[Arm-netbook] CT-PC89E - success replicating boot from SDcard with switch in NON-factory-default setting

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 1:41 PM, Alain Williams <addw at phcomp.co.uk> wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 01:24:23PM +0000, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:
>> dear kimberly,
>> ...
>
>> if you do not comply, we will hunt your product down relentlessly and
>> will inform all buyers of the non-compliance.  it is very easy to do
>> this, because your excellent product is the only one that is an 8.9in
>> ARM netbook.  it is therefore incredibly easy to find:
>>
>> http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/277571430/8_9_TFT_LED_2GB_NAND.html
>>
>> we will be contacting this company and also advising them of the
>> ongoing GPL violations.
>
> Just to make that clear what a GPL violation means: it will be illegal to
> sell the product in a country where the GPL is recognised;

 alain, hi,

 thank you for contributing, here.  there have been some discussions
in which i also used the word "illegal", and it was pointed out to me
that it's not _actually_ "illegal".  non-compliance with the
conditions of a license agreement - a contract in effect - is not
itself actually "illegal".

 it's just that the consequences of not complying with something that
is enforceable under copyright law can be extremely severe and costly,
depending on the country and depending on whether copyright law is
respected in that country or not.

 in the locations where this unit is likely to be popular - europe and
the U.S. - it's definitely enforceable.  i've sent links to chitech
already for them to review, of instances where the GPL has been
enforced and/or where violators have settled and complied, some of
them extremely large multi-billion-dollar corporations, and chitech
have chosen to ignore my advice that they learn from the experiences
of the very large corporations whom they aspire to be like.

 this is a great pity, and it saddens me greatly, because the hardware
is excellent, and it is going to get completely overtaken in the next
few months by alternative similar low-cost products.

 l.