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Posts: 2,222 | Thanked: 12,651 times | Joined on Mar 2010 @ SOL 3
#39
Originally Posted by woody14619 View Post
maemo is not a FOSS project. It's is a commercial product with a number of FOSS elements interwoven. Nokia handing out a copy of third party binaries under EULA to people who purchased an N900 does not make it FOSS. They didn't just hand it all out to anyone wanting to run this on their ARM device. If all it took were this action to make something FOSS then MSOffice can be consider FOSS, as it's being "handed out" to those buying MS hardware, like the Surface. Windows8 is FOSS for that matter too, right? You can download drivers and updates for free off their site... all FOSS.
TL;DR
sorry I don't feel like reading the rest after this futile effort of sarkasm.
To the best of my knowledge there's not a single piece of Nokia-(C) non-public code shared on maemo.org, and the maemo.org site says "all content CC-BY-SA"
You are free to:

Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material
for any purpose, even commercially.
The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.
though it adds a standard disclaimer of Nokia that states that proprietary material of nokia on that site is property of Nokia - just that there is no such material anywhere on maemo.org (btw it seems Nokia asked HiFo to remove that NOKIA licence together with several other mentioning of Nokia, quite some time ago). Neither your bitching nor Nokia on their nokia.com site offering closed blob drivers for a FOSS-by-definition linux system is changing that fact or turns maemo at large into nokia's property.
I could start turning your pathetic sarkasm into the exact opposite direction, elaborating about manufacturers of routers or settop-boxes who thought Linux turns into their property just because with their pirated Linux system they shipped one or two binaries they maybe developed themselves (and which undoubtly is owned by them irrespectively of the rest of this case). But I don't feel like copying that style. So it's just: Sorry, Maemo at large is still linux and GPL and thus FOSS, and for sure the complete maemo.org website is not proprietary and consists of only FOSS and CC-BY-SA material, except the domain name itself.
I may copy *.maemo.org as long and to any extent I want, I may distribute and share it, and neither Nokia nor Microsoft or even you will find a law that says otherwise.
If you do, please let me know before you waste your or my money for a lawsuit.


X-Fade was quite concerned when migrating and handing over said auto-builder, since to his knowledge it did contain non-distributables.

If those are still in there, and Nokia demands their removal, what do you plan to do? Start them on another server? With what funds? At what hosting site? Do you expect Nokia won't go after someone doing that? How much are you willing to be on that? Just Maemo.org? The Neo900 project? Your flat? Your retirement savings?
(Oh, and I thought x-fade didn't participate in migration at all. I was rather close to migration and I didn't see much of those concerns mentioned by x-fade, tbh I didn't see him at all. Also it doesn't really make sense to me, considering that it's been NOKIA who ordered the migration and helped shipping the hardware)
No, I won't. Just like I won't delete apache from the server or any of my own PCs when apache the inc suddenly requests to remove it since they don't like me to use it any longer. The stuff been shared to use it and the permission to use it can't get revoked. No matter if that's on my N900 or on autobuilder.
And then the next point: please show me which of those binaries on autobuilder we actually share! There's 3 problems you'll face: 1. there probably aren't any, 2. you have a hard time to find them and ask me to remove them, since 3. WE DONT SHARE THEM, they are just USED in autobuilder (though they actually don't exist)

So who's the one with no knowledge? You or me and jcharpak? When the latter than whose fault is it that we don't know what HiFo plans?

Consider the flash plugin, for example. If Adobe found there was a version being distributed from a large static site do you think they would ignore it?
Maybe not. but that's irrelevant since: check where you might find any such flash plugin! For sure not on maemo.org.

Keeping the lights on for one. The servers and software running on them were donated by Nokia to HiFo to carry on the community.
Hardly the software since, as elaborated above, all software on maemo.org is FOSS. The only commercial or proprietary piece of software we use and own is vBulletin running this forum, and that evidently not been donated by Nokia. Maybe when you would not wear your hate-cap, you could see why I'm very concerned about your negotiations with Nokia.

Their continued operation, without interference from Nokia, has been contingent on closing on-going business with them.
If that means you think that maemo could get shut down completely by Nokia, either by them not providing support or by not "allowing us to continue", then that's just one more argument in line with last one for my concern. I'm afraid HiFo could feel the urge to sign whatever Nokia asks for, just to avoid such anticipated doom pending when you don't.
Do you honestly think that if that business is not resolved before HiFo or Nokia "goes away" that Nokia itself won't send a C&D to IPHH within a week? MS wouldn't even need to be involved...
A C&D to IPHH? Hardly, since IPHH has nothing to do with all this. (blaming me about scare tactics and spreading FUD, eh?) I actually can't see the C&D getting sent to anybody, since there simply is nothing wrong with maemo.org that they could ask us to cease. Actually even the DNS is owned by Nokia, so they hardly can blame us for it pointing to wherever it does point to. And that DNS (aka domain, aka "maemo.org") is the only thing they can "donate" to us - except all the binaries we don't have and never will get.
Again, when you know of any (C)-Nokia binary on maemo.org then I think you as HiFo would be obliged to rise your concerns to techstaff so we can find a solution, either by removing it or by negotiating with Nokia about the conditions under which we may use it. When Nokia tells you "software on maemo.org got donated by us, so now we rule what of that software you may continue to use and what you have to delete" then I think it would be a pretty good idea to also contact techstaff and maybe even community and ask about this. This doesn't mean you need to disclose anything about the contract you're negotiating, but nobody expects that you or anybody in a similar situation knows each little detail about maemo (or generally the subject negotiated) and could do such negotiations without referring with your experts. That's something you should know from general way how business in industry is done.

I'm really puzzled what madness Nokia(?) managed to plant into some minds. :-S

/j
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Last edited by joerg_rw; 2014-01-29 at 18:28.