Linux Sourcecode To Minitar Access Point 295
mcbridematt writes "Minitar sells a rebadged Edimax Linux based-802.11b Access Point in Australia (no FCC ID yet) for a relatively cheap price (under AUS $100 in places). These access points are based around the Realtek 8181 wireless-system-on-chip design, have 8MB flash rom, and run a 2.4 series Linux kernel. After requests from the community to get the kernel sources, which resulted in a incomplete sourcecode release, we finally have (allegedly) complete and GPL compliant Linux kernel sources for this fine Access Point. Special thanks to chuna, serialmonkey and screwball at Minitar for making this happen, especially after they ran into arguments with their OEM and Realtek over this." From the attached forum discussion, you can see there's disagreement about whether the source code release is as complete as it should be.
I'm curious. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I'm curious. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I'm curious. (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe those of use stuck with a Realtek 8180 card? The model number is close enough to 8181 that there is some chance that the 8181 AP driver would work with the 8180 PCMCIA card, with only minor modifications.
Yes, I know that there already is a binary driver [realtek.com.tw] for the 8180, but it is very flaky, and rather picky about the kernels and distributions it agrees to work with... (as binary drivers usually are, alas!)
Re:I'm curious. (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is why I contend that the Linux driver interface sucks.
Assume that I have, on my Red Hat system, kernel 2.4.20-8. Which I parse as 2.4.20 kernel, build #8. So a security update comes out, and I upgrade to 2.4.20-12. (Not an atypical scenario).
Suddenly, my nvidia driver doesn't work, and once that's resolved (with a loss of 3D support, no less) I find also that VMWare won't load properly.
It may be that 3 lines of code were changed, so that
"if (a>20){
b=5;
} "
now reads
"if (a>=20){
b=5;
} "
out of umpteen kazillion lines of code, but dammit, now I have to find precompiled binaries for the exact version and build of the kernel I'm now running.
I think that's just retarded.
Kernel modules should communicate through a documented API, allowing a particular binary driver to work on a series of versions. I think it'd be fair to have a 2.4.x api, and a 2.5.x, 2.6.x, and so on.
But the current way is just stupid and hampers Linux' adoption in the less techie areas.
Of course, since I'm not Linus, nor a programmer of sufficient skill to provide any serious challenge to the powers that be, I generally just swallow my gripes and live with it for the parts that I like. (fantastic reliability, good uptimes, reasonable security, etc.)
Re:I'm curious. (Score:5, Informative)
Thats why Win2k/WinXp/etc like signed drivers. Being signed means they've been throught MS's tests... MS realized they were getting reamed for alot of lockups that weren't their fault.
So whatever linux is doing wrong, its still doing better then MS.
That's a lame excuse (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe device drivers a bit different because some operations can cause a hardware malfunction that will bring down the machine no matter what the OS does. But I bet most crashes are due to more trivial reasons - a driver corrupting kernel memory, waiting forever for a failed operation, taking 100% of CPU time an so on.
There is no excuse why device drivers can not have their own protected memory space, swap to virtual memory, only be able to access mapped memory and I/O ports they are supposed to use, communicate with the kernel through regular system calls and receive queued interrupts by reading from sockets. There is no reason device drivers can not be implemented in Java.
Have real-time concerns or chicken-and-egg problems (disk drivers will have a hard time using virtual memory)? Fine, implement that driver - or just the portion that needs to be real time - in kernel. Just don't tell me my Palm USB driver needs to corrupt kernel memory and crash the system.
Re:That's a lame excuse (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I'm curious. (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, that's the theory. Unfortunately, despite their best intentions, many drivers get it wrong. They either "forget" to put a certain number of APIs into their glue code, and call those directly from the binary part. Or, all functions are covered, but they access structures directly. Or any other kind of SNAFU. Smacks more of lack of testing or proper development procedures than lack of foresight.
NVidia gets it right (even to the point that their driver works flawlessly with 2.6 kernels. But not with SuSE's X servers, but I'm more inclined to blame SuSE for that...).
VMware gets it mostly right (no problems with any 2.4 kernel, but you need a third-party patch [ftp.cvut.cz] for 2.6 kernels).
Realtek (and, unfortunately many others...) get it wrong, and don't seem to work on anything more recent than 2.4.18.
Re:I'm curious. (Score:4, Insightful)
Why? Whenever I upgrade my kernel, the nvidia installer compiles one for my kernel.. No need to search for precompiled binaries.
