Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by kuschku 3145 days ago
It'd be a long legal discussion to properly answer your question, but luckily OEMs make it easy for us:

On most phones, there are zero external kernel modules loaded. The SoC vendor bakes it all into the ketnel, and the OEM gets the kernel as a blob. Which means all of it is subject to the GPL.
1 comments
crankylinuxuser 3145 days ago
Yep, I had to go sleep (yeah, that dreadful thing!).

But this was my main area of attack. You compiled the drivers directly into the kernel. Making it all GPL. Now, as a strict reading, I have to have the device to make the request. That's not difficult. Ive phones from a lot of US named companies.

I just want the rights enumerated in the GPL as granted to end users. I'm no kernel maintainer. Just a cranky person who wants the GPL enforced as any license.

link
kuschku 3145 days ago
> I just want the rights enumerated in the GPL as granted to end users. I'm no kernel maintainer. Just a cranky person who wants the GPL enforced as any license.

Yeah, it turns out it’s not that easily enforcable. There are still court cases going on, but the current legal situation seems to be that unless you’ve contributed significant code to the kernel, you have no legal leg to stand on.

Because the OEM is simply saying "yes, we violated the GPL, and infringed the copyright of the developers", but the only ones who could sue against that would be devs that contributed significant amounts of code.

link