[U-Boot] Possible GPL violation

[U-Boot] Possible GPL violation

[Mateusz Kulikowski]

Hi,

Short version:
Is there anyone that can support me with enforcing GPL compliance on 
company that ships product with binary u-boot? Or did that in the past?


Long version:
Polish market is flooded with cheap DVB-T receivers (we're switching to 
digital tv now), android tablets etc.
They're "made" (branded is probably better word) by local companies, and 
my guess is that most of them is violating GPL.

Some time ago I've bought WIWA HD100 DVB-T receiver.
I have coverage issues, so I decided to play a bit with this device, 
just to have fun (also to try to port Linux there).

I already knew that other models made by this vendor are using u-boot, 
so I played a bit with HW, found serial port and:

<log>
  Hello U-Boot


U-Boot 1.1.6 (Oct 13 2011 - 00:32:14)

Board: MSTAR KRNOUS (CPU Speed 552 MHz)
DRAM:  64 X 0 MBytes
U-Boot is running at DRAM 0x87600000
</log>

I also disassembled parts of asm code (AFAIR it was mips_cache_reset, 
but I may be wrong).

I'd love to have sources (porting Linux to unknown, closed SOC is 
painful without documentation, u-boot sources are very helpful), so I 
wrote to manufacturer and called them several times.
Unfortunately they either don't understand what I'm asking for, or 
deliberately ignoring my requests.

I can't do much myself (except for nagging them for source code), as 
it's not my copyrights that they're infringing.

Is there a chance that you can help me or should I try using 
GPL-Violations mailing list?

Regards,
Mateusz

[U-Boot] Possible GPL violation

[Wolfgang Denk]

Dear Mateusz,

In message <5123E16B.1060907@gmail.com> you wrote:
> 
> Is there anyone that can support me with enforcing GPL compliance on 
> company that ships product with binary u-boot? Or did that in the past?

We can try.

> They're "made" (branded is probably better word) by local companies, and 
> my guess is that most of them is violating GPL.

Guesses are not good enough in such legal affairs.

> I can't do much myself (except for nagging them for source code), as 
> it's not my copyrights that they're infringing.

So did you contact the vendor and ask for the source code?  And did
they answer, and what exactly?

Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

-- 
DENX Software Engineering GmbH,     MD: Wolfgang Denk & Detlev Zundel
HRB 165235 Munich, Office: Kirchenstr.5, D-82194 Groebenzell, Germany
Phone: (+49)-8142-66989-10 Fax: (+49)-8142-66989-80 Email: wd at denx.de
Contrary to popular belief, thinking does not cause brain damage.

[U-Boot] Possible GPL violation

[Mateusz Kulikowski]

Dear Wolfgang,


On 20.02.2013 15:24, Wolfgang Denk wrote:
>> They're "made" (branded is probably better word) by local companies, and
>> my guess is that most of them is violating GPL.
>
> Guesses are not good enough in such legal affairs.

I know, that's why I'm not asking for help with "all" devices, just the 
one I have.

>
>> I can't do much myself (except for nagging them for source code), as
>> it's not my copyrights that they're infringing.
>
> So did you contact the vendor and ask for the source code?  And did
> they answer, and what exactly?

10.2012 - I filled "generic" support form asking for sources of U-Boot, 
no reply.

~01.2013 - I called their tech-support, asking for sources. Of course 
guys didn't understood what I was asking for, but gave me e-mail to 
person that should be able to help me.

01.2013 - I send email to that person, no reply.

end of 01.2013 - I called tech-support again, and was transferred to 
person I emailed earlier - and tried to explain that to comply with GPL 
they should provide me with sources on request.
I'm not sure if he understood me, but was supposed to check it and get 
back to me. Of course he didn't.

Perhaps it's my fault that in e-mails I didn't explained that they're 
obliged to provide me the sources (due to GPL) - that's why tomorrow I 
will try again to call and (if it fails) write them big email with 
quotes from GPL.

If you have better ideas (I can go directly to their office, or send 
regular mail) - please share them, as you have way more experience with 
legal stuff than I do.


Regards,
Mateusz

[U-Boot] Possible GPL violation

[Pavel Machek]

> > Is there anyone that can support me with enforcing GPL compliance on 
> > company that ships product with binary u-boot? Or did that in the past?
> 
> We can try.
> 
> > They're "made" (branded is probably better word) by local companies, and 
> > my guess is that most of them is violating GPL.
> 
> Guesses are not good enough in such legal affairs.
> 
> > I can't do much myself (except for nagging them for source code), as 
> > it's not my copyrights that they're infringing.
> 
> So did you contact the vendor and ask for the source code?  And did
> they answer, and what exactly?