Re:I'm curious. (Score:2)
Re:I'm curious. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I'm curious. (Score:5, Informative)
The binary drivers also aren't platform-independent. I'd imagine the 8180 driver only works on 32-bit x86. Now, for the majority of people, this isn't a problem, but what happens when you buy an Athlon64 notebook and want to run a 64-bit kernel, and the driver won't work....stuck in 32-bit land until Realtek graces you with a driver.
I'm in a similar situation, which is why I bring this up. I own a notebook with a broadcom wireless chip. Dell uses these in their notebooks. For PC users, they use the NDIS wrapper and use the windows driver. It has limited functionality, but it does work. I own an iBook, so the windows driver won't work at all for me. Cisco/Linksys use this chip in their wr54g router/ap, which uses arm, I think? They've relesed the source to the AP....everything *except* the source to the driver for the broadcom chip. Broadcom seems steadfast in its refusal to release the specs on the card, so until someone manages to reverse engineer it or something, there won't be any real free driver for it, and certainly not one for non-pc platforms. So much for running Linux or BSD on my iBook.
Re:I'm curious. (Score:2)
Not exactly "complete" (Score:5, Informative)
The RTl8181 driver for Linux has been a seperate binary driver for some time
Re:Not exactly "complete" (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Not exactly "complete" (Score:5, Interesting)
What's worse, is that (if the linked forum posts are to believed) the RTl8181 driver is not actually a kernel module. It is linked directly into the kernel, and relies on some modified core kernel files (mm.o kernel.o mm.o fpu_emulator.o).
The source for the modified files, and the driver itself, have not been released. This looks like a violation of the GPL to me, as these files are linked directly into the kernel.
One of the posters in the forum has promised to take this up with the FSF and Realtek, and it would be interesting to see what the results are.
Re:Not exactly "complete" (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's some snippets:
Kendall Bennett:
Linus:
Zwane Mwaikambo:
Erik Andersen:
Larry Mcvoy:
Re:Not exactly "complete" (Score:5, Interesting)
Interesting that you chose your selections to give McVoy the last word. He's not exactly an authority on the GPL, or even someone with a neutral position on it historically. Linus answered him quite well:
Re:Not exactly "complete" (Score:4, Interesting)
For userland programs all of which dynamically use the kernel he has said that he (as the copyright holder) won't find them actionable. (even if some GPL interpreters might disagree). I agree that they are not actionable, but not just because he thinks so. I think that even if he thought they were actionable, any judge would rule against him. Otherwise the entire software industry would have no legal basis, and clearly it does. Dynamic loading or plugins just leaves a library shaped hole in your program. It could be filled by any library that matches the shape of the hole.
For dynamically loadable kernel modules or drivers he thinks they are actionable. For the same reasons as in userland above I think that just because he believes they are actionable, doesn't make it so. I think that no judge will agree with him.
For dynamically loadable kernel modules or drivers that use inline (i.e. copyable) kernel functions he believes they are actionable. I think there is a 50:50 chance that a judge will agree with him. I think there is also a chance that the judge will consider that since the inline functions form a part of the interface, that using them is fair-use, and rule against him.
For statically linked kernel modules he thinks they are actionable. I agree, if the module and kernel are distributed together. If the author just provides the statically linked module as some kind of patch, separate from the kernel, then it is not the module author that has created a derived work, but the user who installs it, and that is fine with the GPL.
I think his assertion that if you are "thinking of linux" when writing your module or driver, it becomes a derived work of his, is somewhat crazy.
But that's just my opinion. Linus has his, and so does everyone here probably. I'm sure that a lawyer would advise differently again. Personally I would love to see a GPL violation go to trial, for each of the cases above. Just to see what would happen. It would be interesting.
Re:Not exactly "complete" (Score:3, Informative)
> have no legal basis, and clearly it does.
That sounds like a fairly large assumption to me. Never assume that any business entity has a legal basis for anything. Despite appearances (and statements) to the contrary, most businesses consult lawyers "in post". A large amount of software licensing has been developed that way.
Secondly, it all comes down to the definition of a derived work.
