Database Info

Some Entertaining reading. GO XDA DEVs.

please try not to shoot the messenger here. Thought this may be of interest to some here.
Class Action
Also a Plausible explanation for the Delay...

Sighcosis said:
please try not to shoot the messenger here. Thought this may be of interest to some here.
Class Action
Also a Plausible explanation for the Delay...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The second article, if true, is what pisses me off.. Good job Samsung, you may be deceptively inflating the value of your Vibrant 4G, but, at the cost of the PR of thousands of customers who've already put value into your company.. brilliant!
Let's watch all those Fascinate owners hop over to the iPhone 4 on Febuary 10th because we STILL won't have OTA Froyo by then!!..

The lawsuit will fail. We are not guaranteed any updates, read the contract you signed when you got your phone.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App

not sure about if there is a case there or not.
But its is not all about updates.
I understand that to be a small part of it.
Apparently more to do with the GPS not working and basically not following in the Android Open Source Project scheme. I was reading up on that and from what I can understand of it their source should be available to Devs *hence the Open Source*.
Personally it costs me nothing and if it helps in getting the message out that as customers we are unhappy.. I am all in..
Twitter something to @SamsungMobileUS with #NeverAgain tag. That is another "movement" started by DEVs here at XDA.
this was mine
@SamsungMobileUS I have been a user of your fine video and audio devices for years. #NeverAgain will I purchase a Samsung device.
I am but one voice and can not be heard in the masses. But if I join the masses we can become a Shout or a Deafening Roar

Well let me go read the AOSP license..
and that aside.. who knows what license agreement Google and Samsung made? It is not necessarily the one on the code.
Here's the corporate license: http://source.android.com/source/cla-corporate.html
Well.. as far as I can tell (I'm no lawyer..) Samsung is not doing anything illegal:
http://source.android.com/source/licenses.html
The are not required to redistribute their source at all for user space applications.. they are only required to retain the license and make sure they note where they have made changes. Code, however, may be distributed in source OR object format.
As far as the kernel (which is what we really need) they are only required to redistribute the source of any linux kernel they have in turn modified and then DISTRIBUTED. Key word distributed, and let me assure you, this has been done. The source for the current kernel on our device can be obtained from Samsung's open source website (albeit at obnoxiously throttled DL speeds.. ~70kb/s). I have it . Once they push 2.2 they will [have to] make the source available. I'm sure they will.

skitzo_inc said:
The lawsuit will fail. We are not guaranteed any updates, read the contract you signed when you got your phone.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I also don't the lawsuit will succeed, but from what I gather its not about the update itself, its about them all saying we would get it and never getting it. The whole "false advertising" thing. Think about what kind of legal staff a multinational conglomerate like Samsung could put together. I love the fact that he is speaking out and getting a decent amount of attention, but in the long run will it do anything? Unfortunately I doubt it. I do not hate Samsung or US Cellular for that matter, in fact I love my Mez way better than my crapberry curve

droidzach said:
I also don't the lawsuit will succeed, but from what I gather its not about the update itself, its about them all saying we would get it and never getting it. The whole "false advertising" thing. Think about what kind of legal staff a multinational conglomerate like Samsung could put together. I love the fact that he is speaking out and getting a decent amount of attention, but in the long run will it do anything? Unfortunately I doubt it. I do not hate Samsung or US Cellular for that matter, in fact I love my Mez way better than my crapberry curve
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In the business word the only promise is a contract. And even those can be broken..

I know this, if I worked at Verizon I would hold off the 2.2 update until after the Iphone4 is launched to beef up the sales of the new product. Then release 2.2 after sales have leveled out.

Honeycomb Rumor

Before we start, it may appear Motorola and Samsung will be the only ones who will have a Honeycomb product until at least May/June. The reasons being:-
1. Honeycomb supply to manufacturers have been delayed until May/June. I dont know exactly what this means except that the manufacturers I work with cannot get access to Honeycomb for their products (but it may be related to the next rumor).
2. Honeycomb wont be open sourced and a major manufacturer is working with Google on trying to secure licensing.
Sorry I cant be more specific than this. The second rumor contradicts everything Google has done so far, but if I mention the manufacturer involved, it lends weight to the rumor.
Does anyone else have any further information to collaborate/debunk these rumors?
EDIT: When I say Honeycomb wont be open sourced, I meant Google plans to close source it and Honeycomb will require a license.

I'm gonna call BS on all of the above.
#1. New member, first post, no sources or company names given.
#2. Honeycomb SDK is already published. Functional installs of Honeycomb can and have already been built from this.
#3. Licensing means they CANNOT closed source it
Either present us with some evidence, or quit spouting rubbish.

