[HN Gopher] They just pirated my open source 8088 BIOS
___________________________________________________________________
They just pirated my open source 8088 BIOS
Author : justsomehnguy
Score : 195 points
Date : 2023-06-17 14:04 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| [deleted]
| pshirshov wrote:
| There is no reason to buy these clones on Ali while there is
| Monotech NuXT.
| undersuit wrote:
| Well I have to be informed of it's existence, so thanks.
| pengaru wrote:
| At least one of the clones is a 386, the NuXT is just an 8088.
|
| Nobody wanted an 8088 once the 386 was available, and that was
| back _then_.
|
| Convincing "enthusiasts" to buy 8088s in a new box today is
| little more than shilling e-waste
| hakfoo wrote:
| There's some appeal in constraints-- look at the people who
| do new homebrew NES/SNES games.
|
| I've built a kit-based 8088 product, and I have a 386 clone.
| The 386 is more capable, but I've gotten more hobby mileage
| out of the 8088 because there's interesting projects built
| around coping with its limitations. (I designed a custom
| memory board because it was designed with 512k, and I wanted
| 640 and upper memory blocks, and did some firmware work that
| made the kit much more usable).
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| > Monotech NuXT
|
| Hadn't heard of this before, but it's a great concept. I love
| the idea of modern takes on retro tech.
|
| Wish it were more practical to do something like this for 68k
| or PPC Macs... unfortunately I don't think there are any usable
| 68k or PPC derivatives currently in production which limits
| possibilities. The closest thing I've seen are FPGA-based
| setups like the Plus Too[0].
|
| [0]: https://www.bigmessowires.com/plus-too/
| agg23 wrote:
| For easier access, you can run the Plus Too core on the
| MiSTer FPGA project, which is a bit more prevalent and user
| friendly (plus supports many, many more systems)
| (https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/MacPlus_MiSTer).
| nico wrote:
| From the Plus Two site:
|
| > The Mac's 512 x 342 screen is pixel doubled to fit
|
| Do you know what algorithm they use to "pixel double" the
| screen?
| monocasa wrote:
| Pixel doubling typically refers to the algorithm itself.
| Simply making each quad (set of 2x2 aligned pixels) in the
| final image match one of the pixels in the source image.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| I don't actually know but I'd imagine it'd have to be
| nearest neighbor to maintain crisp lines.
| undersuit wrote:
| There's the MBC lines(https://shop.mcjohn.it/en/8-diy-kit),
| options include: Z80, 68K, and the VIC-20. You can get them
| pre-assembled, but they are far less standard than this XT
| clone.
| mysterydip wrote:
| Is this the right thing?
| https://monotech.fwscart.com/details/p6083514_19777986.aspx it
| doesn't seem comparable. The Ali clones are all in one devices,
| this is just a motherboard.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| You can get old PC/104 SBCs with tons of integrated IO for
| much less.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| > Not just a motherboard, but more of a "single-board-
| computer", which includes built on, many peripherals that a
| separate ISA card would usually be needed for.
|
| > Can be used as a full featured IBM XT-compatible without
| any extra cards.
|
| > Can add Sound, Network Card, or more storage/connectivity
| via the four ISA slots.
|
| From the linked page. It's an SBC but in a motherboard form
| factor with expansion slots.
| mysterydip wrote:
| Ah, thanks. Still no keyboard, display, or case. I like the
| concept, just seems designed for a different use case.
| asylteltine wrote:
| [dead]
| dark-star wrote:
| I came to the conclusion that it is simply their culture. Chinese
| people, in general, don't have a strong sense of "mine" vs
| "someone else's". They seem to think that if it's there, then
| they can just as well take it and do whatever with it.
|
| I had a Chinese friend at University. Smart guy, and friendly,
| but he just couldn't understand why people in his dorm got mad at
| him every time he took their stuff from the fridge and ate or
| drank it. "it was there, I was thirsty! And if you insist, I will
| replace it..."
