Stalwarts Claim Asus eeePC Violates GPL

WirePosted writes "Members of the Linux community have complained that the hot new sub-notebook from Asus, the eeePC, may have violated the spirit of the Linux General Public License (GPL). Some Linux advocates claim the eeePC has not included required source code with the installed Xandros Linux distribution and does not easily enable users to install another distro. However, there are indications that eeePC fans probably don't care."

Comments

Remember the benefit of the doubt

[deadline]

I have a Eee PC. It is a nice little system. Once customized a bit is very usable for the hardcore Linux users. The 24 second boot time is nice.

About the GPL. The manual has a printed version of the GPL, so I don't really think Asus is trying to hide anything. What is more likely, and more like most big companies, the Eee was under a deadline to launch before the Xmas season. The last thing to get done is probably posting source code. Has anyone asked the source code? (perhaps someone has)

Their lawyers will make sure that it gets posted as they ship a license with every product that says it will be available. i.e. They could be in a boat load of legal trouble if they don't, not to mention class-action lawsuits, copyright violations etc.

Any finally, here is company that has come out with a full Linux sub-notebook (just 25 days ago). Instead of floating the latest conspiracy theory, how about giving them the benefit of the doubt. But, then allowing/helping a company to do the right thing, does not make for interesting blog headlines. It is all about the page views.

Re:Is it just me?

[JohnBailey]

It would be nice to think that Microsoft put Asus up to selling a small low powered laptop with one of their pet Linux distros on it.. And deliberately breaking the license in the hope that the next Steve the Monkey Boy show could point and laugh at the Linux people being anti business. But I doubt it.

Thanks for the mental image though. I like the idea of the Microsoft upper management seeing the sales figures and the internet buzz over a trojan horse project that was never meant to succeed selling out and a new market that Microsoft can't really compete in being revealed.

A far more likely scenario is that Xandros delivered the distro customized for the Asus machine, and somewhere in the various legal departments, someone didn't bother following the terms of the license fully. I'll wait until Xandros and Asus respond before I start seeing malice where bureaucratic oversight is a good enough explanation. The product hasn't been out that long, so give them time to get the source properly organized and published before calling foul.