FloatingFatMan said:
I'm gonna call BS on all of the above.
#1. New member, first post, no sources or company names given.
#2. Honeycomb SDK is already published. Functional installs of Honeycomb can and have already been built from this.
#3. Licensing means they CANNOT closed source it
Either present us with some evidence, or quit spouting rubbish.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
^ couldn't put it better myself.
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA App

There is a reason why this is a new account, if it isnt obvious to you.
I am not asking for speculative opinions, I am wondering if there is anyone else in the industry hearing either of these rumors.

Atleast give some sources?
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA App

Sorry, the market for real Honeycomb products is actually very small at the moment so any hints will reveal too much. Please, if anyone else has heard anything just PM me.

Small huh? There are plenty of devices coming out quite soon. Acer's Iconia Tab A500, for example, has just had its FCC approval granted and will be out mid-April. That's running Honeycomb, so kinda slaps your "rumours" in the chops about it not being available until June.

FloatingFatMan said:
#3. Licensing means they CANNOT closed source it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What licence exactly?
FYI Android itself is licensed under the Apache software license, which is a non-copyleft licence.
If Google so chose, they could keep Honeycomb itself closed source, and their only open source requirement would be publishing the source for the linux kernel on shipping devices.
Regards,
Dave

foxmeister said:
What licence exactly?
FYI Android itself is licensed under the Apache software license, which is a non-copyleft licence.
If Google so chose, they could keep Honeycomb itself closed source, and their only open source requirement would be publishing the source for the linux kernel on shipping devices.
Regards,
Dave
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Because they've already released it under open license.

FloatingFatMan said:
Because they've already released it under open license.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The latest release of Android released under the Apache Software Licence is Gingerbread - that can't be taken back.
However, anything built on top of that source can be closed source if the developer so wishes, and that includes Honeycomb!
I still expect Google to release Honeycomb under the ASL, but the point it - *they don't have to!*.
Regards,
Dave

Seriously guys,do you really think that in times like these we're living,Google will abandon the idea that made their OS so successful?I highly doubt that...

tolis626 said:
Seriously guys,do you really think that in times like these we're living,Google will abandon the idea that made their OS so successful?I highly doubt that...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I absolutely agree with you - I cannot fathom any reason for Google to make Honeycomb close source. This rumor (#2) is from a bigger company than the company that provided the first rumor.

Interesting news ! Thanks for the share !

FloatingFatMan said:
I'm gonna call BS on all of the above.
#1. New member, first post, no sources or company names given.
[...]
Either present us with some evidence, or quit spouting rubbish.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same as the troll who claimed Samsung were trying to charge networks for software updates yet everyone was willing to believe that...
I'm not arguing that this looks and smells like trolling, merely attempting to highlight that plenty of people round here seem to be quite happy to 'never let the facts get in the way of a good story'.

Sorry to double-post but Engadget has an article on the matter.
Here's a quote from Google:
Android 3.0, Honeycomb, was designed from the ground up for devices with larger screen sizes and improves on Android favorites such as widgets, multi-tasking, browsing, notifications and customization. While we're excited to offer these new features to Android tablets, we have more work to do before we can deliver them to other device types including phones. Until then, we've decided not to release Honeycomb to open source. We're committed to providing Android as an open platform across many device types and will publish the source as soon as it's ready.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Absolutely no mention of licences.
It does, on the other hand, talk of Honeycomb 'not being ready, which ties in to a lot of reviews and impressions of it as an OS.
Again, I feel this is very similar to the 'Samsung charging for upgrades' rumour - something takes a little bit longer than normal to happen and a minority start making up ridiculous rumours to try and explain it.

Step666 said:
Sorry to double-post but
Here's a quote from Google:
Absolutely no mention of licences.
It does, on the other hand, talk of Honeycomb 'not being ready, which ties in to a lot of reviews and impressions of it as an OS.
Again, I feel this is very similar to the 'Samsung charging for upgrades' rumour - something takes a little bit longer than normal to happen and a minority start making up ridiculous rumours to try and explain it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am not sure whether my post occurred before the Engadget article or not, but this article certainly validates rumor #1. It would be interesting to see how this affects manufacturers who have announced Honeycomb products (one poster mentioned Acer earlier). I know some are launching Gingerbread instead, which isnt ideal.
While the link between the two rumors is subject to interpretation, the two rumors were taken from different sources. The second rumor is less believable (even to me) however, the source is from a significantly larger company.

No, it doesn't validate rumour number one.
You claimed that manufacturers are unable to get a copy of Honeycomb - there's a big difference between Google publicly releasing the source code and passing copies of it to manufacturers.
Do you really think that when Google released Froyo's or GIngerbread's source code that that was the first time HTC, Samsung etc had seen it?
I really don't.
Also, as has been pointed out already, the fact that there are Honeycomb devices coming from a range of manufacturers goes some way to disproving your point.
As for the believability of your rumours, unless you can back them up with any sort of proof, I don't see any reason to believe either of them.