| varjag wrote:
| I worked with Taiwanese people, haven't had a whiff of that. On
| the other hand petty theft was a very common occurrence in
| Soviet daily life, and the mainland owes to its legacy more
| than to Confucius. So sure, could be the culture but in a
| surprising way.
| kelnos wrote:
| Taiwanese and Chinese people are culturally very different
| these days. They still have a lot of the same "historical"
| cultural underpinnings, but day to day life and attitudes
| among the people are sharply different.
| retrac wrote:
| Taiwan and modern mainland China have about a century of
| separation at this point, with very different historical
| paths. China: civil war -> WW II -> civil war -> communist
| rule -> several decades of int'l isolation. Taiwan: Japanese
| colony -> western aligned dictatorship -> liberalized
| democracy. Recent Taiwanese history has been less tumultuous
| in many ways, and many aspects of traditional (pre-20th
| century) Chinese culture are relatively more intact;
| particularly in areas like religion.
| cat_plus_plus wrote:
| Yes, and a bunch of other things (look at hard drive content),
| however everyone should give them a pass since they recreated
| arguably the most important computer in history for developers
| and enthusiasts. With an emulator, there is always a question if
| your software would have worked the same on the original device,
| or if the game experience is exactly as it was intended to be.
| Now I have a way to check if my code in fact runs on a real 8088
| and CGA.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| No, you don't, because among many other things, the BIOS will
| be different. It's highly likely even the most inaccurate of
| emulators will actually be more accurate.
| StingyJelly wrote:
| It might be that in China there's not a strong opensource
| culture. Here's a video from Naomi Wu dragging umidigy into
| compliance where she talks about the issue.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vj04MKykmnQ
| beached_whale wrote:
| It didn't really look like dragging but more informing and
| asking(not being a jerk about it too). As she said, there
| wasn't resistance, just past inertia.
| lockhouse wrote:
| Chinese culture doesn't respect intellectual property in
| general, why would they treat open source licenses any
| differently?
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Those computers took a fairly significant effort to design,
| source components, and run through manufacturing. You'd think
| at some point they'd be self aware enough that the open
| source they're adulterating also required similar levels of
| gratis effort and should be afforded some respect.
| cdumler wrote:
| If you looking into Chinese culture [1][2], it is
| astonishingly autocratic. Creativity is frowned on, and
| criticizing superiors is nearly impossible. There is a very
| strong "do what is asked, no questions" attitude. Business
| has very strong "nothing matters once I have your money"
| policy. I took South East Asian history in college, and
| Chinese culture is abundantly self-sabotaging. It was
| morbidly fascinating, which is why I took several courses
| on it.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/@serpentza [2]
| https://www.youtube.com/@laowhy86
| codedokode wrote:
| > Business has very strong "nothing matters once I have
| your money" policy.
|
| Western business now has adopted "nothing matters once I
| got your personal data" policy though. It seems that
| "nothing matters" policy is not restricted to Asia.
| philistine wrote:
| Opening up to China has not made that country more
| Western, it could be argued it has made the world more
| Chinese.
| codedokode wrote:
| I see a section with short vertical videos on Youtube that
| strongly resembles a certain Chinese mobile app. Could it be
| that those Chinese developers, not respecting intellectual
| property, are now working for Youtube?
|
| Or maybe not respecting intellectual property when it is
| profitable is just a worldwide tradition?
| circuit10 wrote:
| I remember seeing that the main activity or whatever it was
| of the YouTube app was called something like
| "YoutubeTiktokApplication"
|
| That wasn't the exact name, I'll try to find it, but it
| definitely had TikTok in the name
|
| I could also be wrong here because I was trying to patch it
| with ReVanced or something at the time so it could be
| related to the patcher
|
| I'm not saying that means they're copying TikTok's source
| code but it's just an odd thing I wanted to share
| TheLoafOfBread wrote:
| Copying an idea is one thing. Outright stealing source code
| is on different level. i.e. See how Huawei got big - By
| copying hardware of Cisco routers and loading there Cisco
| firmware.