The kernel (wrt userspace) is not a library. It also does not imp
Re:Not exactly "complete" (Score:4, Informative)
LT notes that his comments in COPYING allow *someone else* to know that they have the shield of estoppel on this matter.
i.e. he is saying that he isn't modifying the GPL per se, but anyone with a lawyer would be able to read the comments in the COPYING file and have confidence that they could link+distribute their non-derived works (binary modules) with the kernel (since they could have a reasonable expectation of estoppel).
There are some good threads (no links, too lazy) on this in the LKML archives. In particular, Linus's views on what constitutes a derived work I found interesting.
re: lawyers copying copyrighted contracts, the fact that an act is commonplace doesn't make it legal. (It may be legal for other reasons, e.g. fair use, but I don't think your point stands). Witness speeding (in the UK) and sharing MP3s. Whether that makes it harder to get a prosecution, I wouldn't know.
Re:Not exactly "complete" (Score:3, Informative)
Now, if Linus turned around and tried to sue for copyright infringement because someone had relied on his statements regarding his intent with regards to choice of license, they would use estoppel as an argument i
Re:Not exactly "complete" (Score:3, Interesting)
First of all, *read* the entire (linked) thread. It doesn't have to do with this case specifically, just these issues generally. I just picked some juicy pieces.
If you read Linus' *entire* post (which I didn't quote) you'll see that he makes no distinction between "modifying the kernel" and not. His distinction in the thread is, as I quoted, that "derived" works are those which show some knowledge of ker
Re: what if... (Score:2)
Now suppose I take some GPL code, and modify it. One of these modifications is to port it to 'R'. If I then release and sell the binary, and distribute the (now unreadable, undecip
Re: what if... (Score:2)
Running ad-hoc routing protocols on accesspoints.. (Score:3, Informative)
Check out http://reseaucitoyen.be/index.php?OpenWrt (french) which is a project to run a olsr implementation (www.olsr.org) in a LinkSys-Wrt54G which also runs Linux.
Picking your battles (Score:4, Interesting)
But big deal. The source is going to be 99.8% unchanged from the previously public version, and the 0.2% remaining is just going to be bootstrap code and code to work around bugs in the specific hardware, etc. Further, I bet nobody actually does anything interesting with it now that they've got the source. After all, the HW's only good for one thing, and it already does it.
Suing every commodity router builder that comes down the pike with a product like this, which has essentially zero software value added in it, is just going to make some manufacturers squeamish about using Linux inside. And I want them to use Linux, because I, as a consumer, would rather have that than the lower quality, higher cost alternatives that exist.
Looking at it another way, if the OSS community sues over these dinky issues, where they get no great new software to show for it, they'll lose out on luring some big fish to use OSS plus their own super-duper-multimedia-software, which the community could then sue for and actually get something out of it.
P.S. For those that say "but we might get a driver for the buggy chipset that we've only got a buggy closed source driver for now" - will you listen to yourselves? Support another chipset vendor, you twits!
Re:Picking your battles (Score:4, Insightful)
That would completely defeat the purpose of what the gpl is supposed to accomplish.
Hasn't reading slashdot taught you anything (Score:4, Interesting)
Since these linux drivers are responsible for so much revenue to these big companies, they would much rather gobble you up for a couple dozen million (chump change really), than deal with the publicity of a lawsuit.
Of course you need to have a backup plan incase they don't bite. You need to protect your "IP" so you issue press releases like you were the AP, telling anyone and everyone that you are suing these evil corporations, and you have expensive lawyers. Sell your stock like mad, when dumb people buy your story..
If they ask "what IP do you have?" Loudly shout "errr, umm, Look at that monkey over there!", and make sure that by the time they turn back around, your expensive lawyer is there with lawsuit in hand..
I don't need an MBA or a Law Degree, everything I need to know i learned from Slashdot and the litigious bastards [thescogroup.com].
Re:Picking your battles (Score:3, Insightful)
you have to make an attempt to enforce it
why do you think the RIAA does it, ( well i think they like being assholes too )
a copyright that is not enforced, will eventually be unenforcable.
that is important. because if you allow people to break it, then you decide to enforce it against something, the claim can be made of unequal enforcement (and in copyright, that matters unlike in patents.
not to mention the OSS community is not doing
Re:Picking your battles (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Picking your battles (Score:2)
Picking your [principles] (Score:3, Insightful)
Then why rant about it? Either they are, or they aren't. There's no middle ground.
