They were given 1.5 YEARS of lead time. And FLOSS should treat commercial entities the same way they treat us.
Seriously, if we copied in violation their code, how many hours would pass before a DMCA violation?
FLOSS should be dictatorial in application of the license. After all, its basically free to use and remix as long as you follow the easy rules. I'm also on the same boat that Android phone creators should also be providing source fully, and should be confiscated on import for failure of copyright violations.
But ive seen FLOSS devs be like "let's be nice". Tit for tat is the best game theory so far. Time to use it.
That's not it. The LGPL doesn't require dynamic linking, just that any distributed artifacts be able to be used with derived versions of the LGPL code. Distributing buildable source under Apache 2.0 would surely qualify too.
The problem here isn't a technical violation of the LGPL, it's that Rockchip doesn't own the copyright to FFMPEG and simply doesn't have the legal authority to release it under any license other than the LGPL. What they should have done is put their modified FFMPEG code into a forked project, clearly label it with an LGPL LICENSE file, and link against that.
Not the global best move, or even positive, now the OSS community we lose the OSS code of IloveRockchip, and FFmpeg wins practically nothing, except recognition on a single file (that devs from Rockchip actually acknowledged, though in a clumsy way) but loses in reputation and loses a commercial fork (and potential partner).
There were opportunities to take advantage of this.
> - Rockchip's code is gone
> - FFmpeg gets nothing back
> - Community loses whatever improvements existed
> - Rockchip becomes an adversary, not a partner
This is all conjecture which is probably why you deleted it.
Their code isn't gone (unless they're managing their code in all the wrong ways), FFmpeg sends a message to a for-profit violation of their code, the community gets to see the ignorance Rockchip puts into the open source partnership landscape and finally... If Rockchip becomes an adversary of one of the most popular and notable OSS that they take advantage of, again, for profit then fuck Rockchip. They're not anything here other than a violator of a license and they've had plenty of warning and time to fix.
That's bullshit. The FFmpeg devs were well within their rights to even send a DMCA takedown notice, immediately, without asking nicely first.
This is what big corporations do to the little guys, so we owe big corporations absolutely nothing more.
They gave Rockchip a year and a half to fix it. It is the responsibility of Rockchip to take care of it once they were originally notified, and the FFmpeg dvelopers have no responsibility to babysit the Rockchip folks while they fulfill their legal obligations.
What I say, is that if they had sent the DMCA immediately that would have been fine. But waiting 2 years in silence, then suddenly DMCA without reminder, I don't get it (and we haven't heard the devs on that yet).
Deadline and reminders? They aren't teachers and Rockchip isn't a student, they are the victims here and Rockchip is the one at fault. Let's stop literally victim blaming them for how they responded.
To be clear: Rockchip is at fault, 100%. I would sue (and obv DMCA) any company who takes my code and refuses to attribute it.
But there's a difference between "refuses" and "apologizes and admits confusion" and then forgets because lazy / or pretends to forget.
Escalation can be gradual: reminder, warning, final warning, then nuclear.
Or, you immediately escalate to [DMCA / court] and that's very fair, but suddenly like 2 years after silence (if, and only if that was the case, because maybe they spoke outside of Twitter/X).
That way, others know you defend your territory and that compliance is rewarded.
I think here it is a final warning stage (nuclear would be court, which could and should be an option).
Not familiar with Rockchip. Plenty of searches come up with cases of people incorporating ffmpeg into Rockchip projects. I still see the license files and headers. What is different with this DMCA takedown?
Is working around accessing an embargoed site really any better than just accessing it directly? Morally, what's the difference?
If everyone just actively boycotted that site, it would become irrelevant overnight. Anything else is simply condoning it continued existence. Don't kid yourself.
Time to create a decentralized, blockchain-based GitHub (GitCoin?) and have every commit be a transaction on the chain. Nothing would ever be takedownable.
This is not allowed under the LGPL, which mandates dynamic linking against the library. They copy-pasted FFmpeg code into their repo instead.
[1] https://x.com/HermanChen1982/status/1761230920563233137
Seriously, if we copied in violation their code, how many hours would pass before a DMCA violation?
FLOSS should be dictatorial in application of the license. After all, its basically free to use and remix as long as you follow the easy rules. I'm also on the same boat that Android phone creators should also be providing source fully, and should be confiscated on import for failure of copyright violations.
But ive seen FLOSS devs be like "let's be nice". Tit for tat is the best game theory so far. Time to use it.
If you don’t own it and cannot legally relicense part as LGPL, you’re not allowed to publish it.
Just because you can merge someone else’s code does not mean you’re legally allowed to do so.
If they aren't compatible, then you can't use them together, so you have to find something else, or build the functionality yourself.
In the specific ffmpeg case, you are allowed to dynamically link against it from a project with an incompatible license.
The problem here isn't a technical violation of the LGPL, it's that Rockchip doesn't own the copyright to FFMPEG and simply doesn't have the legal authority to release it under any license other than the LGPL. What they should have done is put their modified FFMPEG code into a forked project, clearly label it with an LGPL LICENSE file, and link against that.
"Distributing buildable source under Apache 2.0 would surely qualify too"
reconcile with
"doesn't own the copyright to FFMPEG and simply doesn't have the legal authority to release it under any license other than the LGPL"
There were opportunities to take advantage of this.
> - Rockchip's code is gone > - FFmpeg gets nothing back > - Community loses whatever improvements existed > - Rockchip becomes an adversary, not a partner
This is all conjecture which is probably why you deleted it.
Their code isn't gone (unless they're managing their code in all the wrong ways), FFmpeg sends a message to a for-profit violation of their code, the community gets to see the ignorance Rockchip puts into the open source partnership landscape and finally... If Rockchip becomes an adversary of one of the most popular and notable OSS that they take advantage of, again, for profit then fuck Rockchip. They're not anything here other than a violator of a license and they've had plenty of warning and time to fix.
Here spent time to think and document all the IRC chats, the Twitter thread, the attitude of the SoC manufacturer, etc.
There has to be a backstory to suddenly come after 1.5 years for an issue that could have been solved in 10 minutes.
This is what big corporations do to the little guys, so we owe big corporations absolutely nothing more.
They gave Rockchip a year and a half to fix it. It is the responsibility of Rockchip to take care of it once they were originally notified, and the FFmpeg dvelopers have no responsibility to babysit the Rockchip folks while they fulfill their legal obligations.
But there's a difference between "refuses" and "apologizes and admits confusion" and then forgets because lazy / or pretends to forget.
Escalation can be gradual: reminder, warning, final warning, then nuclear.
Or, you immediately escalate to [DMCA / court] and that's very fair, but suddenly like 2 years after silence (if, and only if that was the case, because maybe they spoke outside of Twitter/X).
That way, others know you defend your territory and that compliance is rewarded.
I think here it is a final warning stage (nuclear would be court, which could and should be an option).
https://github.com/nyanmisaka/ffmpeg-rockchip
If everyone just actively boycotted that site, it would become irrelevant overnight. Anything else is simply condoning it continued existence. Don't kid yourself.