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Banana PI BPI-W2

Юрий Долгорукий
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tkaiser

tkaiser

Posted
Posted

http://forum.banana-pi.org/t/bpi-w2-sources-for-linux-etc/5780/

  • 'We’re working on it, and when it’s ready, it’s updated to github'
  • 'we will update code and image soon'
  • (just the usual blabla as always)

@Nora Lee: Is this all unfortunate W2 customers can expect: No sources but only pre-compiled BLOBs?

 

If you got u-boot and kernel sources from RealTek already why don't you share them as the GPL requires anyway? Do you understand that you're violating the GPL?

Nora Lee

Nora Lee

Posted
Posted

 Bootloader and kernel under developing, draft version will be provided with developers, improving version will be released in public.

 

hjc

hjc

Posted
Posted
6 minutes ago, Nora Lee said:

 Bootloader and kernel under developing, draft version will be provided with developers, improving version will be released in public.

 

This is indeed GPL violation. As soon as you release any binary complied from GNU GPLv2-licensed source, you should release the exact source that produced the binary, at the same time, under the same GNU GPLv2 license.

tkaiser

tkaiser

Posted
Posted
17 minutes ago, Nora Lee said:

Bootloader and kernel under developing, draft version will be provided with developers, improving version will be released in public

 

OMG, you Banana folks will never get it. You and RealTek are not just plain GPL violators but if your above statement is true (which I doubt) you act also as stupid as in the past preventing talented community members helping you. Ask @frank-w, ask @Tido (maybe he'll explain to you again the 'release early, release often' benefits)

 

My guess is you simply don't get sources from RealTek...

Lion Wang

Lion Wang

Posted
Posted
16 minutes ago, tkaiser said:

 

OMG, you Banana folks will never get it. You and RealTek are not just plain GPL violators but if your above statement is true (which I doubt) you act also as stupid as in the past preventing talented community members helping you. Ask @frank-w, ask @Tido (maybe he'll explain to you again the 'release early, release often' benefits)

 

My guess is you simply don't get sources from RealTek...

we coworker with RealTek ,if not RealTek support ,we can not begin this project ,and we get all code ,and  we now work on kernel 4.9,but need some time to development at linux. when we redy ,will release it.

 

 

tkaiser

tkaiser

Posted
Posted

@Nora Lee and @Lion Wang thank you so much for confirming that nothing has changed within the last years.

 

To summarize:

  • you don't understand the meaning of 'sources' in general
  • you don't understand the relevance of the GPL (forcing you or let's better say RealTek to immediately release the sources you build stuff from)
  • you don't understand that when you have to sign an NDA with a vendor you're becoming part of his GPL violations. Also it outlines your inability to understand the meaning of 'open source' in general
  • you don't understand the power and relevance of open source communities

Adding to this you still alow the most careless person on this planet to do your 'technical documentation' (funky copy&paste jobs full of errors without thinking a single second) and it should be obvious why software support around your recent devices sucks that much.

 

I bet you're already working on a Qualcomm or HiSilicon board just to ensure software support will be as terrible as we're all know it from your other boards (choosing each and every time a new SoC is such a brilliant move to ensure efforts are high and user expectations can never be met)

tkaiser

tkaiser

Posted
Posted
4 minutes ago, Nora Lee said:

our company signed NDA with Realtek, we must follow Realtek's rule to release files under Realtek's approval

 

This was already known. You violate the GPL not just by accident but knowingly and willingly. It can't be worse. You might feel save but you should keep in mind what happened to other GPL violators like D-Link.

tkaiser

tkaiser

Posted
Posted
On 9/13/2018 at 11:44 AM, Lion Wang said:

I've never told you anything because you're not nice,  i know you a orange pi fans , so I understand what you're doing

 

LOL! Right, I almost forgot. You also don't give a shit about what's happening outside your company so any criticism is irrelevant and can be just the result of single persons being 'evil'. Ah, I love the 'Dunning-Kruger effect' so much :) 

 

Hey @chwe: what to do with this technical discussion here? :P

 

Edit: Updated archived version of these funny insights. Just in case BPi folks start to edit their posts: http://archive.fo/kL8tP

Lion Wang

Lion Wang

Posted
Posted

yes , we must signed NDA , if not , we can not begin this project ,You may think it's pointless to start the project because it's not "open source",  but i know some few user need this . so i do it . I'm just finding the balance between "NDA" and "open source".So we need a lot of time.

 

PS : I'm just tired of your endless attacks. It doesn't help open source any more,Therefore, I will not reply any messages to you. the best way : You can show your support or stand by and look,

 

Hey @chwe: what to do with this technical discussion here? 

this is your target, delete this post or move it .  you can success. i know.

hjc

hjc

Posted
Posted
44 minutes ago, Nora Lee said:

Soft remind that our company signed NDA with Realtek, we must follow Realtek's rule to release files under Realtek's approval.

 

22 minutes ago, Lion Wang said:

yes , we must signed NDA , if not , we can not begin this project ,You may think it's pointless to start the project because it's not "open source",  but i know some few user need this .