"But big deal. The source is going to be 99.8% unchanged from the previously public version, and the 0.2% remaining is just going to be bootstrap code and code to work around bugs in the specific hardware, etc. Further, I bet nobody actually does anything interesting with it now that they've got the source. After al
Re:Picking your [principles] (Score:5, Insightful)
They are making money on other peoples generousity, fuck that. They deserve the lawsuits.
Second, when you say that there is no value in firware you are quite clearly not getting the point of OSS. (Besides, I don't know if I'd call an embedded OS firmware.) One of the mayor reasons why we have GPL in the first place is because Stallman got sick of having printers with poor software which he couldn't correct.
Just because you don't have the imagination to change functionality of an accesspoint (perhaps turn it into a wireless information kiosk?) doesn't mean others can't. Just because there is free doesn't mean it's worthless.
For Gods sakes man, one of the main ideas with OSS is that money isn't value.
Damn, I've just been trolled.
Re:Picking your [principles] (Score:2)
"oddball economic theory"?
What, like that value can be created depending on how you use cheap or free resources? Is an apple plucked from your own tree worhtless because it's free?
Re:Picking your [principles] (Score:2)
Ok, so perhaps you mean price == monetary value.
So does that mean that if I mistake a piece of glass for a diamond and offer it to you at $1, that the value is $1?
Of course not. The price is OFTEN, but not always the perceived value of the one setting the price. It is OFTEN the case that the value is higher than the price for one party, which is wh
Re:Picking your battles (Score:3)
P.S. For those that say "but we might get a driver for the buggy chipset that we've only got a buggy closed source driver for now" - will you listen to yourselves? Support another chipset vendor, you twits!
Buggy open source drivers can be fixed or re-written from scratch. Buggy closed source drivers can't. As far as supporting another chipset vendor, who's selling an inexpensive AP with all the hardware necessary to run linux, and an open source radio driver? No one AFAIK.
Is the problem here that Re
Re:Picking your battles (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you a contributor to the Linux code base? If not, then your wishes as a CONSUMER of other people's work don't really count for a lot.
Re:Picking your battles (Score:2)
People with your attitude and language should go pay their money to Microsoft and cuss out their techs (who at least get paid to listen to your whining. If you want things for free you can at least be CIVIL.
Re:Picking your battles (Score:2)
Re:Picking your battles (Score:3, Informative)
In any case, they wrote the code, they get t
Re:Picking your battles (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Picking your battles (Score:2)
Protecting your assets... (Score:2)
Then it is our responsibility to protect our intellectual assets, or do we forfeit our rights to them?
Commodity router builders have at t
Re:Picking your battles (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually the source for this ap is extremely usefull..
For people building wide area networks like melbourne wireless [wireless.org.au]
For the record there are extremely significant changes between the kernel source for this chipset and the standard 2.4.18 source in particular it's a MIPS r3k LX cpu which linux dropped support for during the 2.2 series because of a lack of hardware in circulation
With this source we can do all sorts of interesting things like put dynamic routing protocols on the device or turn them int
Re:Picking your battles (Score:2)
But then you're not obliged to buy one of *every* device out there. You have the choice to just buy the ones that DO use Linux. The market pressure of people like you - assuming there is any superior value at all in having Linux, then the market pressure *will* develop - will alone be a reason for the manufacturers to use Linux instead of other "lower quality, higher
Re:Picking your battles (Score:3, Insightful)
Regarding your point of features, there was a firmware modification for the Linksys WRT54G router (A Google search comes up with a ton of results if you start searching for VPN WRT54G linux firmware). This seems to have a reasonable development community now the code is open source.
Lawsuits: I can't exactly chime up and say that I have written large amounts of GPL code, or anything like that. I can only say though, that I am working on a project at the moment, that I will open source shortly. At t
For USians wanting one... (Score:5, Informative)
Link to the product at NewEgg [newegg.com].
"under AUS $100" (Score:2)
On a more serious note, that price IS low enough to paper an entire city. I'd like to see someone do it.
I find your lack of faith disturbing. (Score:2, Funny)
Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to block G4T0r spyware crap is insignificant next to the power of the Source.
Don't try to frighten us with your coder's ways. Your sad devotion to that irrelevant OS has not helped you sell routers; we all know that Linux is a niche m
First Sale Doctrine and GPL (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Company X makes the guts of one of these routers or access points. They modify GPL'ed software, and put it on ROM in the device.
