Re: [OT] Belkin Bluetooth Access Point GPL violation

[Jeff Woods]

At 7/11/2004 04:08 PM +1000, Robert Lowery wrote:
> Hi Denis

I don't find the original of this message, but I presume that it's the 
words of "Denis" mentioned in the salutation:

> > This means that their bluetooth stack is a derivative work of the kernel 
> > and they _must_ give you source free of charge

Actually, the GPL says (in section 3.b):

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt says (in part):

"Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give 
any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically 
performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the 
corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 
and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange;"

If they offer to provide it on, for example, CD-R discs, they may charge 
for their actual cost of creating and shipping them, but no more; e.g. 
US$20 might be considered reasonable in such a case, but probably not 
US$100, and certainly not US$5000.

> > Only owners of said hardware have right to request full source code of 
> > the modified Linux kernel and other GPLed software (uClibc?). If they do 
> > not give away source after many requests, owners may actually sue 'em.
>
> I assume the copyyright holders also have this right (even if they don't 
> own the hardware).

The GPL is a copyright license which can only be enforced by the owner(s) 
of the copyright involved.  Note that 
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-violation.html says (in part):

"Note that the GPL, and other copyleft licenses, are copyright licenses. 
This means that only the copyright holders are empowered to act against 
violations. The FSF acts on all GPL violations reported on FSF copyrighted 
code, and we offer assistance to any other copyright holder who wishes to 
do the same."

I would think a company like Belkin has assets they would be wise to 
protect.  Perhaps they're offering to involuntarily fund open-source 
development.

--
Jeff Woods <kazrak+kernel@xxxxxxxxxxx> 


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