 

You're not alone, many board makers have to sign NDA with chip vendors. For example, when Dragonboard 820c was under development, they signed NDA with Qualcomm, and they must get approval before releasing Qualcomm kernel/bootloader sources.

However before they got the approval to release kernel/bootloader source code, they didn't even release the board, nor any GPL-licensed binaries. You should follow the rules, too.

2
Tido

Tido

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, Nora Lee said:

our company signed NDA with Realtek

This is totally fine for drivers, hardware design  but not for:

  • u-Boot
  • Kernel

These parts must be omitted from the  NDA  (non disclosure agreement) as soon as you sell the board to the public together with GPL-Software. The creator of  u-Boot  and the creator of   Linux Kernel  have chosen the GPL.  So, if you sign an NDA with RealTek, it must omit these software products, as soon as you start to sell this hardware.  Otherwise BPi breaks the law and even China is nowadays taking care of patents and laws.

 

1 hour ago, hjc said:

they didn't even release the board, nor any GPL-licensed binaries.

This is the big difference to BPi @Nora Lee, @Lion Wang,   BPi sells the board - before releasing source code - so BPi breaks the law.  There is no other way to say that nicely.

 

For the future I recommend you to add a section in the NDA that you are allowed to release the source-code of GPL-Software as soon as you sell the hardware.  This does not sound complicated, does it ?

 

And TK can no longer blame you for being a bad manufacturer ;)

 

tkaiser

tkaiser

Posted
Posted
20 minutes ago, Tido said:

And TK can no longer blame you for being a bad manufacturer

 

As if I would be interested in GPL violations. That's the last thing I care about. It just illustrations this total fail to get things right ('balance between NDA and open source' -- what a funny BS).

 

The real problem with Realtek SoCs is this: https://www.cnx-software.com/2017/09/27/banana-pi-bpi-w2-is-a-features-packed-realtek-rtd1296-development-board/#comment-546422 (they have a VERY STRONG reason to keep everyone under NDA and to NOT publish their kernel sources and there will never be mainline support for these SoCs)

 

 

A vendor who is not able to provide correct documentation (they are not able to even list the f*cking dimensions of their products correctly since they don't give a shit about accuracy :lol:) and constantly babbles about 'open source' instead of clearly communicating how things really are ('we can't share sources, we signed an NDA, you won't get access to what you need') and always chooses a new SoC for any new design... well, let's simply stop talking about this Dunning-Kruger show here.

chwe

chwe

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, tkaiser said:

Hey @chwe: what to do with this technical discussion here? :P

Nothing.. It's the same discussion you had in the R2 thread long time ago.. and as long as the thread is in 'General chit chat', it doesn't have to be fully technical... :P (and yep, that's the lazy way to say that I don't care and don't moderate between you and Sinovoip - chances that I solve one of the 'Millennium Prize Problems' are higher than that you both become friends - my math class ended somehow near to statistical quantum mechanics and I wasn't a genius there :lol:)..

 

Towards GPL: It is a fact that arm chipmakers are famous to violate the GPL (keep in mind, u-boot is also under the GPL). It's also fact that you often sign NDAs to get their kernels which is IMO wrong. This worked quite well for them in the past cause let's face it, chances that you got sued for it were rather low. Just some examples:

  • xiaomi mi vacuum contains a Allwinner R16, xiaomi never released their sources, others dumped it.. 
  • Xiaomi Mijia 4K camera is built on an Ambarella A12S with dual OS ThreadX/Linux - no sources available

from the GPL:

Quote

For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their rights.

as far as I understand this, you've to release it upon request and so, as long as nobody asks you're 'somehow' save (not sure if you've to own a device before you can ask for but well, that's a different story)... Well, I'm neither a lawyer nor interested in licenses and their correct interpretations... 

 

On the other hand, without sources, don't expect that someone can seriously develop on and for your boards. Just browse through https://github.com/armbian/build/tree/master/patch/kernel.. Those patches are either here to:

  • enhance functionality (e.g. drivers)
  • fix issues (e.g. thermals etc.)
  • fix security issues (for the R2, compare @frank-ws 4.4 kernel at sublevel 155 and yours at 70 - he made a lot of your 4.4 boards running with BSP kernel saver by doing this work - that's 1 year and 4 months difference on patchlevel)

Board bring up is hard work.. You spend hours with testing, fixing looking into sources and for BSPs often also in old documentation to get a clue how this stuff was done then (e.g. I'm more familiar with u-boot v2014 than with the recent ones cause I had to deal with MTKs one for the R2). From a developers stand-point, it would make sense to get the sources ASAP. From a business stand-point, it saves you money by doing it - assuming that you don't have to pay for all the work @frank-w did for your R2 kernel (he keeps your 4.4 kernel recent, he does a lot of work to have a vanilla based 4.14 kernel and he even contributes to mainline). As a boardmaker, I would care that I'm allowed to publish the source code when I had to decide for an SoC but that's up to you to decide if you want to be blamed for violating the GPL and take the risk that you get sued for it or being able to release boards with SoCs nobody else can cause they don't take the risk to work with SoCs which don't have open kernels.

