of hacking or modification unless your willing to put about a half a decade of work into it.
And with the ARM platform the Linux kernel side of thing is less useful then then bootloader if your interested in having real freedom on the device.
There is no license or any other legal horseshit you can pull that will force their trust and their cooperation. The source code is less useful then you think in situations like this.
Instead you have to give them reason and give them value to work with 'the community'.
There are no need to fight these Chinese manufacturers... Posted Jul 26, 2010 13:55 UTC (Mon) by etienne (subscriber, #25256) [Link]
These shiny ARM based devices with Linux and no source whatsoever are built for countries which do not enforce copyright.
I can not do anything about that. What I want is not to find for sale in the high street product containing stolen software, what I am asking is that those products are removed from the shelves. For that I would need a lawyer against the shop. They are competing against a potential "good guy" who would try to do it the right way, and who would obviously have higher costs. They really please the hardware compoments sellers because they sells more without having to release specs. Even a source code drop would help: the linux state would have been very different with a source code for wireless drivers, video drivers,... that they are using on these devices - but that is probably the main reason why they can't release the source.
Administrative proceeding with US Customs? Posted Jul 26, 2010 16:49 UTC (Mon) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625) [Link]
If you're a copyright holder, and the manufacturer exports to the USA, you can start an administrative proceeding with the US Customs Service. It looks much easier and less expensive than a court case.
You don't get money damages, but the shipment doesn't get through Customs. The importer has to ship it back, destroy it, or turn it over to the copyright holder.
Gratton: The Sad State of Open Source in Android tablets Posted Jul 26, 2010 9:37 UTC (Mon) by salimma (subscriber, #34460) [Link]
What's really sad is that given that the only major GPL-ed component of Android is its kernel, you would think that compliance is not that difficult to achieve. Release your kernel modifications; anything on top of libc can be customized without sharing the modifications.
Gratton: The Sad State of Open Source in Android tablets Posted Jul 26, 2010 10:16 UTC (Mon) by sylware (guest, #35259) [Link]
Indeed, and the GPU linux module is just a pass through for a closed source user space lib where all the real things are. You can have a look at what happened on the open source GPU stack lately when those "linux pass-thru modules" where righteously denied official support.
The linux GNU GPL exception which stops the GNU GPL to apply above syscalls is "worked around" that way. It should have been extended to any piece of code which drives optimally the hardware... well somethingish like that.
That's still better then nothing Posted Jul 26, 2010 10:49 UTC (Mon) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] The linux GNU GPL exception which stops the GNU GPL to apply above syscalls is "worked around" that way. It should have been extended to any piece of code which drives optimally the hardware... well somethingish like that. GPL is copyright license so it can not extend it's reach beyond what copyright gives you. If the real hardware driver (in userspace) is not a derived works (and kernel shims are truly trivial) then there are nothing GPL and kernel developers can do. This being said even such shims are valuable: it's easy to add interceptor to it and reverse-engineer stuff this way (see Noveau)...
That's still better then nothing Posted Jul 26, 2010 11:32 UTC (Mon) by sylware (guest, #35259) [Link]
There is no "derivative work" involved: the Linux GNU GPLv2 license exception makes the protection against closed source software stop at the syscalls. If this exception was not there, the entire software stack would have to be GNU GPL (that is not to be mistaken with the GNU Library GPL).
That's still better then nothing Posted Jul 26, 2010 11:36 UTC (Mon) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link] You really don't want to go down the "invoking syscalls is derivation" route. Really, you don't.
This "exception" is just a clarification... Posted Jul 26, 2010 14:01 UTC (Mon) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] It was discussed quite recently. The exception does not cover syscalls specifically added to circumvent GPL: it says This copyright does *not* cover user programs that use kernel services by normal system calls - this is merely considered normal use of the kernel, and does *not* fall under the heading of "derived work". It's hard to argue that syscalls which are created just for your driver and not used by anything else are "normal". If the in-kernel shim is truly trivial then it can not be copyrighted and then of course the userspace driver is not a derived work of kernel, but it's hard to say for sure without court decision...
This "exception" is just a clarification... Posted Jul 26, 2010 15:09 UTC (Mon) by sylware (guest, #35259) [Link]
Well...
Everybody knows the main purpose of the kernel is to optimally drive hardware and to provide a level of abstraction of it. Creating closed user space code which contains what is required to optimally drive some hardware is obviously a kernel task... then that code would be a derivative of the kernel function in an operating system. That user space code, which is devoted to kernel function should then be covered by the Linux GNU GPL as it's not a "normal" user space program.
What that has to do with anything? Posted Jul 27, 2010 6:01 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] Everybody knows the main purpose of the kernel is to optimally drive hardware and to provide a level of abstraction of it. Not everybody. Only few nerds. But even if you'll try to push this theory in court you'll fail: it has not relation to copyright. Creating closed user space code which contains what is required to optimally drive some hardware is obviously a kernel task... then that code would be a derivative of the kernel function in an operating system. Not even close. Think ndiswrapper. You can talk about legality of ndiswrapper itself, but the windows drivers it uses are no derived work of Linux kernel (if anything they are derived work of Windows kernel). That user space code, which is devoted to kernel function should then be covered by the Linux GNU GPL as it's not a "normal" user space program. This is not even funny. Yes, these are not "normal" system calls, but what if they implement some kind of "standard"? Or just emulate API from some other OS? Only court can give you 100% answer - and it may be not the answer you want at all.
What that has to do with anything? Posted Jul 27, 2010 10:42 UTC (Tue) by sylware (guest, #35259) [Link]
A kernel is not meant to optimally drive your hardware? A kernel does not provide a kind of level of abstraction for hardware? If you say so... :)))))
You are a troll... you are not worth losing my time... signing off.
What that has to do with anything? Posted Jul 27, 2010 11:36 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
It doesn't matter if a kernel is 'meant to optimally drive your hardware' *for the purposes of determining whether one work is derived from another*.
This "exception" is just a clarification... Posted Jul 27, 2010 9:19 UTC (Tue) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link] Everybody knows the main purpose of the kernel is to optimally drive hardware and to provide a level of abstraction of it. The latter, yes. The former, however, is definitely not an inherent property of kernels in general (microkernels ahoy!), and the existence of the userspace functionality of SVGAlib and accelerated X servers says that it's not an inherent property of the Linux kernel in particular.
Gratton: The Sad State of Open Source in Android tablets Posted Jul 26, 2010 10:48 UTC (Mon) by error27 (subscriber, #8346) [Link]
Even the nook GPL compliance wasn't totally perfect.
http://mjg59.livejournal.com/121450.html
The problem with exponential growth is that you're always overwhelmed by the newbies. It's a learning experience for these manufacturers, I suppose.
Gratton: The Sad State of Open Source in Android tablets Posted Jul 26, 2010 18:18 UTC (Mon) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link]
In the other news today (the following news item here) - LiMo becomes a sponsor of GNOME:
http://lwn.net/Articles/397362/
Is LiMo actually used in any device (it seems it actually is. One specific Hitachi phone is mentioned in their docs). If so: what about kernel and such for those devices?
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