[Hero CDMA Android Development] miamicanes:
> it would actually take more time to pick the camera code out of the kernel than it would take to just drop the tarball for the whole kernel.

Ah, but the problem is, HTC *isn't* going to just drop the whole thing into a tarball, regardless of whether or not the GPL requires it. They're going to make that hypothetical developer (or entire team) go over everything to make sure it looks pretty and doesn't reveal anything HTC might regard as sensitive or proprietary in the comments, then go over it a few more times to make sure there's no sloppy coding in it that will get them publicly criticized or made fun of, then hand it to another team to vet it again before finally getting legal & upper management to sign off on the formal release.

The fewer people who need to touch and approve it at HTC, and the faster one person can get it done, the more likely it is to happen now (rather than months from now).

Actually, I just thought of another possible complication. It's possible that the source to the camera driver (or other hardware on the phone) includes lots of stuff that doesn't actually get compiled into the CDMA Hero's binary firmware, but HTC doesn't want to release (or might not even be allowed to release) for the world to see (and for competitors making Android phones for sale in China to copy). Or, HTC might be licensed to distribute only binaries produced from the source, rather than the source itself.

In other words, it's not inconceivable that the official HTC Cupcake distro for the CDMA Hero might, in fact, be in gross violation of the GPL for including code with an incompatible license. If that's the case, we can forget about ever seeing the whole buildfile & supporting code for the firmware that's in our phones right now. They're not going to release it until they've had time to sanitize it, and reimplement anything that's currently a violation with new code that's acceptable.

Think about it: if HTC, for whatever reason, included code with an incompatible license in their official Android distro for the CDMA Hero, they have two potential litigants to worry about:

* The specific developers who collectively own the copyright on the Linux kernel, licensed under the GPL, who individually and collectively have standing to sue for a GPL violation. These are the only people who have standing to sue under American law.

* The company that owns any proprietary, GPL-incompatible code they bundled with their firmware, and licensed to HTC in a way that forbids its disclosure or release.

In that case, HTC would be damned either way, but would have no trouble deciding that it was more important to keep the owner of the camera-driver IP happy than to satisfy the GPL. The people with standing under the GPL are unlikely to sue them, and would have a hard time proving they've suffered actual harm as a result. On the other hand, you can bet the owner of the camera-driver IP would have them in court within hours if there was so much as a RUMOR that its source had been leaked.

The good thing is, if that's the case, HTC is going to have to break those drivers out into loadable modules ANYWAY, so that when it finally releases the (sanitized) source, it won't be obvious that they were originally in gross violation of the GPL. If they have to break those drivers out into modules, they might as well do it NOW, because they're going to have to release the source eventually (if only due to pressure from Google), and they'll need to have Cupcake rebuilt to use those modules if they're going to have any hope of hiding their GPL sins from the public (yes, there would still be theoretical risk of a lawsuit since it wouldn't be the EXACT source used for the shipped code... but honestly, anyone who tried to sue for THAT would have a hell of a time proving that they literally suffered losses of real money as a direct result.

Anyway, my point is, if we let them know that we want the source, but we'll be temporarily pacified with binary kernel modules for its hardware that can be used with alternative Android builds, we might have a much easier time solving the current problem. We'd potentially be asking for something they probably have already, in a form they're allowed to redistribute without legal complications. It would be something easy for them to release, and they could even issue self-congratulatory press releases announcing their benevolence and technological philanthropy.