On Tue, Feb 03, 2004 at 09:05:07AM -0600, Eric Sandeen wrote:
> On Tue, 3 Feb 2004, Ethan Benson wrote:
>
> > On Mon, Feb 02, 2004 at 02:14:13PM -0600, Eric Sandeen wrote:
> > > It appears that it is in fact xfs, from looking at the
> > > 'firmware' image....
> >
> > are they making full source code available as required by the GPL?
>
> Not on the web site, I also do not see the gpl "offer" anywhere
> in the firmware package.
that in and of itself is a GPL violation. all binaries are required
to be shipped with a complete, unabridged copy of the GPL.
> They do have a "gpl code center" with downloads for many
> of their linux-based products (and there are a lot!) but
> this product is not there.
>
> I reminded them nicely, in a non-sgi capacity, to include
> this code as well, let's give it a little time before we bring
> the full wrath of slashdot down upon their heads. ;-)
of course, quiet diplomacy has proved effective in most cases.
however if they don't comply i would imagine SGI would be interested,
since as i understand it one of their main reasons for using the GPL
instead of say the BSD licence is to prevent exactly this sort of
`take, make money, not give anything back' type of behavior.
> (p.s. the firmware image has what looks like a fairly full loopback
> root filesystem, might be fun to hack around on a bit.)
yes its definitly nice to see this type of hardware using normal
operating systems in normal enough manner, makes modification much
easier, esp with source code. GPL is a wonderful thing, but it does
take diligence to keep it that way.
--
Ethan Benson
http://www.alaska.net/~erbenson/
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