[Arm-netbook] tablet pricing

[cnxsoft]

On 13/07/2012 17:46, lkcl luke wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 13, 2012 at 11:38 AM, cnxsoft<cnxsoft at cnx-software.com>  wrote:
>> On 13/07/2012 16:55, lkcl luke wrote:
>>> On Fri, Jul 13, 2012 at 9:23 AM, Guo, Yifu<yifu.guo at bitsyn.com>   wrote:
>>>> GPS licencing is expensive.
>>>>
>>>> Also I'm going with AMlogic with my project as they do provide source,
>>>    no, they don't.  they force companies to sign a GPL-violating NDA,
>>> and do *not* provide full source code.
>>>
>> They may drag their feet for new processors, but for older ones, they
>> seem pretty open: http://openlinux.amlogic.com/wiki/index.php/Arm
>   for the reference designs? sure it is - but that reference design
> code is absolutely of zero use to you if it doesn't match the
> hardware, is it?
>
>   their GPL-violating policies cost us hard cash, and cost us a client.
>   an ODM which *they recommended* refused to provide the modifications
> that the ODM themselves had made, because they had signed the
> GPL-violating NDA.  we had already approached a client who wanted to
> use the ODM's devices with their own custom OS, but without the full
> GPL source code this was clearly impossible, and "our" failure to
> deliver cost *us* the client.
>
>   also: you've heard of the "Spark Plasma" Tablet?  it's actually a
> rebadged Zenithink tablet.  one of Zenithink's Engineers *deliberately
> violated* the AMLogic NDA that his company, Zenithink, had signed, by
> providing the spark plasma team with the GPL Source Code, calling into
> question the legality of the project.
>
>   you *can't* mess around with this stuff.
>
>   l.
I've never worked with AMLogic, so I can't comment directly on the 
issues you had with them.
However, in the link I provided, although I haven't looked into details, 
they seem to release u-boot and the kernel source code (For 8226 and 
others) publicly together with instructions to build it and use their 
media framework. There is no need to sign a NDA first before downloading 
the files on that page. If you have a different hardware, you could 
modify u-boot and/or the kernel.
My assumption is that people could run into the issues you described 
with new processors, where AMLogic asks their customers to sign an NDA 
that would prevent them to sell a device without violating GPL. (Which 
unfortunately seems to be the norm).