07.25.13
Joosun Hahn, GPL Violations, and Samsung’s Microsoft Patent Trap in Linux (exFAT)
From a patent with Joosun Hahn on it…
Summary: Samsung and its developers appear to be helping Microsoft’s patent war on Linux and also violating the GNU GPL at the same time
The mischievous role played by Samsung in advancing Microsoft’s Linux tax is nothing new. It turns out to be not only proprietary but quite likely a GPL violation. Companies like Tuxera are working for Microsoft by spreading exFAT to manufacture more victims like TomTom, a FAT scapegoat. Microsoft most routinely uses FAT-related patents to tax users and distributors of GNU/Linux (users are being silently taxed through secret deals). It is hard to work around these traps.
Samsung, a patent friend of Microsoft which we reported for GPL violations in the past, pays Microsoft for FAT and then spreads this patent trap further. We recently wrote about some mysterious code from Korea (more details are in IRC logs) and we studied the author of this code in order to better understand her interests and to find out why she may be promoting exFAT. Now there is clarification. Michael Larabel explains: “Last month there was news of a native Linux driver for Microsoft’s exFAT file-system. It turns out that the driver wasn’t developed through any clean-room reverse-engineering but was rather the apparent rebadging of a Samsung exFAT driver for Linux.
“After being informed via email by a user today with this open-source Linux exFAT driver appearing on GPL-Violations.org, the exFAT Linux driver comes with nefarious intentions.
“A lot of people have berated the alleged leaker, but if it proves GPL violations, then it may as well justify the leak and serve as a case of whistleblowing”“It appears (and evidently its “developer” is admitting it) that the exFAT Linux kernel module was based upon source-code found from a Samsung developer for their exFAT driver. The code likely leaked out of Samsung accidentally by a developer pushing their Linux kernel source tree externally to GitHub when it should have been made private.”
Now, the main question is, was the code modified before being uploaded? If so, whose GPL violation is it (assuming it has not been tampered with)?
The developer, Joosun Hahn, has almost nothing on the Web about her (at least not in English) but has various publications (connected Seongsoo Hong in some publications) in decent journals and also patents like this one. Assuming it’s the same person, a 2009 paper describes her as someone who “received her B.S. degree in Computer Science from Soongsil University, Seoul, Korea, in 1994. She received her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Engineering from Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea, in 1996 and 2004, respectively. She is currently a research professor in the Department of Computer Engineering at Hongik University, Seoul, Korea. Her research interests include computer architecture, real-time computing, embedded systems, and wireless sensor networks.”
To quote Phoronix Forums (last page), “This source code is not under GPLv2. This source code cannot be redistributed. This code contains Microsoft’s IP. It cannot even be made publicly available – that’s a direct violation of the law.”
In a later thread someone points out: “I’d rather see exFAT burn in hell with its patents, it’s sad that we see this attempt instead.”
As pointed out here, “I examined exfat_super.c and compared it to fs/fat/misc.c, fs/fat/dir.c, fs/fat/namei_vfat.c, and fs/fat/file.c. I will avoid sharing my conclusions here, but any one else is free to look.”
exFAT needs to be killed at all costs. This is poison and those who develop it, be it a person or a brand (Samsung) needs to find other things to do. Right now it’s helping patent terrorists. GPL violations aside (the guilt cannot be established based only on allegations*, but Samsung has poor history when it comes to GPL compliance), the main issue here should be patents.
A lot of people have berated the alleged leaker, but if it proves GPL violations, then it may as well justify the leak and serve as a case of whistleblowing. We shall wait and see how this story evolves. █
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* This page shows:
-MODULE_LICENSE("GPL");
+MODULE_LICENSE("Samsung Proprietary");
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