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DishPVR 721 Review
An anonymous submitter writes "TiVo's not the only Linux based PVR in the US market anymore. Echostar's Dish Network is now offering their own Linux based PVR, the dual tuner, 120 GB DP721. The first review can be found here at DBSTalk.com." Another anonymous person (how hard is it to give yourself a handle? sheesh) describes the gizmo and notes a possible problem: "Echostar is now shipping a Linux based set-top box called the DishPVR-721 that won best of show at CES. It has a 120GB drive, a pentium like processor and supports dual channel PVR. Also, from my call to their technical support this morning, they aren't planning on giving up any of the GPLed source code they have modified. I've got one in front of me right now, ugly silver box but nice specs. I'm going to open it up this morning and start taking it apart."
how hard is it to give yourself a handle? sheesh
I agree, it takes no effort to register an account and uses next to no private information. You'd think everyone would do it. It makes you wonder why the editors take shots at the New York Times every time there's an article posted because of their required registration, huh?
Is your browser retarded?
Would you trust a company whose CEO is a professional gambler:
Charlie Ergen is not a name that slips readily from medialand lips. Outside America his name is unknown. But today he has earned his place in TV history - the 48-year-old former professional gambler has torpedoed one of Rupert Murdoch's most ambitious plans - to set up a global TV network straddling America, Europe, Asia and Australia.
And although 22 years his junior, the deal to buy DirecTV in the US is a personal triumph for Mr Ergen, who fought Murdoch once before and won.
As Mr Murdoch seethes over his defeat, he will be reflecting on a personal feud that goes back five years.
The pair first clashed in 1996 when Mr Ergen bid against Mr Murdoch in an effort to force up the price of the last remaining satellite licence in the US. He succeeded, forcing Mr Murdoch to pay almost £281m over the odds for the licence.
After paying so much, the media tycoon's telecoms partner, MCI, pulled out of a proposed joint venture, forcing him to go cap in hand to EchoStar. The two rivals agreed to a merger deal that would have seen them sew up the satellite market between them.
However, Mr Murdoch subsequently pulled out in the face of opposition from the cable giants and a furious Mr Ergen filed a £5bn lawsuit against him.
The saga was eventually settled when Murdoch - left with two satellite operations and a satellite licence he couldn't fund alone, - was forced into a humiliating settlement with EchoStar. Mr Ergen ended up with the satellite business and Mr Murdoch was left with just an 8% stake in EchoStar.
Mr Ergen, who abandoned his blackjack card games in Las Vegas when one of the casinos accused him of "counting cards" (a practice sharp-eyed gamblers use to work out where cards are in the pack as they are dealt), has now gambled again and apparently won.
A workaholic, the Echostar boss knows the value of the money he has just borrowed to secure the deal. According to reports he watches every penny affecting the bottom line - he makes bearded linux hippies take night flights to save money and apparently requires them to double up on hotel rooms.
Barring a late return of Mr Murdoch to the negotiating table or a rejection by competition authorities, the DirecTV deal will be crowning glory of an illustrious career for Mr Ergen.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
It really sucks using the remote to set up what you want. It would be nice if I had a keyboard and could use it to type up searches on programs.
Now what, why won't they share their modified
GPL-source?
According to this link:
Dish Network is planning a late 2002 introduction of a new model 921 STB that combines a HDTV receiver for both over-the-air broadcasts and Dish satellite programming with a HDTV capable personal video recorder (PVR). The PVR is reported to incorporate a 160 GB hard drive that will provide for somewhere between 10 and 20 hours of HDTV recording capacity. This unit will also include provisions for web browsing. It will include a DVI/HDCP digital video interface in addition to the standard analog monitor interfaces.
"from my call to their technical support this morning, they aren't planning on giving up any of the GPLed source code they have modified"
If they're attempting to breat the GPL then I say screw 'em. Either someone *will* get ahold of it and post it on the internet, or they'll (hopefully) never sell another unit once it's made known they don't respect the GPL.
No todo lo que es oro brilla
How do you know they modified any? If they did, I doubt it's much, or would be of any use to anybody anyway. TiVo's modified code is only to get linux working on that box. All the stuff that makes a TiVo useful is not GPL. My guess is the same would be true for this box.
Free Mac Mini
I'd say go for it.
