Dish Network Dishes Source Code for DVR

An anonymous reader writes "According to Dish Network they are accommodating 'requests for the portions of the DISH 921 DVR source code that are subject to the GNU Public License, or GPL. In compliance with the terms of the GPL, we are making this source code available to the public to download. Please note that the DISH 921 DVR software also includes some proprietary elements that are not subject to the GPL. You cannot create a working DISH 921 DVR software build without the additional proprietary code. Do not replace or add any software to the DISH 921 DVR with items compiled from these source trees. Doing so will void all warranties and cause the unit to fail.'"

Comments

The Apple approach...

[Jerry]

This sounds familiar.

The KDE-Konqueror team was elated two years ago with the news that Apple was going to use KHTML in their browser. Like the CEO's of new software startups that were wined & dined by Microsoft before they were deflowered of their innovative software, the Konqueror coding crew now knows what it is like "working with" a company whose motivation is not community but profit if not just plain greed.

Apple used KHTML to build their browser but made calls to their own proprietary API, resulting in source that could not be effectively back ported to KDE's Konqueror. The effect of this software 'sharing' of GPL code was that a corporation selling proprietary hardware driven by proprietary software was able to exploit GPL software WITHOUT actually allowing the FOSS community to benefit from their exploitation. The "two street" of code sharing was downhill on one side and uphill on the other ... in fact a wall. Apple's OS now includes a browser built on Konqueror GPL code but, IN VIOLATION OF THE GPL, the enhancements to that code were added in such a way that the FOSS community cannot benefit from them. This effectively turned the GPL license into a BSD license! The GPL needs to be modified to address this subtle form of code theft.

The only difference between Microsoft's "thought thefts" and Apple's is that Apple used a little more finess and polish. The RESULTS are identical, however, which puts them both in the same class -- corporate thieves.