RE: ZyXEL Kernel /BusyBox GPL violation?

[linux-os (Dick Johnson)]

On Tue, 26 Jul 2005, David Schwartz wrote:
>
>>> Also if they didn't modify the kernel, they don't have to give you
>>> source, they can just refer you to kernel.org.
>>
>> Wrong.....
>>
>> http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#DistributeWithS
>> ourceOnInternet
>> [[[I want to distribute binaries without accompanying sources. Can I
>> provide source code by FTP instead of by mail order?
>>     You're supposed to provide the source code by mail-order on a
>> physical medium, if someone orders it. You are welcome to offer people
>> a way to copy the corresponding source code by FTP, in addition to the
>> mail-order option, but FTP access to the source is not sufficient to
>> satisfy section 3 of the GPL.
>>
>>     When a user orders the source, you have to make sure to get the
>> source to that user. If a particular user can conveniently get the
>> source from you by anonymous FTP, fine--that does the job. But not
>> every user can do such a download. The rest of the users are just as
>> entitled to get the source code from you, which means you must be
>> prepared to send it to them by post.
>>
>>     If the FTP access is convenient enough, perhaps no one will choose
>> to mail-order a copy. If so, you will never have to ship one. But you
>> cannot assume that.
>>
>>     Of course, it's easiest to just send the source with the binary in
>> the first place. ]]]
>
> 	I'm sorry, this makes no sense. What if a user can't conveniently get the
> source by mail?
>
> 	More users can more conveniently get the source by HTTP than can get it by
> mail. This argument may have made sense many years ago, but it doesn't now.
>
> 	The GPL does not say you have to mail it. The GPL says you have to provide
> it "on a medium customarily used for software interchange". That means *YOU*
> get to pick the medium, you just can't pick one that's so obscure that
> nobody could decode it. The web is just such a medium.
>
> 	DS
>

But the larger question: Does the ZyXEL Box work well or did
somebody buy it just to take it apart?


Cheers,
Dick Johnson
Penguin : Linux version 2.6.12 on an i686 machine (5537.79 BogoMips).
Warning : 98.36% of all statistics are fiction.
.
I apologize for the following. I tried to kill it with the above dot :

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