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The Ainol V2000 looks like a really nice player. I looked at a firmware update on ainol.com and found out it contains parts of various open source software.

At least some of the code (VisualBoyAdvance for example) is licensed under the GPLv2:

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html

which states:

"You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License."

This means that the firmware is now GPL licensed itself and it should be possible to get the source of the firmware from Ainol.

I've contacted Ainol about this a few months ago, but so far they have not responded.

Any idea what I or MP4 Nation could do about it?

btw, some of the Gemei players have the same problems. The X900 for example.

....there isn't anything we can do, not like they will listen to us.

You have to remember when it comes to China, they don't particularly care about licensing.

However having dealt with these companies and how they price their products, they do not add any extra into their cost for the software they use, their cost is almost always based on the cost of material with labor and their profit margin. So in essence they may not be actually adding any relative cost for the software.

... but the "free" in free software is not talking about the price

I didn't expect there was anything you could do about it, but thanks anyway.

Sure, but that means you as distributer are open to getting sued or have the player banned from import. Which also gives issues regarding firmware and hardware support.
What warranty guarantees are there if the player proves to be illegal to import?

I'm just noting this as there will soon be a first precedent when the SFLC goes to court against Monsoon (http://www.linux.com/feature/119439), so these matters should not be taken lightly...

i dont think mp4nation is going to get sued, if anything i think the manufacturers will have that problem. if the player gets banned from import, then i suppose they wont be imported anymore. not much you can do about it other than wait and see what happens.

_________________
whatever.

This is similar to the Sisvel MP3 license Meizu had. Meizu eventually had Dane-Elec handle the license outside of China because they did not want to pay the license.

This was the reason why for a time. Meizu sent out Meizu M6 players without MP3 support. And you had to reflash it to get it back.

Read about it here
http://www.miniplayer.info/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=85

No it is not. It deals about a lot of code used in this player, and you cannot buy your way out of it, you have to obey the open source licenses: share your sources or stop using them. And above all, give credit...

...i seriously doubt that these items would fall under an import ban or we have to worry about litigation, again guys if you want to complain about this issue, contact the manufacturers, we are resellers of products only.

How does this license problem affect the owner of the player?

Seekingaclue

it doesn't.