[Arm-netbook] Allwinner git / GPL stalemate situation

[Alejandro Mery]

On 01/06/12 19:31, lkcl luke wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 4:58 PM, Vladimir Pantelic<vladoman at gmail.com>  wrote:
>> cnxsoft wrote:
>>> On 01/06/2012 18:03, Tsvetan Usunov, OLIMEX LTD wrote:
>>>> Olimex will be granted to access to Allwinner development git repositories
>>>> if we sign NDA which do not allow us to share the sources with 3rd parties.
>>>>
>>>> Now we are in stalemate situation if we want to develop the Linux support
>>>> for A10-A13-OLinuXino we have to use the information on these repositories
>>>> as the other documentation is incomplete, we spoted lot of errors on it (but
>>>> we have been warned that there are errors anyway) and only these sources
>>>> guarantee that we will not lose time while development, in other hand
>>>> signing this NDA will make us GPL violator as we will not be able to release
>>>> the BSP sources.
>>>>
>>>> Any ideas? We are so smallish customer that we can't influence
>>>> Allwinner/Wits on GPL at all. If we do not sign, they just do not allow us
>>>> access and we are free to go somewhere else :-)
>>>>
>>>> Tsvetan
>>> Interesting. So if i understand correctly, they ask you to sign a
>>> legally binding document asking you to do something against the law.
>>
>> it is not against the law. if you sign that NDA, you cannot release the
>> code under the GPL, thus you cannot release a product.
>
>   ... and AllwinnerTech lose their right to distribute the code under
> the GPL for violating the GPL license, because forcing people to sign
> NDAs in order to receive GPL source code is itself not permitted under
> the terms and conditions of the GPL.
>
>   that basically puts their entire business in the shitter.
>
>   when will these f*****g companies start to f*****g get it??

from what I see this "threat" is absolutely meaningless for them