| Zacharias030 wrote:
| What makes you think this is related to "chinese culture" as
| opposed to "circumstance"? Without qualification it looks
| like a great demonstration of the fundamental attribution
| error [0] and a very fashionable position to have in today's
| western world.
|
| 0 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_err
| o...
| daneel_w wrote:
| What's missing is the culture of respecting other nations' IP,
| on both commercial level and individual level. Their laws on
| enforcing IP are practically unilateral in the context of intl.
| relations.
| inconceivable wrote:
| so what happens when chinese investors discover patent
| trolling and start purchasing western IP portfolios to sue
| american and european companies over in western courts? and
| what if they start winning?
|
| "wait, no, not like that"
| TheLoafOfBread wrote:
| What happens when western government will demand level
| playing field regarding IP, either by China upholding the
| IP protection, or by West dropping all the IP protection of
| Chinese companies?
| surgical_fire wrote:
| Can you give an example of powerful country that respects
| other nations?
| daneel_w wrote:
| Is this a stupid trick question where, if I respond with a
| list of nations not known to engage in industrial espionage
| and IP theft, you respond by saying "well country X once
| did something-unrelated-to-this-topic to country Y, so your
| argument falls flat"?
|
| I'll humor you. Germany and France are not known to engage
| in _systematic industrial espionage and IP theft_. Not
| towards China, not towards European peers, not towards the
| USA. Please don 't move the goalpost by talking about
| France' colonial epoch and stay away from WW2 and Hitler.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| Even French media would disagree with that
|
| https://www.france24.com/en/20110104-france-industrial-
| espio...
|
| Austinites have joked about the French Ligation being a
| spy base for 50 years.
| usefulcat wrote:
| That's weird, I've lived in Austin a long time and never
| heard that. Not saying you're wrong, though I am curious
| where you heard that? I'm also generally curious about
| bits of obscure local history.
| [deleted]
| some_random wrote:
| You're not wrong in the general case, but France does/did
| a lot of industrial espionage in recent history
| civilitty wrote:
| Hmmm where might have they learned that strategy? [1][2]
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_gin
|
| [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution_in_
| the...
| daneel_w wrote:
| [flagged]
| c1ccccc1 wrote:
| So I'm not a moral relativist, like, at all. But in this
| case, it seems like we westerners have constructed one
| particular set of norms for encouraging innovation, where
| we decide that it's possible for ideas to be owned. It's
| not like there's anything _intrinsically_ wrong with
| copy-pasting code, it 's just that we have a legal
| framework where we've traded away the right to freely
| copy-paste code so that we can grant a temporary monopoly
| to its author. We do this in the hope that more useful
| code will be written than otherwise. But if the people of
| China decide that that's not a trade-off they want to
| make, then I don't think we westerners get to say that
| they've committed a moral wrong in making that decision.
| It's just that they have a different way of doing things.
|
| Like I said, I'm not a moral relativist at all. Murder is
| still wrong in China, imprisoning people not convicted of
| any crime is still wrong in China, lying is still wrong
| in China. But I just don't see how _copyright
| infringement_ is universally an immoral act.
| neodymiumphish wrote:
| OK, no, it's not intrinsically or uniquely western. Any
| person who has an idea has no obligation to share their
| ideas, that's universal. This revolves around the
| expectation set at the point of sharing their ideas,
| under which they say, effectively, "Here's something I
| came up with. I'm sharing it with you in exchange for
| your agreement that you will attribute it to me and not
| take the idea and publish it as your own." The ownership
| and control under closed source could (somehow) be argued
| in the way you're suggesting, but for open source it's a
| matter of blatant disrespect and refusal to adhere to and
| of the requirements set by the initial sharers of their
| ideas.
