Re: ARM endorsing GPL violation by one of its Licensees (Telechips) - TCC8900
+++ Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton [2010-12-03 18:37 +0000]:
> i'm sure that ARM are aware of this, but i wanted to double-check and
> also alert them, so that i know that they're definitely aware of the
> issue.
Mailing the debian arm porters list is not, in general, a good way to
alert 'ARM corp' to anything.
> the issue is very simple. see the following page:
>
> http://www.malideveloper.com/developer-resources/development-boards/telechips-tcc8900-development-platform.php?tab=ORDER%20INFO
>
> it states that an NDA is required.
>
> upon signing the NDA, a Board Support Package is received, comprising
> Linux Kernel Source Code, amongst other things.
>
> (a copy of the TCC8900 Linux Kernel Source code was extracted from a
> BSP and uploaded here:
> https://alioth.debian.org/plugins/scmgit/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi?p=arm-netbook/arm-netbook.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/tcc8900/v2.6.28/chipper)
>
> forcing people to sign NDAs to receive GPL source code is in direct
> violation of the GPL license.
I'm not sure it's quite that simple. If the NDA was for receipt of the
board, or for the receipt of the proprietary bits, then it could still
be compliant. You have to sign an NDA to get the hardware, and they
only dish out the software to people with the hardware. None of that
sounds like a licence violation to me.
But then I haven't read what it actually says. It clearly could be
problematic.
> the problem for ARM is that they are responsible for
> malideveloper.com. a whois for malideveloper.com shows:
>
> therefore, it can be concluded that ARM endorses GPL violation.
Are they responsible the that board/BSP/software/NDA supply? Just
owning a website doesn't make you responsible for everything
uploaded to it. It looks to me like some outfit called telechips are
responsible for this issue.
> I would like to know what ARM is going to be doing about this situation.
Probably nothing yet, and I think you're going to need to make a much
better case for this violation before you even persuade me, another
Free Software and licensing zealot, never mind ARM :-)
Your approach, again, is that of a Charolois in the Denbigh shop. Try
starting off nice, and get stroppier if there is a lack of good
answers, rather than doing it the other way round.
Wookey
--
Principal hats: Linaro, Emdebian, Wookware, Balloonboard, ARM
http://wookware.org/
Reply to: