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Chinese Linux Developers Allegedly Violating Licenses
sasha328 was among several to submit a story about problems with Chinese Developers allegedly violating licenses by not re-releasing their mods to various open source projects. There's not a lot of evidence presented, but a lot of points made without telling us what code and what license. But I'm sure we'll see more of this in the future.
Erm, aren't the GPL etc. governed by US law? And since when did China subscribe to that?
It just goes to show that anything other than PUBLIC DOMAIN is not truly free information. And, more importantly, anything other than Public Domain is unenforcable in an international environment such as the Internet.
The GPL isn't worth the paper it's written on. It presumes a whole heap of US-centric crap which is unenforable outside all but a handful of countries.
That something as US-centric as the GPL could be written by those who style themselves as "pioneers" of the Internet is very telling. They're not pioneers of anything, they're just Uncle Sam apologists trying to enforce the same old Uncle Sam rules in a world that doesn't give a toss about the US.
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Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
However, you should probably read it in view of section 3c, which says if distributing a binary, you can
Now, it all hangs on how you define "any third party". Given the presence of 3 c), I would assume that it would include any subsequent recipients of the binary, but I'm not convinced it extends to "anybody who wants it".
Go you big red fire engine!
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
They then went to Hong Kong and polled Hong Kong citizens, asking them which they'd prefer. Over 60% said Chinese rule.
Moral: Don't assume you know what the people of a place want if you're not from there.
The GPL is a grant of license with respect to copyright law. Many countries have copyright laws under which the GPL probably makes some sense (signatories to the Berne Convention, for example), so the expectation is that the GPL will be enforceable there.
Lots of people here have been saying that the GPL is meaningless in China. China wasn't a signatory to the Berne Convention, and didn't have much in the way of copyright. That is, until recently.
When China wanted to join the World Trade Organisation, it was forced to sign TRIPs. TRIPs (trade related aspecs of intellecutal property) is a little document designed for Pfizier, Monsanto, IBM, Sony et. al., which enforces 20 year patents, life of the author + 50 year copyrights, restrictions on "compulsory licensing", and DMCA-style anti-circumvention device prohibitions. In perhaps the most spectacular coup for corporatations over the public interest (ever), it was tacked onto the GATT in 1994. In effect, any country which does not believe that their interests are served by such extreme IP monopolies, suffers massive trade sanctions through WTO exclusion (see Braithwaite and Drahos, Global Business Regulation, chapter 7, for more details).
China, like everyone else, has buckled to this pressure, and is going to want to create the impression that it's trying to follow TRIPs. If someone could actually identify a prima facie deliberate GPL violation in China, they might have some chance of a successful prosecution.
Fixing copyright
There are indeed a few smaller distro makers that are not releasing source to kernel mods, but this is by no means all of them. China is a big place, try not to paint them all with the same brush.
The GPL probably makes some assumptions that are more true under US and European law than elsewhere, but it is, fundamentally, a contract. The Code of Hammurabi (1792 BCE) contains enough of the fundamentals of contract law that a time traveler could probably defend the GPL with little else. Of course, there are some assumptions in the GPL that might be a little tough to exlpain in aincent Babylon, but the terms of the GPL are clear enough that you could identify a flagrant violation in almost any legal enviornment.
Yes, China is a communist country. But, communist or not, it does have a working system of contract law. Keep in mind that China has a large, complex and vibrant economy. They make everything from locomotives to DRAMs. Without contract law, none of this would be possible.
And I've heard enough about the Chinese government refusing to obey intelectual property standards. This simply isn't the case. While they might make noises and gestures as if they were still communist, the reality is very different. They are signatories of most or all of the international conventions on patents, copyrights and trademarks. It is true that there are plenty of honest-to-goodness software pirates (I hate the using term "pirate") in China, but this is more of an enforcement problem than a legal problem. The government simply doesn't have the resources to investigate and prosecute IP violations the way the US does. That's just a fact of life when your country's per capita purchasing parity is only $3,800.
Before you go posting about countries you've never visteded and/or know little about, you should do a little homework. I use the CIA factbook. Here's the entry for China.
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In spite of the suggestions and all the tests that I have made, I have not cavato a spider from the hole.
I demand a million helicopters and a DOLLAR!
Just an observation... the article doesn't say outright that developers in China are violating the GPL.
The strongest language comes from Mark White as "in a sense [this is] going against the ideals and benefits of what made Linux useful to them in the first place."
I get the feeling that there is no actual violation taking place, just a disregard for the spirit of the GPL, in which case the only course of action is moral suasion (which is exactly what this article is doing).
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Accountability on the heads of the powerful.
Accountability on the heads of the powerful.
Power in the hands of the accountable.
You shouldn't make sweeping generalisations about people from another country. Thats what they do in Russia.
Nothing much happens in China without the consent of our despicable, foul government that has kept the Chinese enslaved for over fifty years now (not that they were free before, but that's a separate issue.)
The behavior described in this article dovetails perfectly with our shameful history of dictatorship of the communist party in our country, and their avowed intention to obliterate the free world by any and all means at their disposal.
If this allegation is true, they are hurting themselves
more than they are helping. They would have to keep their private forked code separate, and constantly modify and merge with the evolving open code base. In the long run, they would lose the open code base advantages because they would not be able to merge their own forked code.
Furthermore, if there are secret things being put in, I would imagine it would be backdoors to allow the government the control it seems to need. These "enhancements" are not needed by the community anyway.
The Chinese can decide that the GPL means nothing in which case the author can sue Chinese companies in jurisdictions where it is respected. If those companies do this in China however I think they will eventually become very weak Linux related companies due to the hostility they are sure to draw.
Also, keep in mind that these claims are being made by one competitor against another. I'm not saying they aren't true, but the problems are likely being exaggerated to make them sound bigger than they are. For example, no specific case of GPL violating was quoted, just general accusations and assumptions. We need more proof before we should feel outraged.
People in US and the west have experienced monopolies in IT for last 30 years, such as IBM and Microsoft, and realize that opensource is good. People here have not yet suffered enough because of those monopolies, and we still look at IBM and Microsoft as an example for our own software industry. Let's face it, all the opensource companies are burning their VC money ( or other financial resources), trying to find a good opensource business model, what can you expect from those Chinese opensource companies who don't have nearly as much money to burn? If Red Hat is really interested to open Chinese market, it should put money where its mouth is, and hire some Chinese programmers to work on open-source projects ( btw, $30k USD/year is very good money for programmers in China).
As a matter of fact, I really like to see that happen. I tried redflag, and the truth is you can not install it if you are not fluent in English, and understand all those OS jargons in English. Linux probably has the best internationalization support, including Chinese thanks to all those programmers in Taiwan and mainland China, but still there are many many programs that are in western(Latin systems) languages only, such as evolution and gedit( menu bar is Chinese, but the content canvas can not display Chinese). I wish I have time to fix all those, which is not that difficult at all. But I graduated from college a while ago, and it is hard to get away from wife and kids nowadays.
Anyway, I agree that Chinese programmers should contribute more, but keep expectations low, for now, please.
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They can disrespect human rights human rights if they like, but not respecting the GPL is too much. We must fight to protect software freedom in China and save the GPL!
Seriously, as far as I'm concerned, software license abuse in China is not the top priority...
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
Read the friggin' license, folks.
The GPL does not require that code be given back to the origional developers. It requires that it be given to the people to whom you distribute the software.
Basically, they've forked the projects. Big deal.
Get over it. It's time to move on.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
IMHO there is little to be concerned about in practice, all the offenders are doing is making life difficult for themselves.
As each new 'legit' release is made, the piractes will have to retro-fit their own custom changes again, and again and again...
This will leave those that break the licence terms increasingly behind those that play by the rules of the game.
So far I found two misconceptions here:
China is being ruled by communism. Therefore, Hong Kong, a city of China, is also a communists city. Hong Kong is a Special Administrative Region of China. It has an international financial market and runs on capitalism.
China and Hong Kong do not respect IP and Copyright. China's law can bypass any license agreement. Pirate copying of copyright software is illegal in China and Hong Kong. Especially in Hong Kong, its legal system is based on common law, same legal system in British and US.
Furthermore, effective on 1/4/2001, companies and individuals possessing pirated software will be subjected to max. fine of HK$50,000 per copy and jail. Police, with court's warrant, can enter(bash) any place to confiscate computer equipment containing pirated software without piror notice.
A poor 14-year old boy was just caught for hosting MP3 sites. He was at home while police bashing his door.
It's true that you can find illegal-copied software everywhere. In Hong Kong police can jail you immediate if you are being caught carrying them. Try showing your collection of pirated software at China's custom, but bear in mind the max. penality for smuggling in China is not just jailing.
(in an unrelated story, while companies were busy looking for enough legal licenses before new law enforced, Microsoft had raised the price of all Windows/Office software. Those suckers.)
So, if you planned to come here for cheap pirated software, think about it.
wow, the GPL is being violated in China.. perhaps these are some bigger issues from China:
Outlaw group is mass killed
tibet situation, caused by China
see what a Chinese 'criminal' has done to deserve jail
Chinese government illegally harvests organs
obviously a lot of problems exist in China, anyone interested should visit human rights in china
(The original punched-parchment scrolls of Linux were illicitly smuggled out of China by spice traders, and centuries later ended up in the archives of an obscure Finnish museum. It's not clear what happened after that.)