| trinsic2 wrote:
| Getting downvoted by the group-think majority. Just know
| I tend to agree with you. Our country does not get to
| dictate how the world operates no matter what our beliefs
| are. And the idea of intellectual property is just a
| belief, and a bad one at that.
| kevinh456 wrote:
| Operating under a different set of rules doesn't change
| the fact that they violate ours. They can be
| simultaneously right under their own standards and wrong
| under ours. We can and should judge them under our moral
| standards.
| senko wrote:
| Absolutely. The gun culture in the US is barbaric. The
| lack of a social safety net is downright evil, to say
| nothing about the healthcare costs.
|
| -signed, a European
| kurthr wrote:
| Naw... it's just the hypocrisy. If any other
| company/country were doing it, they should be called out
| too.
|
| If you actually stop doing the wrong thing and decades
| later complain about others still doing it (the Western
| world can complain about slavery) that's moving up and
| on, but complaining about TikTok maybe being banned when
| FB/Google/Twitter and TikTok itself are banned in your
| own country?
|
| Same with copyright... it's not like China's government
| doesn't issue copyrights and enforce copyrights, it's
| just that there's not really rule of law since it's
| enforced so haphazardly. There's little plan other than
| individuals "what can I get right now".
| [deleted]
| civilitty wrote:
| I'm not apologetic, I'm just not accusatory.
| daneel_w wrote:
| You say that as if you've been living under a rock,
| completely unaware of China's operations against
| practically every nation on the planet.
| flir wrote:
| It's one of the ways countries bootstrap. Not right or
| wrong, just is. Once they've climbed the ladder the US
| climbed, they'll suddenly start caring about IP too.
| varjag wrote:
| Bootstrap? They had their nuke and launched a satellite
| by 1970.
| mc32 wrote:
| So the argument is somewhere someone did it before we had
| international conventions and agreed upon bylaws like WTO,
| etc., but nevermind, someone some time ago did it, so it's
| okay?
|
| Indentured servitude is still openly practiced in some
| countries, so that would make it okay for every country to
| do it now? Amazing!
| civilitty wrote:
| Way to equate indentured servitude with _copying_. There
| 's no arguing with such ridiculous histrionics.
| trinsic2 wrote:
| people do not get that copying does not equate to
| stealing. The copyright trolls have done their work well.
| laserdancepony wrote:
| [flagged]
| michaelbrave wrote:
| I believe the problem is that it's expected of a
| developing nation, but once a nation is considered
| developed it's looked down on. Similar to a person acting
| childish when an adult. China want's to have their cake
| and eat it too in almost everything, it's "look how
| powerful we are, how strong our economy", until it's time
| to respect patents then it's "no we are still developing,
| you can't hold that against us".
| birdyrooster wrote:
| It's because China has two faces which are often being
| viewed simultaneously by foreigners and locals alike. It
| wants to project peace through power outwardly and put on
| its best diplomatic display but internally they are
| training their children to want to kill Americans.
| yyyk wrote:
| Well, the argument is that these conventions are
| exploitative (copyright basically forever) and therefore
| do not have moral force. Also that certain countries used
| copying to go up the economic ladder and then kicked the
| ladder.
| some_random wrote:
| Do you also support ethnic cleansing and slavery? Because
| that was also a common occurrence around that time.
| toyg wrote:
| Come on, parent poster is not supporting anything. He's
| just pointing out that nobody is innocent, which is fair.
| axus wrote:
| A way to test the hypotheses are, check if Chinese companies
| generally respect other Chinese companies IP? Seems like that
| would be the most convenient to copy, so if they DO respect
| their peers then it IS targeted at foreign people.
| causality0 wrote:
| Don't forget Rule of Acquisition #17.
| secondcoming wrote:
| I've always wondered if the Ferengi were based on the
| Chinese
| VK538FY wrote:
| Well... some have speculated differently.
