MTK Phone Stuff: What's To Like About MediaTek and Their GPL Compliance.

I've been saying it for years, but in preparing this (independent) article, I have it on good authority
MediaTek is in its ascendancy. This article begins by looking at their ethical and legal position before examining more practical considerations. You've probably already heard that MediaTek are evil and even criminal in breaking Linux's GPL. Ultimately, that is for the courts to decide. Their case is presented here without prejudice.

There's an argument against Chinese firms that they gain an unethical advantage in their sourcing of cheap MediaTek processors. Consider the relevant expense of the processor in PCs for comparison. It is often said the law protects the rich; by analogy it is easy to sympathise with the recently industrialised Chinese producing cheap phones. Many of the developers who might feel aggrieved their intellectual property (IP) is being abused by non-disclosure are individuals without recourse to "justice".

Android is Google's project, who are best placed to litigate MediaTek for breach of GPL terms. Quite how Google would stand in Chinese courts with their cultural perspectives on both the letter and the spirit of the law is open to debate. On the one hand non compliance with GPL licensing is a threat to every small, academic, or non-profit developer hoping to improve the public codescape and gain recognition. On the other hand MediaTek's competitors most impacted by the infringement are residents of salubrious Silicon Valley and had their time in the sun pioneering the field of mobile SOC's. Understanding that technology sector was always cut-throat competitive, can they expect a court to force disclose of what MediaTek might argue are trade secrets? There have been enough long winded (read: highly expensive) technology cases to enforce competitive practice and intellectual property rights that I suspect QualComm makes do with existing import restrictions or whatever has preserved them so long in the face of such a fierce competitor.

See http://www.androidpolice.com/2014/02/10/rumor-google-to-begin-forcing-oems-to-certify-android-devices-with-a-recent-os-version-if-they-want-google-apps/ which shows how short a window phone manufacturers have to license their product to run a particular version of Android. In other words, how little Google is concerned with supporting legacy devices. Old MediaTek chips are cited as physically lacking support for more recent Androids, but with Android's rapid evolution manufacturers are put off even trying to save pennies bringing the latest release to outdated chips.

MediaTek profit from forcing us to buy a new phone every time Google update their software, which feels entirely in keeping with Google's intention. No one enjoys unnecessarily migrating phones, or ROM's, and while Google attempts to make this easier (blowing their own trumpet) nobody is so naive as to believe Google isn't going to profit from gathering our personal data. See the SkyHook case from 2011 for uncle G's less friendly face.

Google's entryism with Android prevents it gaining any moral high ground. Android was Google's Trojan Horse to protect it's "economic castle" that was the AdWords funded Google Search[1]. The
enemy at the gate as it were, the nascent iPhone, was threatening to dominate the emerging mobile market at the time of Android's inception.

Android, originally touted as free and open source, soon forked the ecosystem with its proprietary GMS. These services are often denied to smaller (Chinese) manufacturers. The legality of this situation, like many, is unclear, and rather outside the scope of this post. The Open Handset Alliance (OHA) sets out Google's relationship with bigger partners like Samsung. The OHA are forced to take GMS all or nothing and to accept Google's final decision on firmware configuration[2][3].

Lenovo, as the largest single smart phone manufacturer in China steps up to the plate with kernel source code for several MediaTek SOC's[4]. The lack of source code for MediaTek phones has more to do with phone manufacturers, who profit much more than the pennies MediaTek make on each SOC. The bigger customers of QualComm have developers on retainer to publish and maintain source code. MediaTek is slowly winning these customers[5].

Chinese consumers accept power (i.e. frequent) users will need to replace their phones every few years. Why waste effort and resources supporting outdated tech? The apps market is the proverbial place to extend the functionality of long cherished devices, at a market rate. This reckoning has guided the hugely popular AOSP (Android Open Source Project - a code base focused on keeping the open source part of Android up to date on many supported devices). It is estimated[6] 70% of China's users eschew Google Play (remember this is the proprietary (GMS) licensed part which Google is rumoured to sell to manufacturers) in favour of alternatives like Baidu and Tencent.

As part of the great firewall of China, GMS is banned there. Shenzhen is a hot bed of innovation as smaller companies operate without GMS overheads. This may help explain how the phones are so cheap and why they typically aren't "intended" for worldwide use (though by happy coincidence, the modems might be).

Cyanogenmod, while ignoring MediaTek, describes the build process as gathering device specific kernel and configuration before extracting proprietary blobs from the existing device[7]. Modularisation is a key consideration in GPL compliance.

Opinion is divided. http://www.gizchina.com/2014/03/24/mediatek-dont-share-source-code/ being just one example. To publish and be damned, in this case accepting responsibility to patch bugs and vulnerabilities, a cost which many consumers baulk at. MicroSoft even took advantage of AOSP's open nature to find IP infringements[8]. Motorola's attempts at retaliation were largely preempted by the former monopoly's closed sources. This again illustrates the price of justice.

For balance, an esteemed (technologist's) post that has no sympathy for MediaTek's withholding of source code can be found at http://www.xda-developers.com/have-you-paid-your-linux-kernel-source-license-fee/

We'd all like new software, especially the propeller heads at xda-developers, but MediaTek get my vote for making cheap hardware its priority. When you're ready MediaTek.

MTK Phone Stuff

Wednesday 22 July 2015

What's To Like About MediaTek and Their GPL Compliance.

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