2. Company X sells these things to OEMs, who put it in boxes, add their applications in a separate ROM, and sell it to customers. Company Y is one of these OEMs.
3. Company X includes the full machine readable source of the GPL'ed ROM with the board they sell to company Y. Note: Company X has completely satisfied their GPL obligation. They are completely off the hook as far as anyone who acquires the software from company Y is concerned.
4. Now it gets interesting. Company Y takes the board with the ROM, and sells it to an end user. Note that company Y is allowed to do this without the permission of the copyright holder, because of the first sale doctine (see footnote).
5. Because company Y didn't do anything other than what is allowed by copyright law, they are under no GPL obligation to provide ROM source to the end user.
6. Note the end result: no one has a GPL obligation to provide source to the end user! Company X satisfied all their GPL obligations in their dealings with company Y, and company Y distributed in a way that falls outside the GPL.
Note: this isn't as big a loophole in GPL as it might seem, since it only applies to things like ROMs, where someone like company Y receives a particular copy, and distributes that particular copy to the end user.
Footnote: the fair use doctine, codified at 17 USC 109 if I recall correctly, basically states that the legal owner of a particular copy of a copyright work can sell that copy, without that violating that copyright owner's exclusive right to distribute or authorize distribution of the work. This is what allows used bookstores, for example. Without the first sale doctrine, every time a book changed hands, it would require the publisher's permission!
This is also what lets you sell a used embedded device on eBay without incuring any GPL obligation if it turns out the device uses GPL'ed code, so I wouldn't say this loophole in GPL is a bad thing. If you just go down to BestBuy and buy a router, you should be able to resell that without worrying about whether or not the manufacturer used any GPL'ed code in the thing.
Re:First Sale Doctrine and GPL (Score:2)
It's doable, I guess. Of course, it hasn't happened, yet. But, it's doable.
The questions are: Can company X *prohibit* company Y from distributing the source through a contract agreement?
and: Will it be good or bad when a company offers a modified Linux distro on a chip?
Re:First Sale Doctrine and GPL (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't think so. X would not be following GPL, and so couldn't distribute to Y.
One thing I forgot to mention, that also makes this whole situation less of a problem than it might seem at first: upgrades. If X or Y offers downloadable or otherwise user-installable kernel ROM upgrades to the end user, they'll fall under GPL.
So, this is only going to really be a possibility for devices where
Re:First Sale Doctrine and GPL (Score:3, Interesting)
If I as Evil Open Source Zealot manage to purchase anything from them directly and demand the source, they'd violated the GPL if they don't sell. Alternatively I could convince company Y (possibly with money, or the threat of a boycott) they'd benefit from demanding the source from company X and passing it on
Re:First Sale Doctrine and GPL (Score:2, Informative)
Seems pretty simple to me. If you take GPL code, use it in a product, you have to make the source available to the public. (Company Y only, does not equal the public, invalidating your claim "completely satisfied the GPL obligation")
In your example, it seems pretty clear to me that anyone who requests it, should legally be able to obtain a copy of the modified source from Company X.
Company X is entitled to charge a fair fee for materials...but that's it.
Your point number 3. is complet
Re:First Sale Doctrine and GPL (Score:5, Informative)
But it's hard to take someone up on an offer you haven't received. And company Y is not distributing the object code noncommercially, so they have to either provide their customers with the source code, or provide their own offer. Customers of company Y would not know of the offer of the source from Company X.
Your parent is incorrect with his point 3, because the GPL compels Company X to distribute the source and object codes under the GPL. Thus, Company Y must agree to those terms, and it's bound to include the source code with the object code, or offer the code.
Re:First Sale Doctrine and GPL (Score:2)
Your parent is incorrect with his point 3, because the GPL compels Company X to distribute the source and object codes under the GPL. Thus, Company Y must agree to those terms, and it's bound to include the source code with the object code, or offer the code.
No. The GPL can't do that - it works only within standard copyright law, which is a restriction on distribution, not a forced requirement. That's the point.
I don't need permission from the authors at all to sell my copy of Gravitation, for instance
Re:First Sale Doctrine and GPL (Score:2)
Can I heck.
Copyright law covers *all* distribution. If it only covered a 'first sale' then it'd be utterly useless.
Re:First Sale Doctrine and GPL (Score:3, Interesting)
Did you read the example fully? He didn't say distribute. He said sell. That is, give the physical ROM which has the code on it to another person, so that he no longer has the device that he purchased. This is selling by the original purchaser, which is not restricted by copyright law.