| https://gamerant.com/star-trek-ferengi-anti-semitic-
| stereoty...
| glurblur wrote:
| My god. I would have hoped HN to have less bias and ignorance
| towards China. To be clear, im totally against the company
| pirating the BIOS and not attributing the author. But, the
| comments here regarding China just reads like r/geopolitics or
| r/wolrdnews.
|
| Taking some classes on east asia doesn't make you an expert on
| China. Watching a couple of YouTube videos doesn't either. Not
| everything you hear in the west is absolutely true. Same goes for
| things you hear in China.
|
| You don't know the culture til you lived there. I didn't
| understand American culture until I came to the US and lived for
| more than a decade here, yet western media is so prevalent in
| China and I thought I totally knew what the US was like before
| coming. I was so wrong.
|
| Please go and explore the world with your own eyes. It's really
| hard to read comments like these because they appear unbiased and
| true, but pretty far from reality.
|
| Regarding how Chinese deals with IP, I will attribute it more
| towards laws and the enforcement of it. You simply don't get
| punished for stealing IP until someone powerful sues you. IMO,
| better IP laws and enforcement will make most of these issues go
| away. Its not cultural
| userbinator wrote:
| The Chinese view on IP is _very_ different from the western one,
| but in some ways it 's just as "open source". These articles give
| a good overview:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8807651
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5703946
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| Then do something about it. The DMCA is actually pretty easy to
| use.
| Twirrim wrote:
| Why would you expect US laws to apply to China?
| derefr wrote:
| I believe you can use the DMCA to get _importation_ of a
| violating product _into the US_ restricted -- which is, I
| think, what the GP is suggesting here.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| I expect US laws to apply to goods imported into the US.
| daneel_w wrote:
| The DMCA is toothless in China.
| sp332 wrote:
| Not in China it isn't. (Not that China doesn't have any IP
| enforcement, but it's not the DMCA.)
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| But they're being imported to the US.
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| Which leads to [0] and nothing to the actual entity
| violating the IP rights.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36371745
| Hackbraten wrote:
| A Chinese YouTuber has traveled to a company who wouldn't take
| the GPL seriously [0]. I wish more people had the nerve to do
| that instead of letting it slide.
|
| [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vj04MKykmnQ
| nsajko wrote:
| Shout out to Sexy Cyborg, her HN acc:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=SexyCyborg
| RecycledEle wrote:
| Imagine a government of the people, by the people, and for the
| people. Imagine the devices that pirate GPL code being seized,
| and when the developers explain they received BSA training that
| said they did not have to live by the GPL, the assets of BSA
| member companies are seized on conspiracy charges (after a fair
| trial.)
|
| Imagine.
| bragr wrote:
| [flagged]
| mistrial9 wrote:
| are you saying that in the USA, a Microsoft-funded lawyer group
| is training people that the GPL does not have legal force
| _edit_ in some conditions they declare? Do you have evidence of
| this? links?
| gigel82 wrote:
| BSA, now that's something I haven't heard in a while; '90s mIRC
| flashback...
| nuker wrote:
| [flagged]
| RobotToaster wrote:
| Birmingham Small Arms Company?
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Business Software Alliance
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_Alliance
| komadori wrote:
| Business Software Alliance, a Microsoft-backed software
| licence enforcement outfit.
| mavhc wrote:
| Have they published a legal opinion on GPL?
| hulitu wrote:
| Steve Ballmer said that "Linux is a cancer that attaches
| itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it
| touches,"
| ttfkam wrote:
| Keep in mind that he said this 25-30 years ago when co-
| running a company whose business was dominating the
| computing landscape and in direct conflict with the Open
| Source upstarts. Also, the GPL was maybe 10 years old at
| that point?
|
| A lot has changed since then. There aren't many people
| who were correct in their predictions about the computer
| industry at large, the web, or the internet 30 years ago.
