[Arm-netbook] A13 schematic

[lkcl luke]

On Sun, Apr 29, 2012 at 7:46 PM, Tsvetan Usunov - OLIMEX Ltd
<usunov at olimex.com> wrote:
>> Please keep facts straight.
>>
>> There is no direct obligation for Allwinner to provide any sources to
>> anyone but their customers, iff they provide sources to their customers
>> as part of the SDK.
>>
>> If allwinner do not provide sources to their customers as part of the
>> SDK then shit hits the fan so to say as the kernel is GPLv2 and not
>> GPLv3. But as of yet I have no reason to beleive Allwinner is keeping
>> the A13 sources secret from their SDK / eval board customers.
>
>
> interesting, so you say that if one take GPL software, modify it, then
> provide the sources only to selected number of customers this will be not
> GPL violation?

 that's absolutely correct.  the *only* obligation under the GPL is to
provide source (on request) to the people that you have shipped
binaries to, and ONLY to those people, and to absolutely no other
person, persons or entities.  those people then in turn need only to
do likewise, etc. etc. all the way down a massive chain that i've seen
sometimes goes about 6 deep.

 so this is why LG and other companies go to great lengths to keep
absolute total secrecy over what source code goes into their TVs and
other products.  they consider it a FAILURE if you even DISCOVER that
there is GPL source code in their mass-volume products.

 where things might go horribly wrong with Allwinner is if they made
the mistake of forcing their customers to sign an NDA in order to
obtain access to the GPLv2 source code.  this _is_ a GPL violation and
they would lose all rights to distribution of that source code, pretty
much forever (as it is impossible to ask for rights to be restored
when you have to contact 1000s of individuals and corporations).

GPLv3 recognises this as a serious problem and is a little more
lenient, allowing rights to be automatically re-gained if compliance
is done promptly - not sure of the details.  but GPLv2 (which is
u-boot and the linux kernel), it's incredibly "draconian" - one
mistake and that's it, you're history.  for a SoC company where their
*entire* business model is dependent on being able to distribute GPLv2
source code i'm constantly amazed that any SoC company would be so
damn stupid as to shoot themselves in the head, but they do actually
do that.  amazing.

 l.