[Arm-netbook] Allwinner git / GPL stalemate situation

[lkcl luke]

On Wed, Jul 4, 2012 at 1:39 PM, Tom Cubie <mr.hipboi at gmail.com> wrote:
> today my superior ask me to remove all the "allwinner" word in all the
> source code of our internal tree for some reasons. i want to know if
> can i still leave the GPL statement in the source code with some
> random company name.

 as the copyright holder, the entity presently known by the name
"allwinner" may do whatever it chooses.  you cannot however
"un"release copyright releases but you can of course make
modifications and refuse to license further modifications to those
exact same files [of course, if you then release those modifications
and the chosen license, if there is one at all, on those modifications
is incompatible with the GPL which of course default fall-back
copyright is then you've just caused a bit of a nightmare for everyone
including yourself, but that's a different matter].

 bottom line: a global search/replace of "Copyright Allwinner" with
"Copyright {insert random company name}" is acceptable - but *do not*
change the dates, nor add extra years, nor do *anything* other than
change the name of the company [or remove it].

 the only reason why the date would change would be if there was any
*actual* changes (insertions, deletions) to the *actual* source code
rather than just the Copyright notice.

 i strongly advise you to do that completely separately - i.e. make
the company name changes in one large hit.

 l.