Well the op might be on to something at least. I'm not buying that top tier manufacturers won't be able to get the code as LG and Acer among others are going to be releasing tablets with honeycomb in the coming weeks.
http://www.androidcentral.com/google-not-open-sourcing-honeycomb-says-bloomberg

Thank you so much for this article - this is another source verifying the difficulty of manufacturers getting honeycomb source code. There is no doubt the Tier 1 companies will get preferential access to the code - the question is, who is seen as Tier 1 by Google.
Perhaps in regards to licensing, this may be just a legal formality for companies to get access to Honeycomb at the moment, and it is unclear whether these licenses will cost anything.
Thank you again, this has been a great help. This is a third party source we can use to explain to our clients why we cannot launch honeycomb at the date we promised.

I am glad Google isn't releasing the code so cheap companies can't just stick Honeycomb on crap devices and make it look bad.
Sent from my Incredible with the XDA Premium App.

Disappointed at Viewsonic

A few months ago, during the whole nVidia Harmony forum post fiasco, there seemed to be a pretty decent campaign by some members of XDA and other forums to get Viewsonic to support their product. That caused them to (at least temporarily) release the 1.2 branch.
This helped push forward ROMs by Roebeet and others. The future looked bright for Honeycomb on the Harmony platform.
Now, after asking a question on their Twitter post today, I am not so sure about Viewsonic's commitment to support a product that still has a lot of potential.
Here is the Twitter timeline:
ViewSonic
What do YOU use your tablet for the most? Tell us on Facebook! on.fb.me/ViewSonicCorp
tomsliwowski
@ViewSonic I'd love to use my GTab for Honeycomb. Are you ever going to support the GTab at all?
ViewSonic
@tomsliwowski The GTablet was never promoted as a Honeycomb product. There are multiple business and technical issues with both nVidia
ViewSonic
@tomsliwowski and Google that prevent later versions of the Android OS from being implemented on the GTablet.
tomsliwowski
@ViewSonic I'm sorry but that is simply not true. Customers of yours on XDA, SlateDroid and TabletROMs have versions of HC running.
ViewSonic
@tomsliwowski There are 3rd party companies that have hacked the device, however, Honeycomb is not support by ViewSonic on the gTablet.
tomsliwowski
@ViewSonic All they need is for you to release Harmony drivers which nVidia already publicly stated they will provide upon request from you
ViewSonic
@tomsliwowski For further support on this matter, please contact the gTablet support team at (310) 228-4000.​
Frankly I didn't expect them to reply to me and to offload the blame to their partners that quickly. I know that if they don't put at least a fully working (i.e. minimally buggy) official 2.2 ROM I will not even consider Viewsonic for future hardware purchases.

Time to get on Twitter

Maybe ask Tom about an article on Viewsonic's commitment to the Gtab, on their own website.
viewsonic.com/company/news/vs_press_release_443666.htm

viewsonic is right on the first part but wrong when they dont provide the drivers

Well, this is a bummer.
Maybe we should be talking to Malata instead of Viewsonic.

Well if you want to make a vow to never buy another Viewsonic product do it now. Here is my hand, I pledge to never buy another Viewsonic product again.

Let's not just vow not to buy, we need to all start calling, emailing viewsonic, make sure you let them know you indend to not only stop buying their products but to also stop reccomending them to friends, family, customers, random people on the street. Let's tie up their phone lines, email and twitter accounts with our vocal displeasure.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

I tried this with HP. My Dv6000 laptop was part of a whole batch of bad laptops. Not just dv6000 but a ton of the dv lines. Basically the laptops all overheated and eventually died within 1-2 years of use or less. I called, emailed, did everything and HP basically told me to eff off. I paid $1200 for the laptop as well. Companies suck these days. I will never buy an HP computer ever again because of this. So at least they are losing the customer and I do bad mouth them to people looking at computers because of how bad their customer service is. Google Dv6000 overheat 3 beeps, etc and you'll just see how many people out there had the same problem. HP are crooks.

To who it may concern,,,
The following is a letter that I emailed, faxed, snail mailed and posted on their forum:
I am or should I say was a loyal ViewSonic customer. That was until I learned that ViewSonic would not only release a version of HoneyComb for the GTablet, but that you would also not assist the development community in their endeavors to create at least a working HoneyComb-like OS by releasing the Harmony driver sets per Nvidia. Now I know who ever receives this will probably initially discount this as the ravings of one disgruntled customer. I would ask that you consider the following:
1) I am a techie. As such I enjoy big ticket techie items. I am in the market for a large screen television. Guess who I will no longer consider? You're now probably thinking, "Big deal so we lose one customer."
2) Also consider this, as a techie a lot of my friends and family often refer to my judgement on ALL things technical including purchases of electronics.
3) Oh yeah, I also posted this letter on every forum and blog that I am a member of. At last count we are talking 82 sites world wide.
Good luck in your future endeavors.
Signed,
A former customer

Never Again
Never again, I say, to viewsonic. That company is a rip off, and even if they improved their ethics, I will not buy. As long as I have self respect, I will not give them one cent, because I will not allow myself to be treated like I am worthless and alive only to service those a**'s. Already, I declined to buy a 24" monitor simply because it has the viewsonic brand.
My Pledge - 30 tweets in 30 days @viewsonic, with a msg similar to No customer care, no product support, cant be trusted, never make that mistake again, boycott, boycott, boycott, remember the gTab.
It would be really cool if at least five or ten people on this site joined in with me.

