Any DONATION page?

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YL3IM
Posts: 20
Joined: Tue Jan 05, 2021 10:11 am
Location: KO26BX

Any DONATION page?

Post by YL3IM » Sat Jan 30, 2021 2:01 pm

Hi,

Is there a way to support this great project with a donation? A link to Paypal or so?

VK3KYY
Posts: 7473
Joined: Sat Nov 16, 2019 3:25 am
Location: Melbourne, Australia

Re: Any DONATION page?

Post by VK3KYY » Sat Jan 30, 2021 8:30 pm

No.

That would make this a commercial project and the original source code license does not permit commercialisation.

yo5eno
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Mar 12, 2021 11:14 am

Re: Any DONATION page?

Post by yo5eno » Fri Mar 12, 2021 11:35 am

Hi Roger,
First of all GZ on the awesome job you guys did with this firmware, it has completely transformed the GD77 handheld.
It now is a true amateur radio handheld.

Now to the second point regarding donations/support for this project and the license for this firmware is distributed under:

"This software is licenced under the GPL v2 and is intended for amateur and educational use only.

Use of this software for commercial purposes is strictly forbidden.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE."

So first thing first, you guys are licensing this project/firmware/source code under GPL V2 and also have added a "non commercial notice".
None of the above are restricting the developers to get any kind of support for this project. Be it donations or any other form of support.
GPL v2 does not forbid that nor does the "Non commercial notice".
In this case "Use of this software for commercial purposes is strictly forbidden." ruffly put means this: -you cannot use this software on an OpenGD77 in a commercial environment. Ex, A security guard at the mall using a GD77 with the OpenGD firmware on it.

*need to add here that my actual job is related to open source licensing , yeah...i am the guy that actually reads the entire user agreement before click-ing on accept.

So you guys deserve and should get some sort of donations for the great job you did, i myself would like to also help out with 2-3 beers for the tremendous work load.

73 from yo5eno!

VK3KYY
Posts: 7473
Joined: Sat Nov 16, 2019 3:25 am
Location: Melbourne, Australia

Re: Any DONATION page?

Post by VK3KYY » Fri Mar 12, 2021 9:43 pm

Unfortunately the license that was originally chosen is completely wrong and is probably invalid.

The original author, Kai DG4KLU, explicitly did not want commercial use or commercial derivations, because I think he saw some other open source project where this happened.

Hence the Non Commercial clause wax added.

However we have since been told that additional conditions cannot be applied to GPL licenses.

Also some posted recently to say that GPL requires that the entire source for the final binary must be available. But this is not possible because 50% of the binary is from the manufacturers original closed source binary.

We do not have written approval from Radioddity to merge their binary, but I discussed the firmware with them via email and they did not have any objections, apart from they forbid their distributors from installing the firmware and selling radios with it pre-installed

Radios with the firmware installed will invalidate the FCC approval, and it would probably be illegal for commercial users in the USA and other countries to use the firmware. But I know that some commercial operators are using the firmware even though it would be illegal for them to use it.



Anyway, perhaps because the GPL license is totally invalid I should remove it.

kt4lh
Posts: 272
Joined: Sun Jan 12, 2020 4:27 am

Re: Any DONATION page?

Post by kt4lh » Mon Mar 15, 2021 10:39 pm

The end product is not what you're licensing. Having binary blobs does not make the code not GPL. So not sure why someone would claim that having such things would invalidate any GPL license attached to the code.

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