Messages in this thread | | | Date | Thu, 5 Jun 2008 09:54:28 +0100 | From | Alan Cox <> | Subject | Re: ASUS SplashTop and Phoenix Hyperspace infringing kernel copyright and GPL |
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>distributing the binary to customers who buy motherboards and laptops. It is therefore ASUS' >obligation to provide the the "complete machine-readable" source code to those customers. I've
>ASUS _cannot_ hide behind section 3c by simply pointing customers to >SplashTop/DeviceVM's website because neither ASUS nor DeviceVM are >noncommercial, and in fact, they are _selling_ motherboards and laptops >containing GPLv2 software.
Thst isn't a simple question and rather depends upon the contractual arrangements don't you think ? If I offer to supply it by CD your software will be delivered by the postal service, from whom you did not buy the product.
A company might have liability for the failure of its agents to perform services but that is a different question
> Now I have a theory as to why ASUS/DeviceVM are posting patches instead of the full kernel: it makes it harder for copyright holders to find out that a driver or modification is missing from the patchset. ASUS can claim that the differences in behavior between a patched mainline kernel and the
Let me propose a different theory: ASUS thought a smaller 12MB download would be more convenient and useful to their userbase.
> Finally, I'd like to bring your attention to an article (http://community.zdnet.co.uk/blog/0,1000000567,10008346o-2000331761b,00.htm) in which DeviceVM states that " the part of Splashtop that is embedded into BIOS and achieves the instant-on first screen is based on a proprietary RTOS that DeviceVM developed." This sounds less of a bootloader and more like a Virtual Machine because it apparently brings up Linux from a frozen state without booting it. In any case, I urge someone with the hardware and know-how to check if this "proprietary RTOS" uses any EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL.
It's a mini virtual machine using the cpu extensions. It really shouldn't need any deeply magical kernel patches except maybe interfaces to virtualised drivers.
I really don't see a big problem providing ASUS are including the written offer in the manual somewhere or have an agreement with devicevm to act as their GPL fulfilment - and DeviceVM do so.
What we *really* need to happen is to get DeviceVM/Phoenix merging their work into the base kernel tree nicely and cleanly.
Alan
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