I too thought the same way when i purchased a Gtab. I am now rooted with Alpha Bottle Of Smoke rom and love it! all the honeycomb i want

I went ahead and sent a tweet @ViewSonic as well, asking them if they will ever provide support for a current or future Android OS
Im hoping they will eventually release an update and bring us up to at least gingerbread...
maybe we will get lucky and they will update the GTab with ice cream sandwich...
im expecting nothing though and hoping for something

Swaggasaurus said:
I too thought the same way when i purchased a Gtab. I am now rooted with Alpha Bottle Of Smoke rom and love it! all the honeycomb i want
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Except for hardware acceleration which is a big deal
Sent from my GtabComb using Tapatalk

I think we might be better off hounding Andrew over at Nvidia for the drivers. He didnt want to give out any Google files but it sounded like he could help with the Nvidia stuff. Now that HC is ported maybe he can help with the drivers.

What's a good email address for viewsonic?
we should all just blow them up.

Swaggasaurus said:
I too thought the same way when i purchased a Gtab. I am now rooted with Alpha Bottle Of Smoke rom and love it! all the honeycomb i want
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does the Bottle of Smoke Rom allow USB access for transferring files and MicroSD card access?
If so, I will definitely check it out.

I had an interesting Chat conversation with Viewsonic technical support this evening. I knew that Viewsonic doesn't handle the tech support of the Gtablet any longer, but didn't want the support guy, Aljhon (I called him AL) to know that I knew that.
I simply wanted to ask him if Viewsonic was planning on releasing any other firmware updates for the stock TNT Firmware.
his Answer:
"Actually, have dedicated department that supports our G-Tablets. We do not have any information for Gtablet here."
"You may contact them directly at 310-228-4000 between 9AM-5PM PST, Monday through Friday."
I know that is US Merchants contact information, and figured he would probably provide it. I expanded my questioning, explaining that I didn't have any issues with the Gtablet and htat it works fine, just htat I was simply wanting to know if the development team had any plans to update the stock firmware any time soon.
"Honestly Mr. Evans, I would really glad to assist you regarding this but I do no have any information here in my resources."
I made the point that the Tablets are still selling, with the Viewsonic name on the back, and the Viewsonic logo shown at startup...
" I am unable to answer your concern because we do not have any information here for Gtablet."
then he just kept barking the "dedicated department" BS to me with US Merchants phone number.
Why was this conversation important? It says, to me at least, that Viewsonic has indeed abandoned this product. Their support team doesn't have "any information" regarding it. If they were planning on providing a stock firmware update, then that informaiton should be available, right? By stating that he doesn't have ANY information, I took it as Viewsonic washing their hands of the Gtablet, and letting it remain at the latest released firmware (1.1.3588).
I informed him that I would never recommend a Viewsonic product to anyone I know...though now, it seems that US Merchants has their stock, and is the only company profitting from Gtablets.
I highly doubt that US Merchants is developing anything, nor even has the resources to request anything that the community wants. Their contact was Viewsonic, and Viewsonic had the contacts.
Gtablet 1.1.3588 is the farthest that this thing will go, with support from it's manufacturer...

Why dont we start a petition and link it to viewsonics forums. Let the world speak. And that makes 10!

DKS1282 said:
Why dont we start a petition and link it to viewsonics forums. Let the world speak. And that makes 10!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Because petitions don't mean anything if the other side doesn't listen. All VS has to do is ignore us and time will make people forget about us.

Unfortunately, I do not think that the number of disatisfied g-tablet users will affect them globally enough to change their stand.
We got a tablet with similar hardware at a much cheaper price and I would say that you get what you pay for.

Le Pan TC970 ~ Source Code [Tutorial]

Le Pan Tablet is a awesome and cheap tablet. But after talking with my fellow group members over at Le Pan Group, we've hit a stone. We need the source code. Now we've had insiders who tried too obtain the source code, too no avail.
Now let's take an offensive turn, and start requesting it in the hundreds.
Step 1. E-mail the two address attached.
Step 2. Don't let them blow it off.
Step 3. Please put in your discussion in quote on here.
Keep Pressuring!
Jasmine
[email protected]
Shawn
[email protected]
Rules
1. Don't be offensive; We won't get anywhere.
2. Quote what's happening on your e-mail
3. Good luck.
If you're looking too create a template or find one. Visit Le Pan Group

Case #1133
Kleine eightynine XDA on 12/11/2011 12:44:31 AM
Hey, l am a developer looking too work with the Le Pan Tablet some more. But ran into problems with propriety. Im wondering, are you going too release it? Or has it been released? Can some information be released?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Will post more updates when they're available.