Don't expect that this stuff is done within weeks after you release the sources.. The faster you get an agreement between you and Realtek to release sources the bigger the chances that this board will be successful in terms of 'opensource' development. This didn't worked that well for the BPi-R2 which might be a reason too why nobody besides me ever tried to bring this board up and running with armbian. With some contribution from others, I assume that it would be at least CSC supported. As a reminder, the first discussion about the R2 happened in June 2017, my board bring up proposal was written in May 2018... that's one year of development lost due to insufficient communication. During this time, a bunch of boards with similar use-cases came up (e.g. back in 2017 there weren't that many boards with decent NAS performance now in 2018 there are a bunch of them). For the W2, one of the unique features is the HDMI-In and its encoding and decoding capabilities which could make a nice little recording device. but without sources, chances are rather low that a community around this SoC is formed to push this capabilities to linux (it's not only the kernel, it's also the whole user-space stuff). Especially when you consider that mainline support for the rtd1296 is more or less non-existent (there's only Andreas Färber from suse who pushed initial support for it.. see: https://lkml.org/lkml/2017/10/16/1 and https://github.com/afaerber/linux/commits/rtd1295-next). The mt7623 is a way better supported in mainline but even here neither Armbian nor DietPi :ph34r: nor any community distribution I know picked up the board. 

tkaiser

tkaiser

Posted
Posted

This is so hilarious: BPi product manager @Nora Lee and SinoVoip CEO @Lion Wang proudly announcing their latest GPL violations not just in their own forum but spamming other forums as well to do more harm to their project...

 

LMAO! :lol:

tkaiser

tkaiser

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, Lion Wang said:

code have update to github

 

https://github.com/BPI-SINOVOIP/BPI-W2-bsp --> (not so) surprisingly a 404!

 

Ok, we all knew already that you don't understand what 'open source' and GPL mean. The GPL requires you to provide access to sources and not screenshots.

 

If we can trust your screenshot you put something 17 days ago on Github (1 contributor, 21 commits, the last commits all BLOBs -- that's not that promising as usual, maybe u-boot-rt and linux-rt directories contain only BLOBs and no sources?). So if you would want to stop violating the GPL you now have two options:

  • In case there are really sources available in this Github repo --> open the repo for everyone
  • In case there are no sources or you feel bound to an NDA stop providing binary images like the 'Ubuntu 18.04' pushed yesterday

It's really that simple if you want to be GPL compliant. Hope it helps!

chwe

chwe

Posted
Posted
10 hours ago, tkaiser said:

https://github.com/BPI-SINOVOIP/BPI-W2-bsp --> (not so) surprisingly a 404!

Well, as long as it is marked private I hope that you get a 404. Otherwise GitHub would have serious security issues....  :lol: From the README.md we all see that the repo isn't 'polished' yet. It might need some time to write at least a short tutorial how to use those sources, especially due to the usage of a own compiler (see toolchain/asdk...). 

 

my 2 cents towards GPL:

11 hours ago, tkaiser said:

It's really that simple if you want to be GPL compliant. Hope it helps!

quote my self:

On 9/13/2018 at 3:49 PM, chwe said:

from the GPL:

Quote

For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their rights.

 

there's no need to make sources available on GitHub, indeed to be GPL compliant you've to release the sources for those using your images. 

 

I would also prefer to have the sources publicly available on GitHub or GitLab or whatever git service you use before the board is shipped to the first customers but that's not what GPL forces you to do, that's more what development for such boars would make a way easier cause people dealing with it would have it easier to get some 'warm up' time before support requests for such a board arrives at *random distribution*. 

In a perfect world, the documentation for this buildscript would be written before you release the first Debian/Ubuntu for it so that you could release the Image together with the sourcecode on GitHub, probably with a short reminder that this images are in early stage development and that errors problems must be expected at the moment (as armbian does with WIP and/or nightly images).  But as shown by multiple boardmakers, including sinovoip, documentation has room for improvements. :) 

 

 

botfap

botfap

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, Nora Lee said:

We are reviewing source which will be released sooner

 

 

 

I think its best to stop posting until you actually have something legitimate to post about. You constantly posting the same false messages doesn't help you, it just makes you look like a liar and damages not only your own reputation but the reputation of your employer. The law around the GPL is relatively straightforward and reasonably well tested in the law courts. You constantly pretending that the law doesn't apply to you is only pushing potential customers away

 

The facts are simple; that you have a legal obligation to release the code when you release the software or product. Without that your product doesn't actually work properly and you a breaking the law in every EU, US and GB Commonwealth legal jurisdiction among many others. To add to that, you are openly hostile to developers that are trying to help YOU and when they ask for information you refuse to supply it. Combined this makes your board one of the least attractive on the market, despite its interesting PCIe and SATA connectivity

 

I was personally interested in this board, I was thinking of ordering 350pc for a small project that needs flexible storage options. Then I started to research and came across the most unhelpful community support since I had to deal with RDA Micro, a lack of working code and a manufacturer that doesn't even understand the spec of their own boards...

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