Technically... he should have got source code or written offer for it with
the device. So they are already breaking GPL.
									Pavel
-- 
(english) http://www.livejournal.com/~pavelmachek
(cesky, pictures) http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~pavel/picture/horses/blog.html

[U-Boot] Possible GPL violation

[Wolfgang Denk]

Dear Pavel,

In message <20130307091729.GA24807@xo-6d-61-c0.localdomain> you wrote:
>
> > So did you contact the vendor and ask for the source code?  And did
> > they answer, and what exactly?
> 
> Technically... he should have got source code or written offer for it with
> the device. So they are already breaking GPL.

Of course you are correct.  But there is a wide ange of possibilies;
some vendors just don't know what they are supposed to do, and are
appreciative for a friendly hint.  Of course there are also those
where you need a fully charged blaster - but in my experience these
are very few.

Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

-- 
DENX Software Engineering GmbH,     MD: Wolfgang Denk & Detlev Zundel
HRB 165235 Munich, Office: Kirchenstr.5, D-82194 Groebenzell, Germany
Phone: (+49)-8142-66989-10 Fax: (+49)-8142-66989-80 Email: wd at denx.de
The evolution of the human race will not be accomplished in  the  ten
thousand  years  of  tame  animals,  but in the million years of wild
animals, because man is and will always be a wild animal.
                                              - Charles Galton Darwin

[U-Boot] Possible GPL violation

[Charles Manning]

I have had to deal with this a bit so I'll give my 2c.

Under the GPL2, the company only has to provide source, or make an
offer to do so, to customers buying the product containing the GPL
code.

The flip side to this is that the "teeth" in the GPL come from
copyright law and the only person who can force anything is the
copyright holder.

So that really means:
1) If you buy a product containing GPL code, but the company does not
supply the code, then - in general - you cannot force the company to
supply you with code. You need to get the collaboration of an
infringed copyright holder to force the issue.
2) If you are the copyright holder of some GPL code, you cannot - in
general - demand that the company supply you with code. You have to
either buy a product or get the collaboration of someone that has
bought a product.

In the cases I have been involved with (as an infringed copyright
holder), the lawyers bought a product on our behalf and made requests
for code and then when none was forthcoming they pressed the case.

It really isn't as easy as it should be...


On Fri, Mar 8, 2013 at 4:28 AM, Wolfgang Denk <wd@denx.de> wrote:
> Dear Pavel,
>
> In message <20130307091729.GA24807@xo-6d-61-c0.localdomain> you wrote:
>>
>> > So did you contact the vendor and ask for the source code?  And did
>> > they answer, and what exactly?
>>
>> Technically... he should have got source code or written offer for it with
>> the device. So they are already breaking GPL.
>
> Of course you are correct.  But there is a wide ange of possibilies;
> some vendors just don't know what they are supposed to do, and are
> appreciative for a friendly hint.  Of course there are also those
> where you need a fully charged blaster - but in my experience these
> are very few.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Wolfgang Denk
>
> --
> DENX Software Engineering GmbH,     MD: Wolfgang Denk & Detlev Zundel
> HRB 165235 Munich, Office: Kirchenstr.5, D-82194 Groebenzell, Germany
> Phone: (+49)-8142-66989-10 Fax: (+49)-8142-66989-80 Email: wd at denx.de
> The evolution of the human race will not be accomplished in  the  ten
> thousand  years  of  tame  animals,  but in the million years of wild
> animals, because man is and will always be a wild animal.
>                                               - Charles Galton Darwin
> _______________________________________________
> U-Boot mailing list
> U-Boot at lists.denx.de
> http://lists.denx.de/mailman/listinfo/u-boot

[U-Boot] Possible GPL violation

[Wolfgang Denk]

Dear Charles,

In message <CAE21AQoqC8_sJarKmSAa2f-3=3YDPL9gK7rxL7pXUx3aa=NinQ@mail.gmail.com> you wrote:
> 
> 1) If you buy a product containing GPL code, but the company does not
> supply the code, then - in general - you cannot force the company to
> supply you with code. You need to get the collaboration of an
> infringed copyright holder to force the issue.

Just for the record: I'm always willing to help out as such.


Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

-- 
DENX Software Engineering GmbH,     MD: Wolfgang Denk & Detlev Zundel
HRB 165235 Munich, Office: Kirchenstr.5, D-82194 Groebenzell, Germany
Phone: (+49)-8142-66989-10 Fax: (+49)-8142-66989-80 Email: wd at denx.de
I don't want to be young again, I just don't want to get any older.