Kleine89,
I really admire what you guys are trying to accomplish here. I completely understand and I'm on the same side; unfortunately this isn't the way to do it.
Customer service and technical support is currently run by me training a small team. In fact, I think I just replied to one of your cases lol. We are already swamped with phone calls and cases so this would just increase our workload.
The thing is that we don't have the source code; if I personally had it myself I would probably quietly give it to one of the developers here. It's all up to the software team overseas to release it or not. I've already sent emails to them asking about it and they are discussing it. Seems like they are worried about some copyright issue.
Really sorry to pop your bubble here but please do not flood the support emails with cases regarding the source code. What you could do however, is email these two people asking for it:
Jasmine
[email protected]
Shawn
[email protected]
They are higher up and have direct communication to the software team. As always, please stay professional and respectable.
I'm completely on your side guys; lets get that source code.
Good luck!

nehinbin said:
Kleine89,
I really admire what you guys are trying to accomplish here. I completely understand and I'm on the same side; unfortunately this isn't the way to do it.
Customer service and technical support is currently run by me training a small team. In fact, I think I just replied to one of your cases lol. We are already swamped with phone calls and cases so this would just increase our workload.
The thing is that we don't have the source code; if I personally had it myself I would probably quietly give it to one of the developers here. It's all up to the software team overseas to release it or not. I've already sent emails to them asking about it and they are discussing it. Seems like they are worried about some copyright issue.
Really sorry to pop your bubble here but please do not flood the support emails with cases regarding the source code. What you could do however, is email these two people asking for it:
Jasmine
[email protected]
Shawn
[email protected]
They are higher up and have direct communication to the software team. As always, please stay professional and respectable.
I'm completely on your side guys; lets get that source code.
Good luck!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sounds good nehinbin - I'll shoot both of them an e-mail.
Honestly it's bull**** because they are using open-source software. Technically it's illegal to keep it hidden away like that. I'm not good on all the legalize and crap but XDA TV and devs here have explained it very well for other companies that tried to do this and they ended up cracking with enough pressure. Hopefully we can get them to the same.
Don't worry though, I'll be totally professional in e-mailing them and won't state where I got the addresses from as I think anyone else who helps with this cause should as well.
Thanks for all your help!

nehinbin said:
Kleine89,
I really admire what you guys are trying to accomplish here. I completely understand and I'm on the same side; unfortunately this isn't the way to do it.
Customer service and technical support is currently run by me training a small team. In fact, I think I just replied to one of your cases lol. We are already swamped with phone calls and cases so this would just increase our workload.
The thing is that we don't have the source code; if I personally had it myself I would probably quietly give it to one of the developers here. It's all up to the software team overseas to release it or not. I've already sent emails to them asking about it and they are discussing it. Seems like they are worried about some copyright issue.
Really sorry to pop your bubble here but please do not flood the support emails with cases regarding the source code. What you could do however, is email these two people asking for it:
Jasmine
[email protected]
Shawn
[email protected]
They are higher up and have direct communication to the software team. As always, please stay professional and respectable.
I'm completely on your side guys; lets get that source code.
Good luck!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for your response. Will do. l've changed the guide line now. Sounded like you did. By the way, you've never offended me once, you've been a great help!

Thank you all for respecting my request.
The source code is indeed something that they are legally required to release.
Feel free to send multiple emails on different email accounts. The more pressure they receive, the more they will realize how important it is for them to release it. While you at it, you can also request the ADB drivers and other things.

I have tried them a few time already. The answer I have got is that they don't release source code. What I have got now is I have found the serial port on the 30 pin connecter. Omap3 uses xloader and uboot and will try to boot from external sd card first. I will build my own xloader and uboot and try it out.
Sent from my LG-C900k using XDA Windows Phone 7 App

Hey OP. Might want to remove this thread before we anger nehinbin. He's been pretty good about getting out what he can. If he gets more, I'm sure he'll filter it out to us. When this thread expands over time, some may not read those "important" pleas made earlier.

I'll do what I can.
Since I'm all but a lawyer, as well as a professional writer, I'd be happy to draw up a template, or something more formal, requesting such release, if I am provided, by others here within the ascribed forum, with the background documentation, or links thereto, related to this non-conforming company's obligation to do so.
You get the idea.

you guys mentioned the LePan Group a couple of times. How do I join?
I own a TC970 and would be happy to help. I have experience testing and reporting about roms on my Motorola Droid 1.

Just visit my signature or the link. That's the group. Join and done.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App

The real designer company is Innocomm, from Taiwan. Maybe we should put some pressure on them.

cas_xp said:
The real designer company is Innocomm, from Taiwan. Maybe we should put some pressure on them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That'll be tough too crack though.. Damn..

