[U-Boot] Possible GPL violation

[Gerard Kam]

Wolfgang Denk <wd <at> denx.de> writes:

> 
> Dear Mateusz,
> 
> In message <5123E16B.1060907 <at> gmail.com> you wrote:
> > 
> > Is there anyone that can support me with enforcing GPL compliance on 
> > company that ships product with binary u-boot? Or did that in the past?
> 
> We can try.
> 
> > They're "made" (branded is probably better word) by local companies, and 
> > my guess is that most of them is violating GPL.
> 
> Guesses are not good enough in such legal affairs.
> 
> > I can't do much myself (except for nagging them for source code), as 
> > it's not my copyrights that they're infringing.
> 
> So did you contact the vendor and ask for the source code?  And did
> they answer, and what exactly?
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Wolfgang Denk
> 

Hi there

Has there been any progress on this GPL non-compliance issue?

Similar products as mentioned by the OP are also available in the USA.  I
have purchased one of them, a HomeWorX HW-150PVR "manufactured" and
distributed by Mediasonic, which seems to be a DBA for Major League Global
Enterprise LLC, 16968 Gale Ave., City of Industry, CA 91745, USA.  A product
of identical functionality is the iView-3500STB "manufactured" and
distributed by Wiltronic Corporation.

Both products are set-top boxes with ATSC TV tuners and a USB port for
recording and playback of content.  The main board has a MS7816 SoC made by
MStar Semiconductor of Taiwan. 

On startup the onboard serial port outputs:

= = = begin = = = 
UART_115200
BIST0-OK
_snPDMDrv_PM_RtcGetCounter(CurrentCounter=0)

Hello U-Boot


U-Boot 1.1.6 (Feb 27 2013 - 22:42:31)

Board: MSTAR KRNOUS (CPU Speed 552 MHz)
DRAM:  64 X 0 MBytes
U-Boot is running at DRAM 0x87600000
###############BOARD CONFIGURATION#####################
	DEFAULT ENBALE L2-Cache
	FPU(ENABLE)
	ENABLE_DDR3_16BIT_MODE
   DDR_FREQUENCY(1066MHz)
###############BOARD CONFIGURATION#####################
Module: USB FAT FLASH SPI LOGO OSD ENV=SERIAL 
Flash is detected (0x0C00, 0xC8, 0x40, 0x16)
MDrv_SERFLASH_GetInfo()
	u32AccessWidth = 1
	u32TotalSize   = 4194304
	u32SecNum      = 64
	u32SecSize     = 65536
In:    serial
Out:   serial
Err:   serial
GPIO PIN 6 HIGH!!!!!!!
...
= = = end = = = 

This version of U-Boot installed in the product seems to have been
significantly enhanced by MStar.  
The `help' menu is:

= = = begin = = = 
<< MStar >># help
?       - alias for 'help'
do Lzma for compress image
base    - print or set address offset
bdinfo  - print Board Info structure
boot_logo - Logo display 
bootm   - boot application image from memory
cmp     - memory compare
coninfo - print console devices and information
cp      - memory copy
cpmsbin   - Copy ms bin file (Chakra) from nand to dram
crc32   - checksum calculation
cusid check the image is release by the valid guys
dcache  - enable or disable data cache
dmx_init     - initialize the demux setting
dmx_init     - initialize the demux setting
draw_pixel - draw a pixel with color 
draw_string - draw string with color 
draw_rect - draw rect with color 
draw_string - draw string with color 
du  - Disable UART
env2flash - read environment parameter file and restore it to flash
envbin - read out environment parameter and store it to usb disk
erase   - erase FLASH memory
fatinfo - print information about filesystem
fatload - load binary file from a dos filesystem
fatls   - list files in a directory (default /)
fatwrite - write binary file to a dos filesystem
flinfo  - print FLASH memory information
go      - start application at address 'addr'
help    - print online help
loop    - infinite loop on address range
md      - memory display
mm      - memory modify (auto-incrementing)
mstar   - update kernal & root file system automatically by script file
mtest   - simple RAM test
mw      - memory write (fill)
ustar   - update kernal & root file system automatically by script file
nm      - memory modify (constant address)
ostar   - update kernal & root file system automatically by script file
oad_get_size - Get the file size from OAD download 
osd_create - create osd layer 
osd_destroy - destroy osd layer 
pnlinfo   - set panel info and save to nand flahs
printenv- print environment variables
protect - enable or disable FLASH write protection
reset   - Perform RESET of the CPU
run     - run commands in an environment variable
saveenv - save environment variables to persistent storage
set_paneltype [type] - Set Mboot panel type and store the type value in env 
setenv  - set environment variables
spi_dma - SPI copy data from flash to DRAM by PIU DMA
spi_ea  - SPI erase all
spi_eb  - SPI erase block
spi_gfo - SPI get flash info
spi_gr  - SPI get Chip Rev
spi_id  - SPI read ID
spi_in  - SPI initialization
spi_r   - SPI read commands
spi_rb  - SPI read buffer
spi_rdc - SPI read code from SPI flash to DRAM
spi_rs  - SPI read status
spi_w   - SPI write commands
spi_wb  - SPI write buffer
spi_wp  - SPI write protect 
spi_wrc - SPI write code from DRAM to SPI flash
sspi    - SPI utility commands
sysinfo   - set system info and save to nand flahs
tuner_demodtype     - set frontend type
tuner_init     - frondend initialization
tuner_tune     - tune RF to check lock or not
usb     - USB sub-system
ustar   - update kernal & root file system automatically by script file
usbboot - boot from USB device
ustar   - update kernal & root file system automatically by script file
version - print monitor version
<< MStar >>#
= = = end = = = 

The HomeWorX product documentation and their website do not mention anything
about GPL software or the GPL.  Several weeks ago I contacted
Mediasonic Tech Support by email for a request of "U-Boot and any other GPL
source code.  For the first email, I received a response of "will pass your
request to Design Department." A follow-up inquiry was ignored.

This week I posted a public request for the Mediasonic/MStar GPL source code
at Mediasonic's user forum:
http://forum.mediasonic.ca/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=1820.  But it seems like the
forum's Admin/moderator has chosen to ignore my post.

Any advice on how to enforce GPL compliance and obtain the source code?

Regards -- Gerard