[Arm-netbook] CT-PC89E - success replicating boot from SDcard with switch in NON-factory-default setting

[Arnt Karlsen]

On Wed, 24 Mar 2010 14:03:23 +0000, Luke wrote in message 
<ced5f0f61003240703q291de769v351ab3792c6452b7 at mail.gmail.com>:

> On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 1:41 PM, Alain Williams <addw at phcomp.co.uk>
> wrote:
> > On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 01:24:23PM +0000, Luke Kenneth Casson
> > Leighton wrote:
> >> dear kimberly,
> >> ...
> >
> >> if you do not comply, we will hunt your product down relentlessly
> >> and will inform all buyers of the non-compliance.  it is very easy
> >> to do this, because your excellent product is the only one that is
> >> an 8.9in ARM netbook.  it is therefore incredibly easy to find:
> >>
> >> http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/277571430/8_9_TFT_LED_2GB_NAND.html
> >>
> >> we will be contacting this company and also advising them of the
> >> ongoing GPL violations.
> >
> > Just to make that clear what a GPL violation means: it will be
> > illegal to sell the product in a country where the GPL is
> > recognised;
> 
>  alain, hi,
> 
>  thank you for contributing, here.  there have been some discussions
> in which i also used the word "illegal", and it was pointed out to me
> that it's not _actually_ "illegal".  non-compliance with the
> conditions of a license agreement - a contract in effect

..the GPL is _not_ a contract where you agree to something, 
it's a license that walks away if you do not comply with it, 
leaving you at the mercy of copyright law enforcement, in 
about the same way you get "pulled over for speeding" on a 
road you would be driving on legally, if you weren't violating 
the speed limit.  That's how people get fined or jailed for 
speeding and copyright violations.

> - is not
> itself actually "illegal".
> 
>  it's just that the consequences of not complying with something that
> is enforceable under copyright law can be extremely severe and costly,
> depending on the country and depending on whether copyright law is
> respected in that country or not.
> 
>  in the locations where this unit is likely to be popular - europe and
> the U.S. - it's definitely enforceable.  i've sent links to chitech
> already for them to review, of instances where the GPL has been
> enforced and/or where violators have settled and complied, some of
> them extremely large multi-billion-dollar corporations, and chitech
> have chosen to ignore my advice that they learn from the experiences
> of the very large corporations whom they aspire to be like.
> 
>  this is a great pity, and it saddens me greatly, because the hardware
> is excellent, and it is going to get completely overtaken in the next
> few months by alternative similar low-cost products.

..yup.  And with proper copyright law enforcement, these hardware
production facilities can be taken over quickly by more worthy 
people, after criminal procecution and bankruptsy proceedings. 

-- 
..med vennlig hilsen = with Kind Regards from Arnt... ;o)
...with a number of polar bear hunters in his ancestry...
  Scenarios always come in sets of three: 
  best case, worst case, and just in case.