Sellers of chinese tablets

[lkcl luke]

On Sun, Apr 8, 2012 at 9:24 AM, Till Harbaum / Lists <lists at harbaum.org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> imho the GPL requires anyone distributing GPL based binaries to comply with the GPL, right? So the seller of those chinese tablets that come with a android kernel without source has to give me the source code.
>
> Of course the seller probably has no access to the source code. But since we have no way to approach the vendors the sellers are the only link.
>
> What if one orders those illegal tablets from china via ebay+paypal and then demands the source? One could even cancel the payment since the device received contains stuff the seller has no license for.

 i have heard about doing this sort of thing in europe, where it is a
legal requirement to refund product if unsatisfactory, within 10
working days.  illegal licenses would more than adequately qualify.

> These sellers seem to be very afraid of negative reviews. May this be a useful way to apply some force? If this starts to happen often enough, then this may actually turn out to be a threat to the vendors as well.
>
> What do you think?

 the chain is longer than you think, and the sheer number of sellers
beyond the capacity to deal with.  all that a seller in china need do
is shut up shop and start a new account.

 with even google's top open source evangelist declaring that "google
is not the world's GPL cops", thus losing google their right to defend
their own copyright material against an estoppel defense, there really
isn't any point in pursuing GPL Linux Kernel violations any more.

 l.