I mean, I really don't want to see the GPL thrown out or anything, but it's got to go to court eventually. Then, somehow, the world will change.
I remember reading that the FSF encourages people to license with the specification that newer versions of the GPL will apply. I know lots of people purposefully exclude that out of distrust for the FSF's motives. It would be ironic, albeit sucky, if being able to update the GPL would save a lot of code from badness.
I mean, usually that "future changes apply" clause usually bites people in the butt. It seems about time that it got used for something beneficial.
Has anyone ever considered a sort of "future updates to the GPL apply if a) the author is dead or b) the author files an agreement to update form with the FSF"?
It seems that would protect against fears that the FSF may sell them out in the future. At least then users would be safe unless both the FSF *and* the author wanted to sell out. Seems much less likely.
Also, does the redistribution clause of the GPL apply when it's distributed embedded or just as a software package. If I build a USB widget and distribute the widget running the Linux kernel with scheduler changes to accomodate my widget's real-time foobazzle, does it need to be GPL? Even if it is only allowing my widget to simply run? I don't have a problem with that (I actually kind of like it), but a lot of the less committed to free software would.
I think Mauve has the most RAM. --PHB (Dilbert Comic)
Now honestly, do you really expect their technical support to have any idea whether or not they will be releasing the modified code? These are people who explain how to use the box, not the corporate strategys of the company. I'd be surprised if more than 3 of their PVR techs even know what Linux, outside something the DishPVR uses. I supervise people in a Cable modem call center and 2/3rds of the people I work with who fix peoples computers don't even know what Linux is.
The "Low Speed Data" port on DSS recievers can be hooked up to a PC serial port for control. This guy has an interesting project, with downloadable source code for just that purpose. There's even scripts for pulling down the program guide from direcTV's website. Email him if you want.
I'm currently using a setup like this with another debian box running samba, so I have near unlimited storage space.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
According to this Sonicblue's Replay 4500 is also Linux based.
If Bill Gates had a nickel for every time Windows crashed... Oh wait, he does.
Won't work....
You would have to buy one from them first, then you can demand the source from them.
Jeroen
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
I know several people working on this project. Echostar is going to release all the source code that they are required to. Just because a call-center person who is trained to help people hook the box up to their TV doesn't know about it doesn't mean the code is not going to be released.
This is a new platform for Echostar and it may take a while to get everthing in place. Based on my understanding, they have every intention of following all GPL requirements.
Did anyone else notice that one of the games displayed in the video preview of the unit was the sdl X11 video game LBreakout http://lgames.sourceforge.net I wonder if they asked the author if he would mind having his work spread out on all their units or even followed the license of his project.
Not everything is GPL.
Excellent point.
If they've made modifications to the Linux kernel itself, they're legally obligated to release their modified kernel source. But in all likelihood, all they've done is develop dynamically loaded device drivers for their hardware. If that's the case, then there's no legal requirement whatsoever for them to release their device driver code.
Lost: Sig, white with black letters. No collar. Reward if found!
To whom it may concern:
Being that I am a (current or possible) customer of Dish Network, I am considering purchasing your new PVR 721. Being this device is Linux-based and contains GPL'd software is an even bigger selling point for me. However, it has come to my attention that Dish Network has no desire to release the modified GPL'd code used in the PVR 721. Unfortunately, this oversight is a violation of the GPL license of the source code that your company has used and puts me in a position to not recommend your product to others. Legal action may follow by the respective authors of the GPL software in question and/or consumers if compliance is not attained. Please contact the Free Software Foundation immediately at for any assistance or questions regarding GPL.
do we know there was gpl'ed sourcecode modified? sure they used linux. say they didn't and you ask them for the source all they have to do is give you the original source. say a cd with the kernel source and the source for various gnu tools. perhaps they'll just send you a slackware cd.
-- john
What makes you so certain that they're using a modified kernel? It's far, far more likely that they've written dynamically loadable device drivers for their hardware. And, if that is the case, they're not legally obligated to release the code for their drivers.
Lost: Sig, white with black letters. No collar. Reward if found!
De retour de la Coupe du Monde, les joueurs de l'équipe de France ont tellement honte qu'ils décident de se déguiser pour ne pas être reconnu.
