On Aug 25, 2010, at 11:18 PM, Geoff Shang wrote:
On Wed, 25 Aug 2010, Lior Kaplan wrote:
http://www.doom.co.il/blog/?p=333
Any chance of a quick executive summary for us Hebrew impaired?
I had to use google translate, so it may not be completely accurate.
He bought a digital TV decoder box. It has a USB port so you can put a
disk drive or memory stick on it and record programs.
He thinks it runs on Linux. To comply with the GPL, the source code
needs to be availble. It is as far as he knows not available.
One of the comments made by someone else was a question if the GPL
licensed code is unmodified and the source code is freely available
elsewhere does it need to be published by the device vendor.
My comments are that I have not seen the box, so I can't say if it is
Linux or not. It could as easily be VX-Works which means the source
code will not be published, or BSD, which does not need to be published.
As far as I know the manufacturer of the box has to publish the code,
not the OEM or importer, who just sticks their name on it.If they have
a site in China in Chinese, with no other languages, with the code
available for download, or a comment that you send them ten dollars
for postage and producing a disk, they will send you the code, they
have fullfilled the GPL requirements.
As an example, if the box runs BSD as its embeded operating system and
they wrote a front end for VLC, then there is no GPL licensed code.
Geoff.
--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM
To help restaurants, as part of the "stimulus package", everyone must
order dessert. As part of the socialized health plan, you are
forbidden to eat it. :-)
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