[EVO 4G Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Necrosan:
From what I've gleaned the only open source stuff he modified had to do with the HDMI chip in the kernel. As far as I know he has released source to those particular bits.

He _NEVER_ has to release the source to the APK if he doesn't want to. (As more than likely it is an "in-house" effort.)

Fair & square, he did the work.

If he wants cash, he'll get it.

If he wants reputation, he'll get it.

(Although I doubt it will take people very long to see what he's doing and release an entirely free implementation IF he has in fact released the source for the kernel modifications he made. If not, http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-violation.html is one click away.)

Supply and demand :)

EDIT: Just checked and as of 3/3/11 at 10:03 PM central time, he has _NOT_ released his kernel source modifications (gee, wonder why) and is in direct violation of the GPL.

Even androidcentral has forced him to take his links down to his "illegal" kernels.

In my opinion, this guy needs to get his act together. He's pulling a solo-Samsung and doing nothing but hurting the development community.

Here's a quick page for everyone to digest to understand what exactly he is doing that is against the GPL and its terms and could put him at the peril of a lawsuit: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2721290/propietary-modules-within-gpl-and-bsd-kernels

To sum everything up, I see one of four things happening from this current scenario:

A) He releases the source modifications, and goes on living a semi happy life that will always be plagued with people remembering his defiance to follow the GPL.

Within weeks of his modifications being released I predict another individual developer will code up some hooks to link in with his kernel modifications, and bam: Free (hopefully) HDMI output app for everyone from a past or new XDA dev, and paid app for the chumps that support GPL violators or people that truly believe what he was doing is correct.

B) He realizes that once his kernel modifications are out that his apk will be useless, so he chooses not to release the mods at all thus ending this chapter in HDMI development. (And possibly ending litigations against him that may have been initiated at the request of people notifying the GNU foundation on him. Although it is rare that they would file suit against someone not CURRENTLY taking payments for GPL'd code (note he hasn't "released it" for pay yet))

C) He pulls an nvidia/samsung with his kernel module, creating two portions. One LGPL that he releases the source to and must be compiled alongside the kernel, and he includes a binary kernel module that MAY or may not kernel panic your kernel when you attempt to modprobe it. (But I don't think he can do that as he didn't create the entire work of the HDMI driver source. The license for that particular file is GPL, so he MUST release it as far as I can see.)

There is also an option D - he mans up and releases _ALL_ of his work and is revered & cheered for being a good soul. Although he will still suffer from some discredit because of his GPL folly.

In my opinion, the only reason he is not releasing the kernel modifications is because once they are released, ANYONE will easily be able to make an apk to control the output, thus ending any form of possible revenue from this "project" for him.

My gut feeling says he intended to release the kernel modification source AFTER he had racked up some sales. (Which would have been atrociously dumb from a legal stand point)

Whew! :)