[U-Boot] Possible GPL violation

[Charles Manning]

On Fri, Mar 8, 2013 at 11:23 AM, Wolfgang Denk <wd@denx.de> wrote:
> Dear Charles,
>
> In message <CAE21AQoqC8_sJarKmSAa2f-3=3YDPL9gK7rxL7pXUx3aa=NinQ@mail.gmail.com> you wrote:
>>
>> 1) If you buy a product containing GPL code, but the company does not
>> supply the code, then - in general - you cannot force the company to
>> supply you with code. You need to get the collaboration of an
>> infringed copyright holder to force the issue.
>
> Just for the record: I'm always willing to help out as such.
>

One of the problems with pursuing these actions is that it can be
somewhat hard to prove that you have contributed materially to claim
copyright over some code.

There are some places where this is clear (eg. much of Wolfgang's
u-boot work) or in my case Yaffs (where I have written all the core
yaffs code).

In much of open source though, there have been many major contributors
and even more minor contributors and it can be hard to claim to be a
legitimate copyright holder. In theory, I guess you could claim
copyright on a three line patch, but the harsh reality of lawyer land
would probably want to see something far more substantial.

#disclaimer I'm not a lawyer

-- Charles

[U-Boot] Possible GPL violation

[Wolfgang Denk]

Dear Charles Manning,

In message <CAE21AQpUuFOAfwRk=7rsQHL5p_EVhiNQUAT4QKY=px0SvxOb7A@mail.gmail.com> you wrote:
>
> >> 1) If you buy a product containing GPL code, but the company does not
> >> supply the code, then - in general - you cannot force the company to
> >> supply you with code. You need to get the collaboration of an
> >> infringed copyright holder to force the issue.
> >
> > Just for the record: I'm always willing to help out as such.
> >
> 
> One of the problems with pursuing these actions is that it can be
> somewhat hard to prove that you have contributed materially to claim
> copyright over some code.

I think I should be in a pretty good position to prove that.
This is why I always offer help in such situations.

> In much of open source though, there have been many major contributors
> and even more minor contributors and it can be hard to claim to be a
> legitimate copyright holder. In theory, I guess you could claim
> copyright on a three line patch, but the harsh reality of lawyer land
> would probably want to see something far more substantial.

This is one of the reasons why the FSF asks for / recommends copyright
assignments, see for example [1].

[1] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.html

Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

-- 
DENX Software Engineering GmbH,     MD: Wolfgang Denk & Detlev Zundel
HRB 165235 Munich, Office: Kirchenstr.5, D-82194 Groebenzell, Germany
Phone: (+49)-8142-66989-10 Fax: (+49)-8142-66989-80 Email: wd at denx.de
A Stanford research group advertised for participants in a  study  of
obsessive-compulsive  disorder. They were looking for therapy clients
who had been diagnosed with this disorder. The  response  was  grati-
fying;  they  got  3,000 responses about three days after the ad came
out. All from the same person.

[U-Boot] Possible GPL violation

[Henrik Nordström]

fre 2013-03-08 klockan 10:46 +1300 skrev Charles Manning:
> I have had to deal with this a bit so I'll give my 2c.
> 
> Under the GPL2, the company only has to provide source, or make an
> offer to do so, to customers buying the product containing the GPL
> code.

If you go the written offer path then it's not limited to your
customers, the written offer is valid for any third party which pretty
much means anyone. This is to cover that your customers have the right
to redistribute non-commercially with a copy of your written offer.

Regards
Henrik

[U-Boot] Possible GPL violation

[Gerard Kam]

Wolfgang Denk <wd <at> denx.de> writes:

> 
> Dear Mateusz,
> 
> In message <5123E16B.1060907 <at> gmail.com> you wrote:
> > 
> > Is there anyone that can support me with enforcing GPL compliance on 
> > company that ships product with binary u-boot? Or did that in the past?
> 
> We can try.
> 
> > They're "made" (branded is probably better word) by local companies, and 
> > my guess is that most of them is violating GPL.
> 
> Guesses are not good enough in such legal affairs.
> 
> > I can't do much myself (except for nagging them for source code), as 
> > it's not my copyrights that they're infringing.
> 
> So did you contact the vendor and ask for the source code?  And did
> they answer, and what exactly?
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Wolfgang Denk
> 

Hi there

Has there been any progress on this GPL non-compliance issue?

Similar products as mentioned by the OP are also available in the USA.  I
have purchased one of them, a HomeWorX HW-150PVR "manufactured" and
distributed by Mediasonic, which seems to be a DBA for Major League Global
Enterprise LLC, 16968 Gale Ave., City of Industry, CA 91745, USA.  A product
of identical functionality is the iView-3500STB "manufactured" and
distributed by Wiltronic Corporation.

Both products are set-top boxes with ATSC TV tuners and a USB port for
recording and playback of content.  The main board has a MS7816 SoC made by
MStar Semiconductor of Taiwan. 

