[Konsole-devel] targeting OpenEmbedded at firmware environment on Motorola A780

[Joe Wells]

lars.doelle at on-line.de writes:

> Joe, Andrew,
>
> thanks for the note. This is indeed a case of a license violation. The program
> is clearly based on the konsole source and i have not permitted to license a
> derivate under anything but the GPL, beside a true port to python under a GPL
> compatible license.
>
> I have in general absolutely no problems with any port or derivate, and find it
> even nice to learn that the konsole core runs well on phone,

Yes, it is quite nice!  I just wish I had the source and build scripts
so I could fix some problems with the port.  I'd also like to find out
how the port integrates into the Motorola EZX environment.

> as long as people handle their licensing homework properly.
>
> http://www.dewmill.com/filesx/qonsole_b.zip
> http://www.dewmill.com/linuxphone.html
>
> appear to be main distribution site. Do you know of others? I've seen some
> postings related to qonsole at motorolafans.com.

I think Rhizod (the guy at www.dewmill.com) is only a repackager.  I
don't think he even has access to the source that was used to build
the binary.  I think he just puts binaries that other people have
created in nicer packages to make it easier to install them on the
Motorola phones.

I don't know if there is a primary source anymore.

If you look at the openezx-devel mailing list, you will see that
various people have tried at various times to track down who did the
port to the Motorola EZX environment and to find the source changes
needed for this port.  No one seems to be sure just who did it.  Some
think the port first emerged on the ccmove Chinese language forum.
(This makes sense as these phones have mainly been sold in Asia.  Only
the A780 model has been sold outside Asia.)

The qonsole program is also available as multiple downloads from
motorolafans.com.  Unless you are a registered user of
motorolafans.com, you won't be able to see all of the links on that
site including the downloads.  Most of that site doesn't show up on
Google for this reason.  (My unconfirmed suspicion is that they
require registration to prevent people from easily finding such
violations.  I've heard multiple different explanations from them.)

Rhizod's packaged version is here:

  http://www.motorolafans.com/index.php?name=Downloads&file=details&id=182

What I think is an earlier less packaged version (probably what Rhizod
started with) posted by someone named "mcbee" is here:

  http://www.motorolafans.com/index.php?name=Downloads&file=details&id=162

(You can tell it is an earlier version because the screenshot has the
URL rcsc.sisrs.com in it.  This was the earlier address of the
Motorola Fans forum and still shows up in lots of links.)

This forum topic started by mcbee lists the URL at ccmove where mcbee
says he got the program:

  http://www.motorolafans.com/index.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=1158

If you search for "qonsole" on the forums (this is different from the
search box on the left side), you will find that nearly everyone on
the motorolafans.com forum is using qonsole.

Oh, by the way, those who aren't using qonsole are using ekonsole.  I
haven't looked at that yet, but I can guess what it is derived from.
Based on what I've seen on motorolafans.com, I'd be shocked if source
code for the port was available for ekonsole.  :-)

> I'll attempt to clarify the issue.

Thanks!

I hope someone will provide the source changes that were made as part
of this port.

-- 
Joe

> Thanks again, Lars
>
> On Monday 10 July 2006 22:20, Joe Wells wrote:
>> [ CC-ed to Lars Doelle because the copyright of his work on konsole is
>>   at issue. ]
>> 
>> Andrew Barr <andrew.james.barr at gmail.com> writes:
>> 
>> > On Monday 10 July 2006 12:10, Joe Wells wrote:
>> >> Unfortunately, much of this work has been done by people who like
>> >> to distribute binaries and appear not to like to share source (you
>> >> can see this stuff at motorolafans.com), so I may have to repeat
>> >> some of this work.
>> >
>> > Well, if this software is GPL'd (or under a similar
>> > compulsory-sharing license) they have no choice. People should be
>> > telling them this, and preferably also notifying the copyright
>> > holder(s) so they can pursue the matter.
>> 
>> Some of the software may indeed be covered by the GPL.  An example is
>> qonsole, which is available as a binary for the A780 and appears to be
>> a stripped-down version of an earlier program also called qonsole,
>> which is a Qt/Embedded-only port of konsole.  I found the sources of
>> the earlier qonsole, and there were lots of claims of copyrights but
>> no clear statement of license anywhere.  That in turn is derived from
>> konsole, a KDE program, part of the kdebase package which is marked at
>> the root (but not inside the konsole directory) as being GPL.  I'm not
>> sure what license konsole was under when qonsole was forked from it;
>> there is an indication in the ChangeLog that the license was changed
>> to GPL2 at some point but I am not sure it was GPL before that.
>> 
>> I'm guessing that the copyright holders (Lars Doelle and others, Lars
>> is CC-ed on this message) could stop motorolafans.com from
>> redistributing their qonsole binary.  This kind of thing is one
>> motivation for assigning copyrights to the FSF, because they can take
>> action more easily than individual software authors.
>> 
>> > People that do this kind of stuff frustrate me to no end.
>> 
>> Agreed!