I think the key is to not give up, hopefully with enough pressure and TC979 coming out soon, they'll release the source for the TC970 since they aren't manufacturing anymore from what I understand.
Keep the pressure on everyone.

Not just kernel source, but also Uboot(iboot) and x-loader(iloader) source, even they rename it.
Here is the link for violation GPL:
http://http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-violation.html

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-violation.html
Fix of broken link. One too many http's.

Kleine89 said:
Just visit my signature or the link. That's the group. Join and done.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've tried accessing the group from several threads already and keep getting an invalid social group page. Am I doing anything wrong?

cas_xp said:
Not just kernel source, but also Uboot(iboot) and x-loader(iloader) source, even they rename it.
Here is the link for violation GPL:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Farscaper said:
Fix of broken link. One too many http's.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I thought android was released under the Apache license. So the advice for gnu violations may not apply. It may be better if there were some similar but Apache specific directions on how to deal with violations.
Edit: sorry I'm a new user so I can't be trusted to post links, even in quotes

Android is under Apache license, but it is based on Linux kernel, which is under GPL
sockbot said:
I thought android was released under the Apache license. So the advice for gnu violations may not apply. It may be better if there were some similar but Apache specific directions on how to deal with violations.
Edit: sorry I'm a new user so I can't be trusted to post links, even in quotes
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sent from my TC970 (Wi-Fi) using XDA App

I gave it a try with both emails and mentioned the possible GNU violation.
If any luck I will post back here.

annoying samsung...

I'm trying to get Samsung to release the source for their ar6000.ko ethernet kernel module as well as the source they used for wpa_supplicant (which contains extensions to wpa_supplicant.) To that end, I've sent them a few messages making those requests. Here was their reply (edited)
1. about 'ar6000.ko'
: source code of atheros chip set is not GPL.
We get BSD/GPL dual license from Atheros company.
We choose BSD license, so we do not have any obligation to publish source codeof it.
2. wpa_supplicant
Wpa_supplicant is also BSD/GPL dual license. (and we also choose BSD license)
________________________________________________________________
WPA Supplicant
==============
Copyright (c) 2003-2008, Jouni Malinen and contributors
All Rights Reserved.
This program is dual-licensed under both the GPL version 2 and BSD
license. Either license may be used at your option.
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Sadly, they seem to have failed to meet the conditions of the BSD licensing as well. I've sent them another message stating this:
Concerning the atheros AR6000 driver and the wpa_supplicant binary. In denying the making available source for both the ar6000 module and the wpa_supplicant binary, you state that you get both of these with dual GPL/BSD licensing and choose the BSD license. That is fine, however you failed to meet the terms of the BSD license. In particular, for both items, the BSD license states: " Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution." You have failed to state your licensing terms and this disclaimer in reference to the above stated items in either the printed documentation or the legal licensing screen embedded within the settings app on the device. As a matter of fact, you've failed to provide any licensing notice for GPL or BSD licensing for either item.
Regardless, I'm asking for these items in order to attempt to FIX BUGS that have been left in the device. It's been well documented in the forums for users of these devices that the wifi chipset drivers are causing crashes, freezes, "sleep of death" situations, etc. Samsung's support has been EXTREMELY unresponsive in attempting to resolve these issue, and I'd be willing to bet that reports of these issue aren't even getting through to your development teams.
Therefore, I once again ask that you release the source for the ar6000 module and wpa_supplicant binary that you have NOT followed the licensing terms of (regardless of which license you've chosen.) Oh, and there's no licensing string embedded in the ar6000.ko module either. modinfo ar6000.ko reveals nothing (for the ar6000.ko module on the GT-P6210 with KL1 firmware.)
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Honestly, I don't expect for Samsung to be responsive and/or helpful. I think the best that anyone can expect is that they release an updated firmware that includes the proper licensing information.
Gary

Check and mate Sir. I despise these OEMs. You GO gary. Whatever happened to opensource? What are they so afraid of?
Anything we can do to help, let us know. Even if it means just spamming their inbox.

It's not like I buy the tablet because it has such an epic driver....
I buy it for the hardware...
When your entire OS is practically open source... not open sourcing the drivers for the wireless chip seems like shooting yourself in the foot just because you can.

Thanks garyd9 for fighting the good fight.

When companies do stuff like this for critical things, it _really_ makes me want to spend my money elsewhere.
In regards to the SOD issue, I've noticed that quite a few honeycomb tablets have this issue or something similar to it. I've only personally seen it with Samsung branded ones (10.1 and 7.0+), but have heard similar issues with asus and and acer.
Perhaps its a honeycomb issue?
Gary

give em hell!