Zizou se déguise en moine (tonsure déjà existante) et se promène sur les Champs Elysées. Tout d'un coup une vieille dame lui dit " ça va Zizou!!"
Vexé d'avoir été reconnu, il decide de changer de déguisement et se retrouve habillé en émir arabe. De retour sur les Champs, la même vieille dame lui dit "ça va zizou".
Interloqué,il va la voir en lui disant " Mais comment faites vous pour me reconnaître?"
Et elle lui répond " Tu es con ou quoi ? c'est moi Barthez !!"
Nobody is asking them to do this. However to comply with the GPL they must make the GPL licensed code available or point to somewhere where it can be downloaded (kernel.org would probably be enough if they haven't modified anything). If they have made any modifications they must make the modifications available. Ambiguity helps nobody, and saying 'f**k you' to the (presumably polite) enquiry about this makes it seem like they have something to hide.
Tip: The Linux kernel is licensed under the GPL.
Tip: You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar. Don't call their tech support and rag on them, you write them a nice letter on paper and request it, mentioning their 'oversight'.
Good point.
And you wonder why people hate Linux Supporters
You go through all the trouble to develop, design, construct, and market a box that does something damned useful, and then a snot-nosed 14-year old who can't program other than running a vbs worm starts calling your tech support demanding your "GPL" code.
If their product is based on Linux, they did not go to all the trouble to develop, design, and construct the product. If they don't want the benefits and obligations of the GPL, they can use BSD, sell their souls for a closed source alternative, or write their own code.
The thing is the GPL won't get thrown out in court. The reason is that it does not, in any way, restrict your right to do things under copyright law. It's only when I distribute it that I have to deal with the GPL, and under normal cirumstances i wouldn't be allowed to do that at all.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Since they don't come with rackmout attachments, I'll have to make my own, I suppose. 2 directivo's, 2 dishpvr's, a standalone tivo or two for C band and basic cable. If only general instruments would release a digital cable box tivo, I'd be set.
Just have to build my raid array a little bigger.
You go through all the trouble to develop a program to be used as a PVR in a computer; you give it out for free so anybody can use it, and ask for only that they do the same when the make it better. Then somebody comes along, takes your work, modifies it, and sells it, claiming it be their own.
Tip: Not everything is GPL. Those that that aren't should have written from scratch, or from licensed code. According to the story, Echostar used GPL'ed code, and hence, are required to, by the GPL license, to GPL their code.
What if this was proprietary code that they took and used? I believe you'd have a different view then, because it's generally called "IP Theft." Keven Mitnick served years in jail for something similar, and he wasn't even getting any financial benefit.
Well, guess what? If they don't GPL their code, they violated copyright. Plian and simple.
parent contains valuable information about interfacing your computer with your DSS box, and it gets modded down as a troll? it even has links to the author of the fricking software (which looks really cool, btw)
wtf? i swear i've seen the worst moderation on slashdot lately.
They were a little mixed up in the review of the matching game (pretty cool to have games on there).
"Ok here we are playing LPairs, the memory game where you have to match pairs. Notice the Linux Devil is one of the playing cards. (You will also find the UNIX Penguin as well!)
It's pretty cool though, and I bet they will release the GPL, the tech support guy may have just been clueless. If he didn't know what the GPL is then he would just think you're randomly calling requesting the source code for the unit.
"I told you a million times not to exaggerate!"
I have An Echostar PVR system and I consider it to be garbage... they've been pushing these out a lot lately, but quite frankly the problem with them is that compared to Tivo, the software system is about as primitive as a VCR. You cannot select favorite shows for it to record. You cannot get a listing of all the episodes of the show to show up in the future. The system is not show sensitive. If you simply press the record button on the software - it will keep recording for all time until it runs out of space. It is a very noisy piece of hardware. You're still stuck with the already crappy DishNetwork viewing guide. The only thing the device has going for it is that it doesn't cost you anything on a monthly basis.
Check the "code" link, and then realize that you have not only been trolled, but you've supported the troll.
My highschool bio teacher always said,
"When you assume, you make an ASS out of U and ME.
Dude, they don't have to GPL THEIR code, as long as they didn't use someone elses code as a base.
The kernel is just one small part.
As countless other people have said, they probably have a nice module or even *gasp* a user-space program that does all the neat stuff.
