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justsomehnguy

Additional context in [0], [1].

LGR review of the machine [2].

I would recommend reading [1] because it confirms the GPL violation but paints interesting picture of the reason.

[0] https://arstechnica.com/civis/threads/brand-new-laptop-recre...

[1] https://arstechnica.com/civis/threads/brand-new-laptop-recre...

[2] https://youtu.be/6bODiZ5bP84?t=442 "So I Bought Those Weird New AliExpress Retro PCs…"

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> I would recommend reading [1] because it confirms the GPL violation but paints interesting picture of the reason.

I'm not seeing that, but maybe I'm misunderstanding something. [1] includes:

> we are also shared our change without reservation to every enthusiast (buyer).

Which to me says they're freely sharing the source with buyers. And I see in the GPL:

> For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or for a fee, you must pass on to the recipients the same freedoms that you received. 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.

Which I understand as "you only have to share source code with buyers" (but they can do what they will with it).

>> BOOK8088: And the foreign trade company words will not even consider these details. A similar thing happens with naming products. For example, we gave it a name, called BOOK8088 . If the name is registered as a trademark, we can only change the name. There are many professional complainers who make money from this. Of course, I knew there was a big problem with violating the GPL at very beginning, and I was preparing for something later. I didn't even expect it to develop so fast.

> Which I understand as "you only have to share source code with buyers" (but they can do what they will with it).

You need a proper attribution. This comment goes at lengths explaining it [0] but removing the copyright and/or authorship (attribution in a general sense) is breaking the license attribution requirements.

[0] https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/4577/does-gpl...

From your citation, I think it'd be valid attribution if the BIOS setup UI had a "licensing" tab, that spelled out the IP that this BIOS was derived from. (This is how e.g. iOS and Android do licensing: you drill down into Settings > About > Licensing and all the IP declarations are spelled out there.)

Provided they had that, then the initial "vanity" copyright notice on boot would be extraneous, and they could freely change or remove it.

Without that kind of thing, the on-boot notice is the "load-bearing" UI attribution, and must be retained.

> Without that kind of thing, the on-boot notice is the "load-bearing" UI attribution, and must be retained.

Yep.

Sounds very much like a Chinese PR OP. "Oh yeah we would've loved to attribute as per the license of the code we stole, but those dang online shops won't let us, so we just stole it and never mentioned it"

I don't know how much of the explanation by the Book8088 dev is bullshit, but he exposes a valid point which could be rephrased as: if you attribute copyright to the author, and someone else complains about anything, the platform can take down the product page immediately. We've seen this happening in similar contexts quite often, such as bogus DMCA complaints on YouTube that result in immediate takedowns and enormous efforts from the authors to reinstate the pages. Might be just PR, but the point is sound to me; copyright laws are necessary, but the way they're implemented is total crap.

> if you attribute copyright to the author, and someone else complains about anything, the platform can take down the product page immediately

I'm having trouble following your line of reasoning here...

If you aren't the copyright holder to the work you are presenting you can't counter-assert your rights to publish against the takedown claim.

I don't get how this applies to this situation. Since the copyrighted work isn't being "published" outside of the physical computer.

In this case you have a license to republish the work (the GPL, if you followed it correctly), so you have rights to counter-assert.

I'm sure Amazon, Google, and everyone else like them make it really difficult to communicate such nuance.

As if they're going to check the copyright text on a laptop in the first place.

Again, I said I didn't see how it applied to this situation. I'm just writing in general about copyright and takedown notices.

It's an entirely bogus reasoning and there's no way to claim otherwise. The same device is shipping a myriad other software which can be classified into:

A. Outright copyright violations of proprietary software (i.e. "abandonware")

B. Legally distributed software (e.g. some of the BIOSes of some of the add-on cards), which their permissive licenses generally allow as long as you keep the attribution, which just from the screenshots I can see they did.

C. The main system ROM BIOS, for which some unfathomable reason they _specifically_ decided to remove the attribution (which is technically in violation of both the spirit and the letter of the GPL).

So to claim that they had to violate the copyright of C for "protection" is as bogus as it gets. They have already set themselves up for a cathedral-sized _non-bogus_ DMCA claim, and violating the copyright of the GPL'd BIOS is just the frosting in comparison.

My wild guess: branding. They just disliked not to see their company name first on power on. Plus the general tendency to treat the GPL as a "guideline".

Why would a takedown because of the name on the copyright even work? The license states that you have full permission to use the work. There is no legal basis here. I can legally sell my purchased copy of Microsoft Office and no lawyer is going to stop me because I don't own the copyright to the software on the CDs.

Hell, buy any laptop, you'll soon be greeted by screens that state that some company called Microsoft made all the software. HP and Dell will be ruined!

Regardless of legal basis, I can false copyright strike this developer right now and there is no way for Amazon to get their hands on this device to verify the legitimacy of the claim. Even if they had one at hand, there's no way they're going to go through the trouble to actually check any of this.

It sounds like they are distributing the modified source code, so the only violation is removal of the attribution?

I don't know anything about Amazon, &c, policies, to know if what they say is true, or possibly a misunderstanding?

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