On startup the onboard serial port outputs:

= = = begin = = = 
UART_115200
BIST0-OK
_snPDMDrv_PM_RtcGetCounter(CurrentCounter=0)

Hello U-Boot


U-Boot 1.1.6 (Feb 27 2013 - 22:42:31)

Board: MSTAR KRNOUS (CPU Speed 552 MHz)
DRAM:  64 X 0 MBytes
U-Boot is running at DRAM 0x87600000
###############BOARD CONFIGURATION#####################
	DEFAULT ENBALE L2-Cache
	FPU(ENABLE)
	ENABLE_DDR3_16BIT_MODE
   DDR_FREQUENCY(1066MHz)
###############BOARD CONFIGURATION#####################
Module: USB FAT FLASH SPI LOGO OSD ENV=SERIAL 
Flash is detected (0x0C00, 0xC8, 0x40, 0x16)
MDrv_SERFLASH_GetInfo()
	u32AccessWidth = 1
	u32TotalSize   = 4194304
	u32SecNum      = 64
	u32SecSize     = 65536
In:    serial
Out:   serial
Err:   serial
GPIO PIN 6 HIGH!!!!!!!
...
= = = end = = = 

This version of U-Boot installed in the product seems to have been
significantly enhanced by MStar.  
The `help' menu is:

= = = begin = = = 
<< MStar >># help
?       - alias for 'help'
do Lzma for compress image
base    - print or set address offset
bdinfo  - print Board Info structure
boot_logo - Logo display 
bootm   - boot application image from memory
cmp     - memory compare
coninfo - print console devices and information
cp      - memory copy
cpmsbin   - Copy ms bin file (Chakra) from nand to dram
crc32   - checksum calculation
cusid check the image is release by the valid guys
dcache  - enable or disable data cache
dmx_init     - initialize the demux setting
dmx_init     - initialize the demux setting
draw_pixel - draw a pixel with color 
draw_string - draw string with color 
draw_rect - draw rect with color 
draw_string - draw string with color 
du  - Disable UART
env2flash - read environment parameter file and restore it to flash
envbin - read out environment parameter and store it to usb disk
erase   - erase FLASH memory
fatinfo - print information about filesystem
fatload - load binary file from a dos filesystem
fatls   - list files in a directory (default /)
fatwrite - write binary file to a dos filesystem
flinfo  - print FLASH memory information
go      - start application at address 'addr'
help    - print online help
loop    - infinite loop on address range
md      - memory display
mm      - memory modify (auto-incrementing)
mstar   - update kernal & root file system automatically by script file
mtest   - simple RAM test
mw      - memory write (fill)
ustar   - update kernal & root file system automatically by script file
nm      - memory modify (constant address)
ostar   - update kernal & root file system automatically by script file
oad_get_size - Get the file size from OAD download 
osd_create - create osd layer 
osd_destroy - destroy osd layer 
pnlinfo   - set panel info and save to nand flahs
printenv- print environment variables
protect - enable or disable FLASH write protection
reset   - Perform RESET of the CPU
run     - run commands in an environment variable
saveenv - save environment variables to persistent storage
set_paneltype [type] - Set Mboot panel type and store the type value in env 
setenv  - set environment variables
spi_dma - SPI copy data from flash to DRAM by PIU DMA
spi_ea  - SPI erase all
spi_eb  - SPI erase block
spi_gfo - SPI get flash info
spi_gr  - SPI get Chip Rev
spi_id  - SPI read ID
spi_in  - SPI initialization
spi_r   - SPI read commands
spi_rb  - SPI read buffer
spi_rdc - SPI read code from SPI flash to DRAM
spi_rs  - SPI read status
spi_w   - SPI write commands
spi_wb  - SPI write buffer
spi_wp  - SPI write protect 
spi_wrc - SPI write code from DRAM to SPI flash
sspi    - SPI utility commands
sysinfo   - set system info and save to nand flahs
tuner_demodtype     - set frontend type
tuner_init     - frondend initialization
tuner_tune     - tune RF to check lock or not
usb     - USB sub-system
ustar   - update kernal & root file system automatically by script file
usbboot - boot from USB device
ustar   - update kernal & root file system automatically by script file
version - print monitor version
<< MStar >>#
= = = end = = = 

The HomeWorX product documentation and their website do not mention anything
about GPL software or the GPL.  Several weeks ago I contacted
Mediasonic Tech Support by email for a request of "U-Boot and any other GPL
source code.  For the first email, I received a response of "will pass your
request to Design Department." A follow-up inquiry was ignored.

This week I posted a public request for the Mediasonic/MStar GPL source code
at Mediasonic's user forum:
http://forum.mediasonic.ca/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=1820.  But it seems like the
forum's Admin/moderator has chosen to ignore my post.

Any advice on how to enforce GPL compliance and obtain the source code?

Regards -- Gerard