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Most Android Tablets Fail At GPL Compliance

Posted by timothy on from the hey-man-those-are-just-like-rules dept.

polar_bear` writes "Red Hat's Matthew Garrett has been checking to see who's naughty and nice. Most Android tablet vendors? Naughty, naughty, naughty, when it comes to GPL compliance. In the current crop of Android tablets, most of the vendors flout the GPL and fail to ship source."

3 of 198 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Ship Source? by icebike · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It is sufficient if they use stock Android.

    Making available does not require shipping, nor does it include hosting your own servers. You need merely "make it available". There are no specific requirements as to where it must be a available, and having the Open Handset Alliance perform this service is sufficient.

    Samsung and some others are quite responsive in getting the source out there. Others not so much.

    My only point in my post above is there is no requirement that the source be "shipped". It merely needs to be available along with any modifications a manufacturer makes to it.

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  2. Re:please be sure ... by Osgeld · · Score: 3, Interesting

    yea companies like Samsung ...

    ok BSchinatech.ripoff I can understand, I pay 75 bucks for a tab, 5 years later who gives a crap

    but Sylvania is on that list too, are they a no-name company that will vanish from a little GPL lawsuit? what about Zenith or Viewsonic, or Creative Labs?

  3. Re:Ship Source? by icebike · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Drivers are a debatable case.

    Some insist anything linked against the kernel libraries (making calls to the kernel) must be make source code available. But I do not believe this is the general consensus.

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