
HTC Willfully Violates the GPL in T-Mobile's New G2 Android Phone - peter123
http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/sjs/htc-willfully-violates-gpl-t-mobiles-new-g2-android-phone
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Osiris
What I don't understand is _why_ phone manufactures are even worried about
rooting. If it's about service and warranty, they can simply make it clear
that replacing the OS voids the warranty and they won't provide service for
the phone.

Besides warranty and service costs, what else are they so worried about that
they feel it necessary to add these protection measures?

Surely the percent of customers that root/mod a phone is so small that it's
not worth the man-power and engineering to try to "fix" the problem. It seems
there must be some other concern they are trying to resolve that escapes me.

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roel_v
I guess it's because virus writers also to try to root the devices to install
rootkits. I'm quite in favor of requiring hardware mods (although I'd prefer a
jumper...) to modify the OS.

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yason
But they can do that now already, just like the regular phone-rooting hackers.

~~~
roel_v
The article mentioned that the new version needed hardware hacking to root.
Maybe at one point a software hack will be found, I don't know. I'm just
saying that there is a legitimate reason to lock down the software, especially
for a mass market product like a phone.

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duncan_bayne
Call them, and demand that your complaint be escalated. Call back daily until
this is fixed. Unlike emails which can be disregarded phone calls cost money
to process. This means that the FOSS community can impose a financial cost on
non-compliance without going through the courts.

I just got off the phone to HTC Australia, and apparently they'll be getting
in touch. If everyone did that ...

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jackolas
Just bring legal action or ask the SLFC to investigate.

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bdonlan
Only a copyright holder can bring legal action in this case. If you're just a
customer, you can't bring action by yourself, as you're not a party to the
violation or license agreement between HTC and the copyright holder(s).

~~~
sprout
If you've bought a G2, you are a copyright holder for the code in question.

~~~
klync
If you buy a copy of a copyright-able work, you are a licensee. The "copyright
holder" is the person who owns the legal ability to specify and grant the
rights under which the work may be copied.

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peregrine
This is only become an issue because of the new security permissions on the
phone. If the phone was easily hackable nobody would be complaining.

That said HTC played some mean tricks here, such as releasing the souce for
the HTC magic with bits and pieces of the vision source clearly removed. At
the same time while we were trying to reverse engineer this code and the
binary we saw major inconsistencies even though the disks are the same model
and spec.

They(HTC & TMO) really made it hard this time but once we figure out how this
works once it will likely be just as easy to hack as before.

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hartror
"within 90 to 120 days"

Maybe this tactic has something to do with product life cycle though I can't
think what. Surely a phone has a longer shelf life than 3 months . .

~~~
codedivine
Well it may not necessarily be malicious. Maybe the developers responsible for
say preparing the source tarball properly have just been given a lot of other
pressing work.

~~~
doki_pen
There is no preparing. They don't own the code. They need to release it in
exactly the same state it was in when deployed as binary. Otherwise, they are
violating copyright (often referred to as pirates).

That said, I'm almost certain that the linux kernel is released under a
modified form of the GPL, or at least Linus refuses to enforce parts of the
GPL. Binary modules and blobs are a clear violation of GPL, but they exist in
the Linux kernel to a great extent. There has been some fighting over the
issue in the past.

At any rate, I know that Linus is not as adamant about freedom as RMS. He's
using the GPL as a tool and not a principal. There was the whole Tivo-ization
argument, where Linus supported the hardware manufacturer and RMS released
GPLv3 explicitly forbidding that type of stuff.

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kelnos
_That said, I'm almost certain that the linux kernel is released under a
modified form of the GPL..._

Nope, it's standard stock GPLv2-only. There's a _clarification_ included in
the COPYING file that reminds people that userspace binaries that use the
documented system call interface are not considered derived works, but that's
not a modification of the license; it's just included for clarity reasons.

 _or at least Linus refuses to enforce parts of the GPL._

Not entirely. He's stated that he doesn't believe that a kernel module is
automatically a derived work of the kernel. For example, he's of the opinion
that the nvidia binary driver is not a derived work of Linux because the
driver core was first designed and written for a completely different OS.

Regardless, Linus Torvalds is not the last word on this: just about any kernel
contributor with copyright ownership could file suit.

 _There is no preparing. They don't own the code. They need to release it in
exactly the same state it was in when deployed as binary. Otherwise, they are
violating copyright (often referred to as pirates)._

Exactly.

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jrockway
Blog posts do not help. Take them to court.

~~~
adnam
Blog posts absolutely _do_ help.

~~~
kleiba
Good argument.

~~~
adnam
Just stating the obvious.

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ssp
I wonder where they got the _within the requirements of the open source
community_. It doesn't sound like something they would just make up.

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Vivtek
Sounds like something their lawyers made up, perhaps?

The first comment on the post has a pretty relevant paragraph, which I think
sounds plausible: _Section 3(b) allows you to provide a written offer for
source. I think HTC is interpreting this to mean that if you respond to their
written offer for source, there's obviously going to be a delay for them to
get your written request, put together the source code and send it back to
you, and they've decided that 90 to 120 days is a reasonable amount of time
for that._

The commenter also says it seems this is pushing it, and I agree - but HTC's
lawyers clearly think it's worth the risk.

~~~
bryanlarsen
Although further comments point out that there was no written offer provided,
so that section is irrelevant.

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masklinn
Which is surprising how? Android's aim has always been to be open for
manufacturers and providers. The user-wise openness is an implementation
detail and may or may not be there.

And the more time passes, the better manufacturers and carriers get acquainted
with the platform, the least common Android devices will be open as far as the
user is concerned.

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wazoox
> The user-wise openness is an implementation detail and may or may not be
> there.

This is not an implementation detail for the GPL.

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nextparadigms
If Google really wants Android to be open sourced, then it should be open
source for users too, not just carriers. I'm pretty sure HTC did something
illegal here.