You can sell your copy of Windows, though, regardless of what crap Microsoft says.
If it only covered a 'first sale' then it'd be utterly useless.
It does not cover first sale. If i
Re:First Sale Doctrine and GPL (Score:2)
The GPL is not a contract. It is a license for distribution. Hence the name "General Public License."
And licenses cannot override common law, because they can't screw with your fundamental rights as a purchaser as defined by local law. Hence the reason that Nintendo can go shove their "no backups" clause up the wazoo, and hence the reason that Microso
Re:First Sale Doctrine and GPL (Score:2)
>If I distribute (software using GPL code) to the public, regardless of how many middlemen or confounding distribution schemes I can come up with...if it's available via amazon.com, newegg.com or ebay...then it's public.
And you'll be able to quote the parts of the GPL that say that your obligations extend beyond giving a full copy of the source to the people (the middlemen) to whom you (you personally) actually distribute, right?
I mean, you can actually quote that part about obligations extending to
Re:First Sale Doctrine and GPL (Score:2)
You are very confused. Go study section 3 of the GPL.
Re:First Sale Doctrine and GPL (Score:2)
Perhaps you should actually go and read what the GPL says instead of what you think it says?
> If you take GPL code, use it in a product, you have to make the source available to the public
Why? Can you quote the part of the GPL that says that? Please be sure to include the clause that says "have to" and "to the public".
>In your example, it seems pretty clear to me that anyone who requests it, should legally be able to obtain a copy of the modified source from Company X
Again, quote the obliga
First Sale? (Score:3, Funny)
Doesn't everyone require the publishers permission when they sell their books? Oh wait...I forgot, this is 2004. I'll repost in a few years when the preceding statement is true. :-)
Re:First Sale? (Score:2)
I can sell you a book, but I can't duplicate it and give you a copy without the publishers permisison.
Re:First Sale Doctrine and GPL (Score:2, Interesting)
I would assume that Company X has to provide the source for their ROM if requested. Any party which has access to the binary has the right to request the source.
Re:First Sale Doctrine and GPL (Score:2)
> Any party which has access to the binary has the right to request the source.
Well, sure, anyone can go ahead and request the source, regardless of whether they have the binary or not. But that's not the point. The point is whether company X has an obligation to provide, or even an obligation to promise to provide the source. If they already gave the full source to everyone to whom they distributed the executables (which in this case is company Y and only company Y) then they have already discharge
Re:First Sale Doctrine and GPL (Score:5, Informative)
A ROM is merely a storage place for a binary file. By distributing software on ROM, you aren't exploiting any hole at all in the GPL. The hole is not there.
If you were to buy a piece of hardware with GPL'd software on it from E-bay, you would have to be extended the right to the source from the one who originally modified it.
In your example, Company Y would be off the hook, but Company X would still have to provide the source to those who owned the devices.
Re:First Sale Doctrine and GPL (Score:2)
In your example, Company Y would be off the hook, but Company X would still have to provide the source to those who owned the devices.
But company X is only required to give the code to whomever it was distributed to, by them - Company Y. Company Y doesn't have to follow any licensing agreements because the right of first sale allows them to sell without any permission from the copyright holder.
Imagine an author, writing a book. He gives the publisher permission to distribute his book. The publisher dis
Re:First Sale Doctrine and GPL (Score:4, Insightful)
No.
It allows them to sell their *single* copy to someone else, thus depriving them of that copy.
It does *not* allow them to circumvent copyright law.
Re:First Sale Doctrine and GPL (Score:2)
Yah. That's what I said.
It does *not* allow them to circumvent copyright law.
Author says to distributor: "You are authorized to distribute this book to only Amazon.com."
Distributor: "OK, no problem" - distributes to Amazon.com.
Joe Blow: Buys book at Amazon.com
Joe Blow: Sells book to Whitey's Book Store on 5th.
First sale allows everything after the distributor to happen, because it's just a transferrence of th
Re:First Sale Doctrine and GPL (Score:2)
Subsequent owners does not need a license from the copyright holder to dispose of their legally purchased physical item. Th
Re:First Sale Doctrine and GPL (Score:2)
I think you are missing the point. Company X is required to attach the written offer to the copies they are distributing. Company Y can simply throw them away and not pass them onto the end-user, as they don't have to comply with the GPL (they aren't making co
Re:First Sale Doctrine and GPL (Score:2)
Sorry, you've both missed the point. Go and read the license [fsf.org] and look carefully at Section 3. Note the use of "one of" and "or".
