bbs.blackview.com

Saying as the admin locked my last post on sources and device trees I thought I'd make it a discussion instead of asking the admin.
So I'll start things off with things like;
Porting custom ROMs like resurrection remix and lineageos would be possible.
As it's a customized Android system out of the box with pre installed apps and skin thus GPL comes into play.
Since the bv8000 pros release there has been 13 new devices for an "annual flagship" the level of support for this phone has been appalling , allowing the community to continue support for our phones.

I invite you all to please discuss this and to show that we want actual support for our devices even if that support comes from the community, show them that there is an actual community wanting a change.

feel free to talk about it here

I think Blackview is missing business opportunities by not provided the source code (that they are required legally to provide, by the way...). Of course, I've heard that Mediatek is not keen on manufacturer redistributing source code, but I think you should find a solution, especially since I don't think you have much to loose.

In my opinion, this could make a difference between the "average Chinese manufacturer" and Blackview. Here in Switzerland, there is very few Chinese smartphones, because they have the image of being unreliable and unsupported.

In my case, I'm looking for a rugged phone to re-sell to my customers, but I simply cannot  afford risking problems with GPL-compliance... so at present I'm considering going for Sony, even if this is more expensive, because they provides the source of their android devices...

thanks for joining in the discussion bluew, I find that mediatek dont mind giving out the sources but they are a chipset creator not a device manufacturer so all they could provide is the kernel source, its mainly the devs who have to provide the full source with the device trees, take doogee for example, they released the sources for many of their devices.

bluew wrote:

I think Blackview is missing business opportunities by not provided the source code (that they are required legally to provide, by the way...).

Depends where. Maybe in Switzerland, most probably not in China.

I'd be very interested by a custom ROM from the community.
Unfortunately, although I'm able to flash a device, I have near zero ability for coding, so I have no idea how else I can help.

Aeron wrote:

bluew wrote:

I think Blackview is missing business opportunities by not provided the source code (that they are required legally to provide, by the way...).

Depends where. Maybe in Switzerland, most probably not in China.

I'd be very interested by a custom ROM from the community.
Unfortunately, although I'm abke to flash a device, I have near zero ability for coding, so I have no idea how else I can help.

I have experience building custom ROMs but can't get anywhere without a source and a device tree

Aeron wrote:

bluew wrote:

I think Blackview is missing business opportunities by not provided the source code (that they are required legally to provide, by the way...).

Depends where. Maybe in Switzerland, most probably not in China.

Well, I would say there is no evidence that GPL is not valid in China. In any case it seems unlikely anyone would bring Blackview to court, especially given the number of intellectual property theft in China, and the way that China tend to protect their own companies.

However, any reseller in any other country where GPL is indeed enforced (US, EU, Switzerland at least) is at risk. If Blackview wants to be seriously distributed, this issue should be fixed.

bluew wrote:

Well, I would say there is no evidence that GPL is not valid in China. In any case it seems unlikely anyone would bring Blackview to court, especially given the number of intellectual property theft in China, and the way that China tend to protect their own companies.

However, any reseller in any other country where GPL is indeed enforced (US, EU, Switzerland at least) is at risk. If Blackview wants to be seriously distributed, this issue should be fixed.

Well, you can argue about theory all you want (and I agree on the theory itself), but you (and I) bought a phone from a chinese company, through (most probably) a chinese dealer. 
We know how they work regarding IP so it's only fair that we shouldn't hope much about getting the source code (that's the meaning of my previous remark). 
I'm not defending / encouraging any behaviour here, it's just better to make sure you can beforehand and a tad optimistic to get something like that after you bought your phone in the first place.

Aeron wrote:

bluew wrote:

Well, I would say there is no evidence that GPL is not valid in China. In any case it seems unlikely anyone would bring Blackview to court, especially given the number of intellectual property theft in China, and the way that China tend to protect their own companies.

However, any reseller in any other country where GPL is indeed enforced (US, EU, Switzerland at least) is at risk. If Blackview wants to be seriously distributed, this issue should be fixed.

Well, you can argue about theory all you want (and I agree on the theory itself), but you (and I) bought a phone from a chinese company, through (most probably) a chinese dealer. 
We know how they work regarding IP so it's only fair that we shouldn't hope much about getting the source code (that's the meaning of my previous remark). 
I'm not defending / encouraging any behaviour here, it's just better to make sure you can beforehand and a tad optimistic to get something like that after you bought your phone in the first place.

Well, what you don't seem to understand is that I don't care for myself (I bought my BV8000 for evaluation purpose, my primary phone is a Huawei P20 Pro, which is btw also a Chinese company, and even provides the source code). 
The fact that I did not recommend to my customer to resell Blackview phones due to their IP policy made them loose probably 10-20k USD. He went for a slightly more expensive and less legally risky phone.

I don't care, but Blackview should worry about this matter.

Whether I understand or not is of no importance here. Any buyer of a BlackView phone should know this company has a certain way to work (no Android source code, special cables with low to no availability, questionnable support and updates, etc...).

And if I understand well, you did your best to let potential customers know about this. If BlackView is not willing to make the changes required for some customers, they know damn well they'll loose them. They already know this (they're not stupid) so they probably don't care (meaning this way to go is probably less profitable than what they do now).

If you really don't care, why bother post here ?