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How Ubiquiti Networks Is Creatively Violating the GPL

Posted by Soulskill on from the violating-it-in-the-normal-way-is-passe dept.

New submitter futuristicrabbit writes: Networking company Ubiquiti Networks violates the GPL, but not in the way you'd expect. Not only did the kernel shipped in their router firmware not correspond to the sources given, but their failure to provide the source led to a vulnerability they created being unpatched long after its disclosure. They're maintaining the appearance of compliance without actually complying with the GPL.

4 of 225 comments (clear)

  1. Re:edgerouter.. by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So, this makes me wonder if they are sort of stuck between stupid hardware companies and the GPL. They may not be able to publish changes to the open source products without violating their NDAs with the manufactures of assorted chips/etc they use.

    You know, that's a self-inflicted problem, and not deserving of sympathy.

    Either you run closed source stuff and write your own stuff, or you comply with the GPL.

    It's a bummer if a small company got themselves into a predicament. But, nobody cares.

    I know you're not defending them, but honestly if a company decided it wanted to steal someone else's code and not play by the rules of the GPL, that's their own damned problem.

    From the sounds of it, they knew damned well they were not compliant.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  2. Pera gets rich of other's backs ... by Resol · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I used to work for a company that was meant to be a partner of Ubiquiti -- from the first meeting with Robert, one could tell this was not going to be a "share and share alike" partnership -- more likely it was going to be a one party gives, the other takes partnership. We as partners needed access to some parts of the code, and in meetings said we'd like to get the source, and given that it was built on GPL'd code, we figured it would be a non-issue. How wrong we were. Basically told that was never gonna happen, not for us, nor anyone else that wanted it, it was their IP. Robert's one of Forbe's 10 youngest billionaires. He's gotten stinking rich off others, and refuses to give back. It certainly douses your faith in the human spirit somewhat. Anyway, not that it's much better, but you can always buy from MikroTik (ducks! ;-) )

  3. Re:It's rape Jim, but not as we know it by maligor · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Yet another brand of router to avoid.
    At least unless there's DD-WRT or something for the hardware, I won't buy one that isn't supported by real open-source software (even if I stick with their router SW).

    DD-WRT is hardly a posterchild of open router software, they extensively use binary drivers in their releases, especially on the BCM platform.

    OpenWRT is what you want as a baseline.

  4. Re:It's rape Jim, but not as we know it by Shakrai · · Score: 5, Funny

    It can't be rape; the router has ways of shutting itself down when that happens.

    --
    I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
    We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.