When company X gives their machine readable source to company Y, that's their obligation under the GPL fully and completely discharged. Company X are not required to attach a written offer to make the source available to third parties, not no-how, not no-way. "one of". "or".
Company Y don't have to add such an offer (or distribute the source) because they have rights of fir
Re:First Sale Doctrine and GPL (Score:4, Interesting)
Nope. You need to reread the GPL, paying careful attention to section 3: "You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following" (emphasis added). Providing a written offer valid to any third party for the source code is one of the options available to the distributor under section 3, but the distributor is not required to choose that option. One of the other options is to distribute the source code with the binary. If company X includes the source with every binary they distribute, that's all they have to do.
Re:First Sale Doctrine and GPL (Score:2)
Oops, sorry for duping your comment. You are completely correct.
It never ceases to amaze me how so many technically minded people can't follow clauses like that in the GPL. Perhaps if we re-wrote it to use && an ||, it might make it clearer.
Re:First Sale Doctrine and GPL (Score:2)
The GPL says no such thing. Perhaps you should take your own advice and go and read it [fsf.org], then read the parent post again, and then have another think about it.
3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and
Re:First Sale Doctrine and GPL (Score:2)
Sheesh. Touchy.
Let's focus here: why won't Y provide the source? (Score:2)
I guess the only case to worry about is when X and Y are actually controlled by the same people, for the specific purpose of flouting the GPL. This is the case to be sorted out in court (IANAL),
Re:from the FAQ on GNU.org (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:from the FAQ on GNU.org (Score:2)
I say copyright law and the first sale doctrine. This is not semantics.
Selling it is distributing it.
No, it is not. Otherwise I could not sell any of the books I have. Saying selling something that you own is the same as distributing something is flat wrong.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Wireless drivers, Linux-based APs etc (Score:4, Informative)
The concern for drivers isn't as big as you would think. Why spend AU$60 or 70 bucks on a realtek wireless card when for AU$80 (in our recent Melbourne Wireless bulk buy) you can have a complete, standalone, managed network device. Around our community wireless group, these devices are very popular for their possibility of expanding their functionality to include routing and fault tolerence technologies at a fraction of the cost of a commercial solution which we neither want or can afford. This is also helpful as we can implement peer-to-peer IBSS mode which is better suited for point to point links. Additionally, it allows us to build a wireless node for $80 an interface (excluding antenna and cabling) simply by pkugging in an extra device into a switch or hub.
I believe the common issue with releasing wireless drivers for open sourced OS's is that the cards can be reprogrammed to use wireless channels which may violate their telecommunications (eg, austel, FCC) certification by operating in frequency ranges of which they are not permitted.
I think that due to the cost of APs. vs using a PC as an AP these days, especially in running costs, that the protection of infrastructure-mode AP capabilities is really pointless anyway.
Re:Wireless drivers, Linux-based APs etc (Score:2)
So until someone reverse engineers these drivers (hopefully soon) you'll have nothing to worry about. I doubt you'd have much to worry about anyway, if people are broadcasting on normally un-used channels then they will be causing you less interference if they'd been on a channel closer to what your using.
The End of Binary Drivers (Score:5, Insightful)
It used to be so, back in the days when a printer came with a big thick manual explaining how to do various textual and graphical effects, even pulse timings and voltages for the interface. And everyone thought that information was part of the operating instructions. Sometime between then and now, it went sour; probably we didn't notice, but documentation went from hacker-friendly, to (non-hacker)-friendly, to non-(hacker-friendly). Nowadays, it seems printer manuals just say "plug in the USB cable and install the Windows software" -- and manufacturers are treating the important stuff like how to fire the second "red" nozzle down as though it were some sort of nuclear secret.
Well, it isn't. If you buy a piece of hardware you have every right to make use of that hardware, and if the manufacturer will not tell you how to do so then they are obstructing your enjoyment of your own property. At the very least, the owner of a particular device should -- by sole virtue of ownership -- be automatically privy to any "secret" it may contain; ideally, such information would be in the public domain by law.
And sod the whingeing about "competitors having access to your 'proprietary information'". Your competitors already pay people to reverse-engineer your products, and you will get access to their "proprietary information".