| SSLy wrote:
| MSFT has not rescinded the statement ever since.
| ttfkam wrote:
| They are one of the biggest corporate contributors to
| open source software in the world, both in money and in
| code contributions.
|
| https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/opensource/2018/03/19/mi
| cro...
|
| Actions speak louder than words. The Microsoft of 1996 is
| not the Microsoft of 2023.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| The battle is no longer over the desktop, but over cloud
| and SAAS. Datacenters are back, clients (even "full
| desktops") are now thin clients again.
| s0sa wrote:
| Winnie the Pooh does not wish it so, and thus it is naught
| tom_ wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Winnie-the-
| Pooh_...
| qingcharles wrote:
| [flagged]
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| Additional context in [0], [1].
|
| LGR review of the machine [2].
|
| I would recommend reading [1] because it confirms the GPL
| violation but paints interesting picture of the reason.
|
| [0] https://arstechnica.com/civis/threads/brand-new-laptop-
| recre...
|
| [1] https://arstechnica.com/civis/threads/brand-new-laptop-
| recre...
|
| [2] https://youtu.be/6bODiZ5bP84?t=442 "So I Bought Those Weird
| New AliExpress Retro PCs..."
| AllegedAlec wrote:
| Sounds very much like a Chinese PR OP. "Oh yeah we would've
| _loved_ to attribute as per the license of the code we stole,
| but those dang online shops won 't let us, so we just stole it
| and never mentioned it"
| squarefoot wrote:
| I don't know how much of the explanation by the Book8088 dev
| is bullshit, but he exposes a valid point which could be
| rephrased as: if you attribute copyright to the author, and
| someone else complains about anything, the platform can take
| down the product page immediately. We've seen this happening
| in similar contexts quite often, such as bogus DMCA
| complaints on YouTube that result in immediate takedowns and
| enormous efforts from the authors to reinstate the pages.
| Might be just PR, but the point is sound to me; copyright
| laws are necessary, but the way they're implemented is total
| crap.
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| > if you attribute copyright to the author, and someone
| else complains about anything, the platform can take down
| the product page immediately
|
| I'm having trouble following your line of reasoning here...
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| If you aren't the copyright holder to the work you are
| presenting you can't counter-assert your rights to
| publish against the takedown claim.
|
| I don't get how this applies to this situation. Since the
| copyrighted work isn't being "published" outside of the
| physical computer.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| In this case you have a license to republish the work
| (the GPL, if you followed it correctly), so you have
| rights to counter-assert.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| I'm sure Amazon, Google, and everyone else like them make
| it really difficult to communicate such nuance.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| As if they're going to check the copyright text on a
| laptop in the first place.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| Again, I said I didn't see how it applied to this
| situation. I'm just writing in general about copyright
| and takedown notices.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| Why would a takedown because of the name on the copyright
| even work? The license states that you have full permission
| to use the work. There is no legal basis here. I can
| legally sell my purchased copy of Microsoft Office and no
| lawyer is going to stop me because I don't own the
| copyright to the software on the CDs.
|
| Hell, buy any laptop, you'll soon be greeted by screens
| that state that some company called Microsoft made all the
| software. HP and Dell will be ruined!
|
| Regardless of legal basis, I can false copyright strike
| this developer right now and there is no way for Amazon to
| get their hands on this device to verify the legitimacy of
| the claim. Even if they had one at hand, there's no way
| they're going to go through the trouble to actually check
| any of this.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| It's an entirely bogus reasoning and there's no way to
| claim otherwise. The same device is shipping a myriad other
| software which can be classified into:
|
| A. Outright copyright violations of proprietary software
| (i.e. "abandonware")
|
| B. Legally distributed software (e.g. some of the BIOSes of
| some of the add-on cards), which their permissive licenses
| generally allow as long as you keep the attribution, which
| just from the screenshots I can see they did.
