HTC Willfully Violates the GPL in T-Mobile's New G2 Android Phone (Freedom to Tinker)

Posted Oct 11, 2010 22:02 UTC (Mon) by caitlinbestler (guest, #32532)
In reply to: HTC Willfully Violates the GPL in T-Mobile's New G2 Android Phone (Freedom to Tinker) by jmm82
Parent article: HTC Willfully Violates the GPL in T-Mobile's New G2 Android Phone (Freedom to Tinker)

The written distribution clause is already invalid, for the simple reason that the written offer did not accompany the already distributed phones.

So HTC is obligated to provide the source code via HTTP or FTP, as quickly
as can reasonably be done. They already burned the mail distribution option.

HTC Willfully Violates the GPL in T-Mobile's New G2 Android Phone (Freedom to Tinker)

Posted Oct 11, 2010 22:24 UTC (Mon) by jmm82 (guest, #59425) [Link] (5 responses)

"as quickly as can reasonably be done."

Anyone who worked on a large project inside a corporation could agree 90 days is reasonable to sort out all the code and determine what to release.

I am not trying to make excuses for HTC by any means and agree they are probably stalling. Yet, I am still curious if anyone is aware of a court case which has determined the technical limit on "as quickly as can reasonably be done."

I do feel the article is taking "poetic liberty" to state "Notably, there is no mention of a "grace period" or the like." There is no mention of a "period" whatsoever.

HTC Willfully Violates the GPL in T-Mobile's New G2 Android Phone (Freedom to Tinker)

Posted Oct 12, 2010 2:19 UTC (Tue) by rweir (subscriber, #24833) [Link]

> Anyone who worked on a large project inside a corporation could agree 90 days is reasonable to sort out all the code and determine what to release.

Perhaps, but those 90 days should be before you ship. Would a company consider shipping a Windows 7 or other $proprietary-expensive OS on a phone with the plan to sort out licensing afterwards?

HTC Willfully Violates the GPL in T-Mobile's New G2 Android Phone (Freedom to Tinker)

Posted Oct 12, 2010 11:17 UTC (Tue) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link] (2 responses)

"90 days is reasonable to sort out all the code and determine what to release."

The code mustn't need "sorting out". That's the point. They already built it into a device and sold it - and that was their last chance to sort out the legality of what they were doing. You're probably correctly describing some of what's going on but that doesn't make it legal.

This is a tools issue and a culture issue. It's a tools issue because a good software outfit would be able to deliver a source tarball as part of the same build process that spits out binaries for flashing onto a phone, but most likely HTC's engineers fail the Joel Test and can't even spit out a new phone image without scrabbling about doing manual build steps.

It's a culture issue because you have to create a culture in which developers understand that the source code isn't private. If you just hire a bunch of guys with proprietary software backgrounds they may not even be keen on sharing within the team, let alone with other people. Improving the culture makes good business sense, but it may not get done because HTC doesn't realise it's a software company.

HTC Willfully Violates the GPL in T-Mobile's New G2 Android Phone (Freedom to Tinker)

Posted Oct 13, 2010 2:10 UTC (Wed) by sepreece (guest, #19270) [Link] (1 responses)

I agree that a company that is well-organized and plans ahead to play by the rules CAN arrange to simply have the appropriate tarball come out at each build (I worked for one that did essentially that). However, you can be following pretty reasonable source and build management practices without doing so, if you haven't specifically thought out the license issues in advance. There's no reason, from a pure software-development standpoint, to separate code by license.

If you approach the problem after the fact, separating out the code by license can be daunting and 90 days is not hard to believe. I know of projects at several companies that I have worked on that were unable to re-create specific product builds at all.

[Not an excuse - just an explanation.]

HTC Willfully Violates the GPL in T-Mobile's New G2 Android Phone (Freedom to Tinker)

Posted Oct 13, 2010 17:31 UTC (Wed) by rahvin (guest, #16953) [Link]

The code is either Kernel code or it isn't. There shouldn't be anything to 'sort' out. The boundary of what is and isn't derivative code is very well defined. I could agree that it might be hard to sort out user-space stuff but the kernel code is either GPL or a violation and there isn't really anything at all to 'sort out' unless you are trying to conceal a GPL violation.