Open Source Minitar? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Corporations and the GPL (Score:4, Insightful)
The GPL is not a new idea, it's principle is based in history. People thoughout the centuries have written down their scientific breakthroughs, finds and other discoveries. They believed that by sharing what they found and developed would help the world. They are still credited with the finds, but now everyone has access to them. Why are computers so different? Because money and companies are involved. Stupid managers and officers all see, Propritary CODE MUST NOT SHARE, when in fact if they made good products, GPL'd the code they would make money.
You see even though you GPL the code does not mean that your competitor can steal it, they too are bound by it and must make their changes public, which in turn helps you. WHOA!!! The GPL is a idea based on the sharing of knowledge for the benefit of the whole world.
Later,
Arathres
Re:Corporations and the GPL (Score:2)
Corporations and the GPL-Principle pain. (Score:3, Insightful)
You wish us to accept your premise? OK. accept this one then. Going after customers for violating overly restrictive EULA's (BSA) is going to hurt proprietary chances in the marketplace, and push customers towards OSS solutions.
Now I leave
Re:Corporations and the GPL (Score:4, Insightful)
Eventually people will get the message and either build/buy propretary solutions or adhere to the licenses of the Free Software they choose. Someone should have known that putting a statically compiled in wireless driver into a commercial product means one of two things, yank as a mistake on sight and say sorry, or release the source. If you build a product on Free Software, you should understand what you are doing and if you are not planning on releasing everything you do you had better be real careful you don't contaminate what you want to "keep"! I see it as a good thing, as it reinforces the "community" element of Free Software and reassurres people who might put serious work into Free Software that it won't be hijacked by others who won't follow the rules (well don't know what would happen with GPL violations/violators in China, for example, at present).
BTW I only want Linux to gain widespread acceptance if it is still Free, the video card market is where this battle is really being fought at present though with Daniel Stone's announcment [fooishbar.org] that XFree86 has been forked (I submitted a first story to slashdot about this 9 days ago and it's still pending), not once but twice (by X.org and freedesktop.org) perhaps a shake-up is coming.
Re:Corporations and the GPL (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Corporations and the GPL (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm guessing your not a Linux user or contributor, judging by your last remark. Most of us don't give a toss about Linux widespread acceptance, we just want Linux to work better for us - if others like it too, then that's a bonus. We're certainly not doing it to make other companies wealthy on our backs with nothing in return, even if it is a token gesture in comparison.
Re:Corporations and the GPL (Score:3, Informative)
Right idea, wrong focus. It's not that we got a cheap router out of the deal. They got a cheap OS out of the deal. Linux is equivalent to millions of dollars in saved licensing fees. This gives them a huge market advantage over their competition. Their only obligation was to make all mod
Re:Corporations and the GPL (Score:2, Insightful)
But they CHOSE to use Linux. And in doing so, they adopted the GPL.
Release the damn code. I released mine, now it's your turn.
If you don't - then here's a tip - yank that product, and reissue it with some other OS. If you don't, then suffer the consequences you assholes.
Purpose of the GPL (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps you should read it some time. The GPL is a license that software authors employ to grant others the rights to use and modify their software codes. In other words, if I spend a year developing some software, I can then distribute it under the GPL. The specific advantage of the GPL as compared to BSD-style licenses is that it gives other free software developers (who I presumably share some common interests with) an advantage over commercial competitors who might take my hard work and turn it into a commercial product that competes with me.
Companies developing routers have a simple choice: write the software from scratch, buy commercial software, or use free software. If they buy commercial software, they must respect those license conditions imposed. If they use free software, they must also respect the license. If it's GPL, that means making the source code available.
A business has no right to take GPL software (representing, I remind you, a significant investment of someone's time) and break the license. They should do what everyone else has to do in business: invest themselves in their own products.
Re:Corporations and the GPL (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure it's exactly as restrictive as the authors want it to be. If you or Realtek don't like, it, go and write your own damn OS and license it however you feel is best.
Speaking for myself and probably a lot of others, I don't give a rats arse how accepted Linux is by anyone else, so long as it exists and is Free.
Re:Corporations and the GPL (Score:4, Insightful)
Wrong.
There's really nothing more to add.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Extra features? (Score:4, Funny)
Should be enough to tftp something cool from elsewhere on your network.
Re:Extra features? (Score:2)