If you'd like to help, please click the link near the top of the OP to submit the article to the XDA portal. Perhaps if this issue is shown on the front page, and enough people notice, Samsung could be convinced to "choose" GPL over BSD.
Thank you
Gary

Did you get any useful /proc/last_kmsg dumps of SoDs? Enabling wifi may only be making a difference because of the wakeups.
That said - I am completely shocked that Broadcom's drivers are open source and the ar6000 driver isn't. I've lost a lot of respect for Atheros AND for Samsung over this. I can understand if it's BSD - but seriously, what trade secrets could Samsung have in a freaking Atheros driver, and for something like this, what possible business reason could they have for witholding source for that ONE module? It's freaking stupid.
I was hoping that they'd start becoming more developer-friendly as a result of hiring Cyanogen, but they're being asshats at this point. They donated a device to Codeworkx (or someone else on Teamhacksung) to get CM7 ported, but have not given him a shred of assistance with the porting effort. Basically, trying to get "Supported by CyanogenMod" credits without ANY significant effort.
As much as I hate Sony - SE seems to be doing the best of any manufacturer in terms of supporting people doing platform-level development.
Edits:
You know, this is proving to be a clear and recurring pattern. I have never seen XDA get anything useful out of SamsungJohn for example, all he does is come over, tease us with something, and never follow up.
Over in the Captivate forums - he came in and posted that source code was out, then left without any followup - by the time he made this announcement, people had already found the source and were working with it - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=997098
He then came and teased us with the Samsung Developer Program - guess what, it provides NOTHING for developers doing platform work - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1392847 - John also didn't come and respond to any of the feedback
Prior to that there was the Samsung Developers Conference tease - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1291758 - nothing useful came out of this for anyone doing platform work. In fact, John just dropped off the face of the earth, I'm assuming that not a single person from XDA actually was brought by Samsung to the event, otherwise there would've been a followup/debrief post. Anyway, the "big announcement" was just the Galaxy Nexus release announcement. Big deal - that's a dev phone because Google forces it to be one, it's more of a Google product than a Samsung one.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=954896 (and many similar posts) - He just crossposted to a ton of forums saying something awesome was coming. Something awesome never came. The linked thread from many of his posts doesn't even exist. Actually, most of his 67 posts are just crossposting this tease - NOTHING ever came out of it.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/08/samsung-shows-affection-to-cyanogenmod-gives-its-devs-a-free-ga/ - As a PR stunt, Samsung threw a Galaxy S II over the wall to one of the CM developers. Without a doubt, Dan Hillenbrand (codeworkx) and Atin Malvaya (atinm) have not received any support from Samsung since Sammy threw a device over to them. The GSII is likely to be codeworkx's last Samsung device, he has become so frustrated with Samsung (Check his posts in the CM9 thread for I9100). Compare this to Sony Ericsson's effort here - http://blogs.sonyericsson.com/wp/2011/09/28/sony-ericsson-supports-independent-developers/ - They have given FreeXperia MASSIVE amounts of support, and it shows - http://www.cyanogenmod.com/blog/sony-ericsson-xperia-support
imnuts07 asked for some help regarding Droid Charge kernel source issues - https://twitter.com/#!/SamsungJohn/status/152835654303236097 - All he responded with was "how can we help" - no further response, imnuts07 didn't get anywhere until jt1134 gave him some pointers. (It turned out to be more proprietary module vermagic bull****...)
After all this, it's clear that with regards to platform developers, Samsung's intent is to do the bare minimum to meet their legal obligations with the GPL and no more. Even source code which they COULD release and have no valid reason for withholding is withheld if they are able to (such as the ar6000 module source code). I thought that the Galaxy S II was a step forward towards devices with 100% open source kernels, however it is clear that the GSII was just a fluke. I'm getting sick and tired of dealing with module vermagic headaches. I've spent at this point a few hundred hours of my spare time working on improvements to various products of theirs(maintaining kernels for three different products - Samsung Infuse, AT&T Galaxy S II, and Galaxy Player 5.0), and their consistent message back has been "go away, screw you, stop bothering us".

There may be a small bit of hope - I've been contacted by someone at samsung (perhaps due to your rant combined with my constant pestering on their open source website.) It isn't much, but the first line of collaborating is communication. They seem more interested in fixing the bugs than sharing code, but I'll take what I can get.
Oh, and the last_ksmg memory was corrupted when the one person who had adb, my kernel and root installed was able to check it. (As you know, the file won't be generated if header area for the ram console can't be found or is in bad shape.)
We'll see what happens, but I'm not going to hold my breath with the lunar new year coming up.
Take care
Gary

so how many people do we need to sue??

chrisrotolo said:
so how many people do we need to sue??
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No lawsuits required. Although... that might explain the poor customer support from Samsung. Perhaps they've been afraid that Apple will sue them for patent infringement if they help a customer?
Not that I've ever had any GOOD support from Apple... mostly just clueless kids taking guesses. Even their so-called "geniuses" are mostly clueless.
In typing that, I realized that I'm probably one of the hardest people in the world to provide technical support to. When I have a question, it's only after I've exhausted the combined knowledge of myself and whatever google can provide... meaning the only good response from phone support would be "Would you like to cross-ship an exchange or wait for the repair?"

