[Arm-netbook] Allwinner git / GPL stalemate situation

[Benjamin Henrion]

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

When they start receiving letter from lawyers, they start to think differently.

-- 
Benjamin Henrion <bhenrion at ffii.org>
FFII Brussels - +32-484-566109 - +32-2-3500762
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