They were given 1.5 YEARS of lead time. And FLOSS should treat commercial entities the same way they treat us.
Seriously, if we copied in violation their code, how many hours would pass before a DMCA violation?
FLOSS should be dictatorial in application of the license. After all, its basically free to use and remix as long as you follow the easy rules. I'm also on the same boat that Android phone creators should also be providing source fully, and should be confiscated on import for failure of copyright violations.
But ive seen FLOSS devs be like "let's be nice". Tit for tat is the best game theory so far. Time to use it.
That's not it. The LGPL doesn't require dynamic linking, just that any distributed artifacts be able to be used with derived versions of the LGPL code. Distributing buildable source under Apache 2.0 would surely qualify too.
The problem here isn't a technical violation of the LGPL, it's that Rockchip doesn't own the copyright to FFMPEG and simply doesn't have the legal authority to release it under any license other than the LGPL. What they should have done is put their modified FFMPEG code into a forked project, clearly label it with an LGPL LICENSE file, and link against that.
Not the global best move, or even positive, now the OSS community we lose the OSS code of IloveRockchip, and FFmpeg wins absolutely nothing, except ego recognition but loses in reputation and loses a commercial fork (and potential partner).
There were opportunities to take advantage of this.
The FFmpeg devs saw the violation, even laughed about how funny it was, then they tweeted, so the initial drama is not that big.
They pointed it out to Rockchip; immediately the developers from Rockchip answered (which is quite rare for big companies!):
Herman Chen: "I apologize... lack of understanding on conflict between Apache and LGPL. We will replace these code in future update. And do more homework on open source license."
FFmpeg: "Thank you for your message"
If you need something from someone, and they have not done it, you don't send a bomb after 1.5 years of silence. You can send a reminder.
If after these reminders, they don't know how to do, and you want them to do something, you can educate them:
A) Fork the FFmpeg repo
B) Move your file to that repo
C) Create a Makefile that will build a .so with that file only
D) Link that .so to your project
Takes 10 minutes.
If they refuse to comply, that justifies DMCA. But nothing indicates refusal in the public communications.
About the 1.5 years: silence != patience.
"We gave them time" is not the same as "we gave them a deadline and reminders" or "we communicated and they refused."
Imagine this: you buy me lunch, and I did not pay you back.
You: "Hey, you owe me 10 USD for lunch."
Me: "Oh sorry, I misunderstood! I'll pay you back."
You: "Thanks for your message."
Then... nothing. No Venmo request. No reminder. No "hey, can you get me that 10 USD?"
Two years later, you take me to small claims court for 500 USD. That's not patience. That's setting someone up to fail.
Now, still:
- Rockchip's code is gone
- FFmpeg gets nothing back
- Community loses whatever improvements existed
- Rockchip becomes an adversary, not a partner
Deadline and reminders? They aren't teachers and Rockchip isn't a student, they are the victims here and Rockchip is the one at fault. Let's stop literally victim blaming them for how they responded.
Is working around accessing an embargoed site really any better than just accessing it directly? Morally, what's the difference?
If everyone just actively boycotted that site, it would become irrelevant overnight. Anything else is simply condoning it continued existence. Don't kid yourself.
This is not allowed under the LGPL, which mandates dynamic linking against the library. They copy-pasted FFmpeg code into their repo instead.
[1] https://x.com/HermanChen1982/status/1761230920563233137
If you don’t own it and cannot legally relicense part as LGPL, you’re not allowed to publish it.
Just because you can merge someone else’s code does not mean you’re legally allowed to do so.
Seriously, if we copied in violation their code, how many hours would pass before a DMCA violation?
FLOSS should be dictatorial in application of the license. After all, its basically free to use and remix as long as you follow the easy rules. I'm also on the same boat that Android phone creators should also be providing source fully, and should be confiscated on import for failure of copyright violations.
But ive seen FLOSS devs be like "let's be nice". Tit for tat is the best game theory so far. Time to use it.
The problem here isn't a technical violation of the LGPL, it's that Rockchip doesn't own the copyright to FFMPEG and simply doesn't have the legal authority to release it under any license other than the LGPL. What they should have done is put their modified FFMPEG code into a forked project, clearly label it with an LGPL LICENSE file, and link against that.
"Distributing buildable source under Apache 2.0 would surely qualify too"
reconcile with
"doesn't own the copyright to FFMPEG and simply doesn't have the legal authority to release it under any license other than the LGPL"
There were opportunities to take advantage of this.
The FFmpeg devs saw the violation, even laughed about how funny it was, then they tweeted, so the initial drama is not that big.
They pointed it out to Rockchip; immediately the developers from Rockchip answered (which is quite rare for big companies!):
If you need something from someone, and they have not done it, you don't send a bomb after 1.5 years of silence. You can send a reminder.If after these reminders, they don't know how to do, and you want them to do something, you can educate them:
Takes 10 minutes.If they refuse to comply, that justifies DMCA. But nothing indicates refusal in the public communications.
About the 1.5 years: silence != patience.
"We gave them time" is not the same as "we gave them a deadline and reminders" or "we communicated and they refused."
Imagine this: you buy me lunch, and I did not pay you back.
Then... nothing. No Venmo request. No reminder. No "hey, can you get me that 10 USD?"Two years later, you take me to small claims court for 500 USD. That's not patience. That's setting someone up to fail.
Now, still:
Here spent time to think and document all the IRC chats, the Twitter thread, the attitude of the SoC manufacturer, etc.
There has to be a backstory to suddenly come after 1.5 years for an issue that could have been solved in 10 minutes.
If everyone just actively boycotted that site, it would become irrelevant overnight. Anything else is simply condoning it continued existence. Don't kid yourself.