can we spook them with a (legal)letter they are in violation of the GPL/BSD agreement, and If it isnt provided in X amount of time, we will be forced to escalate?
I like to annoy people to (;

Speaking from personal experience ,when dealing (even on corporate high level) with Samsung there is nothing to gain but some weight due to stress.
They do care( up to a degree) about some customer relations and I've seen very nice, honest and helpful people there. But this is where it all ends.
The farther you go the worse it gets. Somehow they got this Apple attitude of profit and secrecy all over their structure. Apple calls themselves "innovators" to reason the secrecy, but Sammy are nowhere near. If I was to say they do act like copycat killers I risk getting called names- though they "adapt" almost everything, from design to business models. The Korean HQ has drawn quite strict regulations for the rest of the world.
We should remember that Samsung is a HUGE corporation. Android devices D&R is a tiny faction, ruled like in Middle Ages. They have the road map and they ever raise the stake every time. From my point of view, I sincerely understand those people for not jumping out with the source code. If you get paid 100k+, you don't help anyone but yourself. The decisions are not theirs. The people taking decisions don't give a rat's a55 about GNU or Linux, Minux or whatever. On top of that, there are some people that MIGHT have some influence in changing this policy ( the brown bearded, we call them) but those are the pride ridden SOBs.
You can read this from their mobile device history. They had to go into that, given the fact they build everything, from ships to home furniture. They got a share of the market because they were big and had some bright minds there. I know for a fact that, at the beginning, working @ cell phone dept was like sentenced to prison, only the undesirable but indispensable were sent there. Huh, those people left, some for Apple and some for others ( LG,Sony and Hyundai). Panasonic and Toshiba flops are some examples of how, in a degree, cultural burdens lead to a fail. HTC, a mobile phone company, depends on how much stir dev's can produce. On the other hand, Samsung can get a write-off for their mobile dept. without a blink. Bada is a perfect example. It was close to write off so they decided to make it open- see HP. They are too big to follow rules and beside being big, they hold the power few have- the power TO BEND rules, that is.
Getting any serious, development like help from Samsung is close to what ''Acts of God" are described in car insurance.

htc9420 said:
HTC, a mobile phone company, depends on how much stir dev's can produce.
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You are, obviously, an HTC fan or employee. Well, I have a samsung tablet, so I'm developing on a samsung tablet. At least the device was unlocked when I bought it and I didn't have to petition on facebook/twitter/etc just to be able to root it.
Unless you have something to contribute to solving a problem, please go elsewhere.

garyd9 said:
You are, obviously, an HTC fan or employee. Well, I have a samsung tablet, so I'm developing on a samsung tablet. At least the device was unlocked when I bought it and I didn't have to petition on facebook/twitter/etc just to be able to root it.
Unless you have something to contribute to solving a problem, please go elsewhere.
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I wouldn't be so quick to judge him...

I just got the impression that the point of the post was to promote HTC while bashing everyone else.
Perhaps I spoke (typed) too soon. If so, I apologize.

No, the HTC thing was just one line, and what I perceived as some general comments on why some manufacturers (Panasonic, Toshiba) seem to have kind of flopped in the market.
There was definitive Samsung-bashing - but he's just joining with us in frustration.
Check PMs gary.

garyd9 said:
I'm trying to get Samsung to release the source for their ar6000.ko ethernet kernel module as well as the source they used for wpa_supplicant (which contains extensions to wpa_supplicant.) To that end, I've sent them a few messages making those requests. Here was their reply (edited)
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Hey Gary,
I'm the developer for a CyanogenMod port for the Samsung phone (GT-I5500). Samsung have released their source for an older version of the AR6kSDK, which I have put on github here: https://github.com/psyke83/AR6kSDK.3.0. This source is quite old, and doesn't support combo scanning, but it's newer than the ath6kl source release contained in the 2.6.35 kernel.
Last night I scoured the internet trying to find some newer source, and came across a release by Sony for one of their e-book reader products. I have uploaded the source onto github which you can check here: https://github.com/psyke83/AR6kSDK.3.1
The above git's description links to the location of the original source tarball on Sony's server, but if you prefer, just clone the git and checkout the first commit, as it's the unmodified source.
I have made some changes already to get the module to initialize properly, but at present it's not even scanning properly. Perhaps it will work better for you without modifications, especially if your device is not AR6003_REV2 (which is the revision on my phone).

chrisrotolo said:
can we spook them with a (legal)letter they are in violation of the GPL/BSD agreement, and If it isnt provided in X amount of time, we will be forced to escalate?
I like to annoy people to (;
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my friend mat has done this for me as he knows his stuff. it was a very powerful letter i must say haha. just waiting for a response

gary, thanks for all your efforts man! this is my first samsung android device, have they always been this bad in witholding source?