How they license that stuff is their choice, much like how I license my KDE applications is my own choice.
how hard is it to give yourself a handle? sheesh
It's not a matter of hard, it's a matter of nuisance.
I don't get a handle because a) I almost never post, b) when I do, it's even faster to post without one, c) you (/.) really don't need that information about me, and d) like I need yet another login/password to keep track of.
Sounds very much like the TiVO + DVB-s dual tuner that has been available from Sky for a fair few months.
You wouldn't have to buy it:
* b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange;
I've run through the linked articles, and couldn't find any data to support the passing mention in the blurb of "GPLed source code" that my fellow Coward wanted the tech support guys to give up.
The package might include Linux, but is there any modded open source code here?
as long as their work doesn't modify the existing GPL code. So they just add some scripting to do what they want using a standard kernel (not an unlikely scenario). They can copyright their code or keep it secret; it's their choice. They need not release any of it as long as it does not incorporate any code that is already under GPL copyright. It would, in effect, simply be an application that runs on the Linux OS (like an accounting application or a database application).
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
Ok here we are playing LPairs, the memory game where you have to match pairs. Notice the Linux Devil is one of the playing cards. (You will also find the UNIX Penguin as well!)
Wow! I never knew that Linux had a devil for a mascot! Or that the UNIX mascot is a penguin! Or even that UNIX had a mascot! You learn something new every day!
Or, the author of the review needs to do some research. You decide.
Slashdot is a waste of time. I enjoy wasting time.
Linux tools for Serial Port IR blaster
:)
You might find the "autopilot" based search tool quite useful
You can also hook up an IRman for IR input and then do "Ungodly-Macros(TM)"... Penguin power at it's best!!!!
BSD is OpenSource you dipp shit. The only diffrence between GPL and BSDL is that BSDL is anarchy, while GPL is fucking totalirian bullshit.
BSDL is only to protect your copyright and your
credits. While GPL is to force you to do allot of
shit. Thats why its friggin 200 pages.
Grove up you morons. BSDL is better, becouse it does not keep prejudices against anyone as GPL.
I guess I'm a little slow on the draw today.
nuclear presidential echelon assassination encryption virulent strain
Whizzmo
Hey, I wonder if, since it is running Linux, I could hack the kernel and implement a commmercial skip function likeon the ReplayTV 4500 series. Also, I think it would be k-r4d to make it possible to stream the video to a PC for either direct viewing or compression into a more compact format.
Anyone have any links that might be useful in my pursuit?
I'm wondering how they implemented smartcard authentication: Wishful thinking says that they were dumb enough to build the smartcard driver into the kernel, thereby legally obligating them to release the source code, thereby declaring open season for smartcard hackers...
Honestly, they most likely did it as a kernel module (which doesn't need to be GPL'ed; see Nvidia). Oh well.
GI/Motorola has a cable terminal like this and our system will start to deploy them in 2003...
c .n sf/487d09d64349e557852565db006d892d/73736647e8eb65 6185256a3b0065db21?OpenDocument
http://www.gi.com/digital/dct5100.pdf
and here...
http://gicout50.gic.gi.com/databases/gi/product
I've been waiting for this thing to come out for a year. Not I can't find the price.
Dish support doesn't have a price yet as they claim to not beselling it direct, only via resellers. any my reslellers aren'y open on weekends.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
Um, no. The issues is whether the General Public License is legal. Ruling it illegal does not mean that all software license agreements would be 'null and void', but rather that GPL'd software would suddenly become undistrobutable until all the people who have contributed code have been contacted and agree to allow their code to be relicensed under a different software license. In effect, it means a stop on Linux kernel distrobution for a period of unknown length, and a death-blow to many free software projects who have some authors who cannot be contacted or who's heirs refuse to relicense.
These software would then be legally undistrobutable -- i.e. you could not offer them for download, in either source or binary form. The copyright rules of NO distrobution would apply. The GPL (and any other software license) gives rights, it does not take them away.
Face it, copyright isn't going away any time soon. The best we can hope for is that our little corner of protection is held up in a court of law.
If it's a Geode based machine, they didn't alter much of anything GPLed- much of the work is done with specialized hardware, possibly supplied by Sigma Designs or someone like them. There is no way that those machines have anywhere near the muscle needed to do PVR otherwise.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Nobody is asking them to do this.
