Slashdot Mirror
Is Linksys Violating The GPL?
jap writes "According to this post on LKML, Linksys is shipping firmware for (at least their) 802.11g access-points based on Linux - without any sourcecode available or mentioning of it on their site. This could be interesting: it might provide the possibility of building an ueber-cool accesspoint firmware with IPsec and native ipv6 support etc etc, using this information!"
I'm not sure whether this is just as damaging to Open Source as the SCO thing had the potential of being, or not. On one hand, it might deter use of linux at all, and on the other it'll just be a general 'bad business practice to use linux in our commericial products' type stigma.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
...think of the number of APs they'd sell based on this fact alone. They obviously should abide by the GPL, but they should also shout it from the hilltops that their AP is Linux based and therefore a hackers delight (and the FCC's nightmare).
ER
What's got the higer priority: getting companies to print the GPL in their manuals, or getting companies to release high qulaity *ware with linux (for free!)
It could be argued that GPL compliancy will make it better, but as far as I can see it's still much better than what it could potentially have been.
Why does everyone always assume that any embedded device running Linux must have, in some way, violated the GPL?
I worked eight years as a firmware engineer. In the last three, I dealt almost exclusively with Linux.
And I can assure you that we didn't need to change any GPL'd code to get what we wanted. Even on fairly custom hardware, we could find preexisting GPL'd code to do 99% of what we needed (and wrote user-space drivers where possible, and modules where not). No need to release anything if you don't change anything, to comply with the GPL.
Whether ethical or not, plenty of legal ways of circumventing the intent of the GPL exist. And, like it or not, eliminating those loopholes (which would basically require forcing any program that runs under linux to use the GPL) would kill Linux in the business world.
The GPL has no real valid legal meaning until it has been tested in a court of law. I think the fact that no GPL violation case has ever made it into a courtroom speaks volumes!
Yes it does. It means that until now noone has had the guts to risk a legal confrontation to free themselves from the requirements the GPL imposes.
And even if the GPL has no valid legal meaning, what remains? Standard copyright law. So without the GPL you don't even have the right to download the source, let alone modify and republish it!
If Linksys did things right, however, those drivers will be compiled as modules, which they don't have to release source for (well...unless they started from GPL'ed driver source, of course).
Aside from the drivers, everything else interesting should be implemented as applications, which can be closed source on Linux.
So, don't get too excited: becoming fully GPL-compliant might consist of them simply putting up source for a stock kernel, and putting something about the GPL in their documentation.
But his assumption about how kernel modules work is completely wrong.. though the INTENT might be something like he describes, it's not what Linus said.
The Linux kernel license says you can code proprietary modules, as long as the interface is part of the stock kernel (in other words, GPL)
So you can make a proprietary network driver, as long you don't haev to modify the main kernel to get it to work; you are under no obligation to release that source at all. If you have some way of hacking an entire realtime OS to look like a network drive to the kernel, that would comply.
So, linksys should be redistributing the linux sources, however, if their custom work is confined to modules & userland code, they are under no obligation to release the source to those drives. And as linux already has a kernel interface for network & wireless network, there is no reason to expect them to release that code.
If the code on the Lynksys needs to be released under the terms of the Linux license, then replacing that code with Cisco code in future releases would not change their obligation to release the code for a current product. Rather, it would be an admission that they did indeed have an obligation to release the current code, an would leave them with an inferior produvct while not removing that obligation to release the source for the good code.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Think of this as a check on honesty of GPL adherents. If you don't make the offer or even admit that there is GPLed code in your product, you are probably doing it for a reason (i.e. you are hiding something). If they really aren't hiding anything, and it was a simple oversight, then why don't they reply to emails about it and just point out that no modifications were made, and stick a source mirror up on their FTP site? The cost is practically nil to them to adhere to the license, assuming they are playing by the rules, so what's the big deal?