|
| C. The main system ROM BIOS, for which some unfathomable
| reason they _specifically_ decided to remove the
| attribution (which is technically in violation of both the
| spirit and the letter of the GPL).
|
| So to claim that they had to violate the copyright of C for
| "protection" is as bogus as it gets. They have already set
| themselves up for a cathedral-sized _non-bogus_ DMCA claim,
| and violating the copyright of the GPL'd BIOS is just the
| frosting in comparison.
|
| My wild guess: branding. They just disliked not to see
| their company name first on power on. Plus the general
| tendency to treat the GPL as a "guideline".
| dixie_land wrote:
| [flagged]
| AllegedAlec wrote:
| > if there is no monetary loss then it is "no harm no foul"
| and completely reasonable
|
| I think am important added phrase there would be _for
| Chinese companies_. They have no issues stealing from non-
| Chinese to those people 's detriment.
| TheLoafOfBread wrote:
| I wonder if it works the same when one would steal IP from
| Chinese company.
| ronsor wrote:
| Nice try, but Tencent cops will be at your door next
| week. Chinese companies stealing from each other is not
| counted, as the government makes them play "nice enough."
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| Tencent doesn't own anything worth stealing. If I
| suddenly found myself as the owner of TikTok I think I'd
| be terminally embarrassed.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| It sounds like they are distributing the modified source code,
| so the only violation is removal of the attribution?
|
| I don't know anything about Amazon, &c, policies, to know if
| what they say is true, or possibly a misunderstanding?
| dunham wrote:
| > I would recommend reading [1] because it confirms the GPL
| violation but paints interesting picture of the reason.
|
| I'm not seeing that, but maybe I'm misunderstanding something.
| [1] includes:
|
| > we are also shared our change without reservation to every
| enthusiast (buyer).
|
| Which to me says they're freely sharing the source with buyers.
| And I see in the GPL:
|
| > For example, if you distribute copies of such a program,
| whether gratis or for a fee, you must pass on to the recipients
| the same freedoms that you received. You must make sure that
| they, too, receive or can get the source code. And you must
| show them these terms so they know their rights.
|
| Which I understand as "you only have to share source code with
| buyers" (but they can do what they will with it).
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| >> BOOK8088: And the foreign trade company words will not
| even consider these details. A similar thing happens with
| naming products. For example, we gave it a name, called
| BOOK8088 . If the name is registered as a trademark, we can
| only change the name. There are many professional complainers
| who make money from this. _Of course, I knew there was a big
| problem with violating the GPL at very beginning_ , and I was
| preparing for something later. I didn't even expect it to
| develop so fast.
|
| > Which I understand as "you only have to share source code
| with buyers" (but they can do what they will with it).
|
| You need a proper _attribution_. This comment goes at lengths
| explaining it [0] but removing the copyright and /or
| authorship (attribution in a general sense) is breaking the
| _license attribution_ requirements.
|
| [0] https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/4577/does-
| gpl...
| derefr wrote:
| From your citation, I think it'd be valid attribution if
| the BIOS setup UI had a "licensing" tab, that spelled out
| the IP that this BIOS was derived from. (This is how e.g.
| iOS and Android do licensing: you drill down into Settings
| > About > Licensing and all the IP declarations are spelled
| out there.)
|
| _Provided they had that_ , then the initial "vanity"
| copyright notice on boot would be extraneous, and they
| could freely change or remove it.
|
| Without that kind of thing, the on-boot notice _is_ the
| "load-bearing" UI attribution, and must be retained.
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| > Without that kind of thing, the on-boot notice is the
| "load-bearing" UI attribution, and must be retained.
|
| Yep.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| > I don't really understand why one would pirate an open source
| project... Just use it according to the GPL license. Redistribute
| the modified code, and leave the attribution to the code
| authors... Is it that difficult?
|
| We have more than enough examples of commercial companies using
| GPL software without contributing back that I have to assume this
| question is rhetorical by now.
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