Quite the contrary, I'm afraid. Look around - Plenty of folks here are demanding source code before it's even been established that there is any legal obligation to release it, and few of the ones who are loudly complaining are making any distinction at all between kernel modification and device drivers. They don't really care whether they're entitled to source code or not; they want what they want, and they want it now.
It's this small but vocal minority of complainers the subject line of this thread refers to. These people, because they're so vocal about demanding source code from anyone who even thinks about using Linux in their product, are the ones who give the whole movement a bad name.
Ambiguity helps nobody, and saying 'f**k you' to the (presumably polite) enquiry
Unwarranted assumptions are not particularly helpful, either. We have *nothing* to go on here, besides the submitter's original statement, which was highly confrontational in tone. Judging solely by that, as I have nothing else upon which to base my opinion, I think it's likely that he simply called up their phone drones and demanded source code. I also think it's quite likely that the people he talked to were simply front-line tech support people who had no idea what he was talking about.
Lost: Sig, white with black letters. No collar. Reward if found!
I'm sorry your post was moderated down. I agree completely with what you said. The GPL is a commercial-hostile license, and there are a significant number of GPL advocates who also happen to be anti-business advocates. This makes developing commercial products that are based on Linux or any other GPL'd software an absolute minefield.
My company is currently selecting the next platform for our software. (You've never heard of it, so don't bother trying to guess.) Some of my staff (I'm the CTO) are lobbying for a Linux port, mostly for business reasons but also to support Linux as an alternative to Windows on the Intel architectures.
I have vetoed that proposal summarily. My reason is mostly based on technology-- Linux doesn't have very good support for some advanced hardware that we depend on-- but the last nail in the coffin was politics. I don't want to even dip a toe in the GPL pool as long as there are vocal and influential people out there trying to make life hard for for-profit businesses.
We're porting from IRIX to Solaris. Linux is just more trouble than it's worth.
Devolopers can use whatever licence they want. If you have a problem with that go code your own stuff and release it under the BSDL.
And in our weekly training we were made aware of the basics of the 721 receiver. You can't expect the tech support csrs to know very much at this point.
We're not even selling them direct yet. Most of us at the call center where I work have not yet even had the chance to so much as play with the remote control.
God willing the FTC will be smart enough to block the merger with DirecTV. That will be a disaster for virtually every satellite TV customer.
Is it just me or did alot of good posts seem to get slammed by the moderators on this topic? Some of the most important points I wanted to make but found instead in the threads were moderated down for no apparent reason. I don't think I've ever seen such a massacare.
include('moderation_abuse_rant.inc');
Perhaps i'm foolish to not AC this post... but I didn't think the point of slashdot was to live in fear of moderation while trying to make a valid point. I guess I'll get my answer.
Slashdot: rejecting tech news in favor of rubber band guns since 1997.
Richard Feynman (the nobel prize winning physicist) once worked as a bodyguard to a professional gambler. The details can be found in "Surely you're joking, Mr Feynman".
From memory, the gambler had a combination of "mathematics as well as data and strategy analysis" and combined that with knowing a few little tricks, like side betting. Strictly not allowed (like all money-making schemes in a casino) side betting involves ignoring the house, and betting on outcomes privately between gamblers. He would overhear "I'm sure this next spin will be black, I just know it", and casually reply "I bet it's not". That sort of thing. Anyway, read the book.
My badly laboured point is, a professional gambler is someone who knows the rules intimately, knows that the odds are heavily stacked against him, and therefore knows that he has to play slightly outside the accepted rules in order to win.
Sounds ideal for a CEO of a company selling Linux-based products..
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our American dead!
Those responsible for programming the Slashdot interface seem incapable of providing a "handle" mechanism that does not require me to reduce my browser security by enabling Javascript.
Or has that changed without a prominent notice ?
Accompany it with a written offer
Which would mean that you would first have to buy it to get this written offer...
Jeroen
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
...then upon any external distribution, even a beta, they must release to anyone who asks all source derived from a publicly released GPL'd project. I agree that a first tier technical support rep shouldn't be expected to know or understand this. But a formal letter to their corporate offices should resolve this situation promptly, otherwise the author(s') of the derived code are within their rights to sue under copyright law for software piracy; as well they should.
