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Embedded Device Manufacturers Ignoring GPL
swillden writes "Iain Barker and some other Linux Kernel Mailing List readers have discovered that several manufacturers of DVD players based on the Sigma Designs EM8500 chipset are distributing Linux, both in the devices and as binary-only firmware upgrades, but not providing source. Apparently, Sigma Designs provides its customers with a copy of the kernel as part of a chipset SDK, and those customers are making and selling devices without complying with the terms of the GPL. It's not clear if this is because Sigma didn't tell its customers about the GPL and their obligations, or if they're all ignoring it on their own. Maybe they've all bought licenses from SCO and therefore don't have to comply with the GPL? The LKML post contains a list of some of the infringers."
If I have to pay an extra USD$25 in shipping when I replace my DVD player because it comes with the kernel source printed out, I'm going to be seriously pissed.
I am suprized that SCO has not offered an embedded licence - should be worth at least 2 points for SCOX
I'll be embedding my kernel in your mom's open source later tonight.
Maybe they've all bought licenses from SCO and therefore don't have to comply with the GPL?
In other news, DVD players will now go for at least $699, more on that after these commerical messages.
*cue DVD player commercials*
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>DVD don't have processors as such
3 0521.htm:
Exactly. Instead, the logic for the DVD menus and the MPEG decoding are handled by cheerful little hedgehogs that live inside the DVD player.
From http://www.sigmadesigns.com/news/press_releases/0
"The EM8500 is designed around the system-on-chip concept with an internal 150 Mhz RISC CPU"
In this context, of course, RISC stands for "Rodents in Spiny Coats."
I think it's safe to assume nobody is decodeing CSS in the kernel, and that if they are, they'd seperate the keys from the code, right?
Those little hedgehogs certainly paint those pictures fast...
(Is a hedgehog a rodent? I thought they weren't but IANAZ.)
If SCO is selling embedded licenses for $29 per device and the DVD manufacturers are RETAILING them for $29 at Wally World then they must be giving them away for free.
When you consider all the middle men and middle-middle men that handle the unit from assembly line in China to the isle pallet at wally world, each handler marking up the unit 100%, or at the very least, 50%, (and figure in shipping costs too!) the cost to produce a DVD player is most likely in the less than $1 per unit range. And if they paid the SCO scam of $29 per unit, they would be losing a LOT of money real fast.
It's in their best profit-interest to ignore the GPL and do what ever the hell they want. If they get sued they can fold shop, change name/address and be back to cranking out new players the next day.
Welcome to the wonderful game of "global greed"
by Bruce Perens (3872) .Bruce Perens (150539)
by
So will the real Bruce Perens please stand up and his karma whoring alterego please step aside? Unless you're _both_ the real Bruce Perens, in which case I excuse myself, oh schizophrenic one!
Ceci n'est pas une signature
And yet people constantly claim that the GPL is not anti-business.
If I create copies of a GPL'd program and sell them, I have an obligation to make the source available. That's anti-business.
If I create copies of Microsoft Windows and sell them, I get sent to a federal penitentiary. That's pro-business. (At least pro-prison industry business, anyway.)
"Gentlemen, start your debuggers."
no its not the same CSS that teaches you to separate style from content ;)
besides people who work on CSS(dvd) cant be real programmers, i refuse to believe it
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And one story with a post where someone who clearly spends a lot of time reading stuff on Slashdot whines about how bad it is.
What is this, some kind of public self-flagellation ritual or something?
The law in the US says that you can get away with anything if you hire a good lawyer.