Any delays are internal political issues (legal review) or BS excuses to delay the release. What HTC is stupidly not considering is that the delay is only gonna work on the first phone with this chip, once the code is in the wild it won't matter on future phones and the chip manufacturer isn't going to respin the chip every phone release to alter the codes that need to be sent. So HTC's efforts will only serve to alienate customers with little to no benefit. Sounds like a PHB came up with the 90 day limit to me, the same clueless PHB's that think DRM is unbreakable.

The best part is that now that this issue is public someone's going to take cracking the op codes as a challenge and they are going to reverse engineer it very quickly thus blowing the entire reason for the delay. You have to wonder if the PHB's that came up with this silly idea even considered the consequences?

HTC Willfully Violates the GPL in T-Mobile's New G2 Android Phone (Freedom to Tinker)

Posted Oct 14, 2010 8:23 UTC (Thu) by dunlapg (guest, #57764) [Link]

I work for a large corporation that sells a complex piece of software, composed of a mix of open- and closed-source, with probably a dozen upstream projects with local patch queues. We don't have any trouble having source ISOs available for download the day of the release.

In any case, "the linux kernel" should be pretty easy to determine.

HTC Willfully Violates the GPL in T-Mobile's New G2 Android Phone (Freedom to Tinker)

Posted Oct 11, 2010 22:26 UTC (Mon) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link]

Either source must be made available immediately (accompanying the executable, or available on the same server as the executable), or the source must be accompanied by a written offer, valid for at least three years, to provide the source to the distributed binary. Furthermore the provided source has to include source plus build scripts that will result in building that binary, not some later, cleaned-up binary. If you aren't ready to distribute source, you aren't ready to distribute binary.

If, as alleged, the company didn't include the written offer, it's already a copyright infringer, and according to GPLv2, its rights to distribute the code (whether source or binary) are terminated. The copyright holder(s) can restore these rights.

HTC Willfully Violates the GPL in T-Mobile's New G2 Android Phone (Freedom to Tinker)

Posted Oct 12, 2010 3:48 UTC (Tue) by ccurtis (guest, #49713) [Link] (2 responses)

"The written distribution clause is already invalid [...] So HTC is obligated to provide the source code via HTTP or FTP [...]"

This is completely untrue. The GPLv2 is pretty easy to read:

[...]
TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
[...]
3. You may copy and distribute the Program [...] provided that you also do one of the following:
[...]
b) 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 [...] on a medium customarily used for software interchange.
c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
[...]

The GPL was written in 1991. RFC 1945 (HTTP 1.0) was published in 1996 (although it was certainly in use earlier - I was running NCSA httpd in 1994). Neither FTP nor HTTP appear in the GPL.

It seems to me that there are two questions: Firstly, did HTC actually modify the software, or are they just shipping a binary provided to them by someone else?

If the latter, I believe they are complying with section (c). I do not have a G2 phone, but I have an Android 2.2 emulator. On the emulator, if I hit the 'menu' button from the main screen, select 'Settings', 'About phone', 'Legal information', and 'Open Source Licenses', a copy of the GPL is present.

If HTC actually modified the software, they do have to include a written offer with the device providing the means to contact them to get the source code. The article states that they have to provide the complete source with the device itself, which is untrue. That is one of three options; the other two I quoted above.

Without the actual device, I don't know if they are complying with (b). However, it is perfectly within their rights granted them by the GPL to state that the request must be received by certified mail and to charge a $20 fee to cover the cost of producing a DVD of the source and mailing it back to you.

It certainly seems like HTC has modified the software and is not complying with the GPL. If so, then there is a legitimate complaint and therefore no reason to go around making stuff up.

HTC Willfully Violates the GPL in T-Mobile's New G2 Android Phone (Freedom to Tinker)

Posted Oct 12, 2010 5:12 UTC (Tue) by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75) [Link] (1 responses)

It seems to me that there are two questions: Firstly, did HTC actually modify the software, or are they just shipping a binary provided to them by someone else?
If the latter, I believe they are complying with section (c).

No. Check the fine print. Option (c) is only available for noncommercial distribution. Since HTC's distribution is clearly commercial, they can't rely on (c). So they must either provide the code with the device or provide a written offer to provide the source code to any third party. It sounds as though they're doing neither.

HTC Willfully Violates the GPL in T-Mobile's New G2 Android Phone (Freedom to Tinker)

Posted Oct 12, 2010 14:37 UTC (Tue) by ccurtis (guest, #49713) [Link]

Option (c) is only available for noncommercial distribution.

Ack. You are of course correct. I had a different interpretation of 'non-commercial' in my head when I wrote that.