/. is both correct and proper to post this front page to apply public pressure on Dish to follow through with their responsibilities. This is what /. does best, and I support them for it.
It's only slightly more comforting to hear from an anonymous source that Dish Network plans to follow their legal duties and responsibilities with the licensing agreements of the code they are using. But I (and I think many others) would feel much better once they comply and make available their derived source. Until then I would suggest the authors of that source, and the free software community in general, are within their rights to complain vociferously. In fact, I would argue that
Cheers,
--Maynard
this is bullshit. if you release a version of your product on a GPL operating system like linux YOU DO NOT HAVE TO RELEASE SOURCES UNLESS YOU INCLUDE GPL CODE. theres no politics or whining from GPL supporters -- its commercial software, people will accept it as such.
Last year, my PVR 500 box would occasionally just cross-link clusters of one recording on top of another. Both shows would be hosed. Since the box is always recording/buffering, you were guaranteed to lose a show or two every few days.
I called the tech support, and the guy said he'd never heard of the situation (even though the boards were full of complaints). He then recommended I not use the surge suppressor, since those had been causing some "static problems" for these boxes. I chalked it up to the fact that he was an idiot, and they eventually pushed down a software update that stopped the problem. Of course, this wasn't announced as such - the software version numbers just changed one day and the problem stopped.
Fast forward to last week. The box showed signs of a crashing hard drive, and tech support put me through to "Replacements", and even gave me authorization for replacement. "Replacements" figured out that the box was one month out of warrantee, and said that a replacement would run $70, or I could sign up for a "house warrantee" for both of my boxes and the dish for $2/month (one year committment), and that would chop $20 off of the $70 replacement. I took a pass on it for a while, since the box still plays, but won't record or essentially PVR.
While I had the guy on the phone, and asked him if they had lowered the data rate / increased the compression on the local channels, since the locals were getting lots of motion artifacts recently. I said since the box uses MPEG-2 compression, that's a trade-off they could be making.
He informed me that they don't use compression in the same way a computer signal does, and that such artifacts may have been introduced along the way by another link in the distribution chain, and that MPEG-2 didn't mean what I thought it meant.
I nodded and smiled over the phone to get off the phone with the guy, but something bothered me before we even got to talking about compression...
It was the same guy (by name) who told me not to use the surge supressors the year before.
I'll continue to use the service, but won't trust the tech support for anything other than putting in the occasional record that I complained about something.
Has anyone started a roll your own PVR that is compatible with DSS systems?
-- dK
I have made a few assumptions in my post:
1) Interesting stuff is not in the kernel, but in non-gpl proprietary code that they have no interest in releasing
2) Device is controlled by proprietary modules allowed by the Linux kernel's modified GPL
3) The device is using a vanilla x86 kernel
If this is all true, then my original post stands. The GPL says:
However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the executable.
So, it seems that if you would be right if there was a modified GPL'd product. IANAL, but it appears that if everything in the box is vanilla then nothing needs to be distributed.
> Bottom line is: if you ship a box that's running Linux, modified or not, then you have to provide access to Linux sources.
Not true, not even TiVo does this and no one has beef over their use of Linux. They distribute diffs for the kernel. Things normally distributed do not need to be distributed.
The GPL also includes this in section 3.
If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent access to copy the source code from the same place counts as distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not compelled to copy the source along with the object code.
So all they really have to do is point to ftp.kernel.org somewhere in their website or in the manual. This again all relies on my assumptions stated before.
Can I get an eye poke?
Dog House Forum
No. They distribute vanilla Linux in binary form, therefore they are required by the GPL to make vanilla Linux source available. They *cannot* point at someone else's FTP server. If they normally distributed their binary vanilla Linux from their FTP server, then they could offer the source up via FTP. But they don't.
If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering access to copy from a designated place
They don't distribute their object code via FTP; they distribute their object code by shipping a box, so this section doesn't apply. Furthermore, the "special exception" of the GPL doesn't apply either, since the executable is itself a (vanilla) kernel and doesn't run on any "operating system". So, even if everything were completely vanilla GPL, they still would have to ship full source. However, it is very likely that they had to make some tiny changes to the vanilla kernel source in order to accomodate their proprietary module, if only to the complilation scripts. So it's not vanilla anymore and full source (not just patches) has to be mailed on demand anyway.