[Arm-netbook] Allwinner git / GPL stalemate situation

[Enrico]

On Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 7:33 PM, Alejandro Mery <amery at geeks.cl> wrote:
> 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

That's exactly the point, we can talk for days about gpl violations
and Allwinner rights, we can ping the FSF to do something and in 6
months Allwinner will release the code, but today Tsvetan problem will
stay the same. And he's not big enough to threaten a company he wants
to do business with.

(That said, i'd love to see their a** kicked too).

Enrico