GPL License questions

What if he puts some proprietary code into the open source. Can he then legally charge?

 

We can distribute for sure, but he requests not until public release. So legally he's ok since he's not threatening lawsuit or copyright infringement?

 

i think legally he is fine. he can request donations,and in turn provide those who donate with special priveledges. unless an agreement is signed by those donaters not to redistribute,they are perfectly able to do with their copy as they please.

wether or not a legal agreement can be made that doesnt violate the GPS,i dont know. its been one of those days,and my head hurts too much for rational thot at the moment

there is nothing that forces him to release his work to the public. we all have access to the same source,we can learn to program and write it ourselves if we want it that desperately. he can ask for donations,he can withold his work from some,he can withhold from those that redistribute,we are free to not use it if we dont agree with his policies.

i personally am with brizey... ive donated to quite a few developers,and would be much more likely to donate to said developer if he werent witholding nigtlys in exchange for donations.

your favorite deveolpers should absolutely be supported with fedback,willingness to test things,and defiantely donations. but im not gonna be bullied into it.

i like said rom,its running great. but there are lots of others that run great for me as well,whose developers are willing to distribute for a simple click of the "thanks" button,so my limted funding will prolly go that way.

and no hard feelings from me toward that dev,or those that have donated,and wish to not share the rom after.

my 2 cents

 

Does he distribute a modified kernel with it?

Most of Android (especially AOSP) is under the business friendly Apache license.

If he only changed Apache stuff the GPL doesnt apply even if he is distributing a Linux Kernel. If he changes the Kernel, he must provide source and for that Kernel the GPLv2 would apply (such as the NDA stuff). However this doesn't apply to anything Apache. Anything licensed under Apache needs no source and can be taken completely proprietary.

...they are subject to copyright lawsuits.... It's just that no one wants to sue a modder = insta-bad PR. Hence the opposite happens = Samsung hired cyanogen.

 

i think it should be noted that said dev was banned from a couple of forums for going on a tirade because of a lack of donations. i wont mention the sites that banned him because his identity would be a dead giveaway(although i probably gave him away anyway to those who remember ).
a former member of his team started a thread asking you to email him after you donated to get the rom. i think that was actually what got him in the most trouble.