[Arm-netbook] Allwinner's LGPL violation

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 9:38 PM, David Lanzendörfer
<david.lanzendoerfer at o2s.ch> wrote:
> Hi
>> There's bit of a stink over Allwinner using LGPL'd code in their
>> binary-only media lib, and then a few days later they try to conceal it
>> by changing function names. Luke, what is your take on that?
> I can explain the whole process in a whole detail, because I was directly
> involved in the process of this decision and I can tell where this is going
> right now:

 sorry, david, but what you wrote is very unclear.  for example: none
of us know whom you're working for: your message gives the [probably
quite wrong!] impression that you are working for allwinner.

> But until the FOSS libraries have all the functionality from the shipped SDK
> we can not just stop supporting our customers in China.

 apologies this is also unclear.

 so... are *you* using (and shipping) illegal license-violating
binaries to "customers in China" [with some LGPL wrapper]?  or is that
a position statement of Allwinner, is it a position statement from the
SDK developers in allwinner?  sorry i have to ask because you didn't
say, it's very very unclear.

 ... i have to warn you: if *you* are using (and shipping) illegal
license-violating binaries - even with an LGPL wrapper - then you are
*still* also in violation of the GPL license.  and, to protect
yourself (from knowingly and criminally infringing Copyright) you
should cease and desist from shipping those binaries immediately,
*regardless* of the consequences for your customers.

 perhaps you might like to clarify matters, i apologise but i really
did not understand who was represented by each of the statements that
you made.  it might be a good idea to re-post the entire message,
clarifying the context of whom "we" is, what "the decision" is, and so
on.

l.