Supposedly some firms give you that source code, I am trying to write openwrt firmware for it. But yet I can't even build an original stock firmware from that GPL source code!! No readme file. Even if there is, it's full of useless stuff. I do the make commands it throws dozens of errors. It's a total mess. They give you some very early non working versions, and they call it a day!!
Yes it seems to me that from GPL v2:
For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their rights.
0. This License applies to any program or other work which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under the terms of this General Public License. The "Program", below, refers to any such program or work, and a "work based on the Program" means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law: that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it, either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another language. (Hereinafter, translation is included without limitation in the term "modification".) Each licensee is addressed as "you".
b) 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; or,
The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable. However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the executable.
If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent access to copy the source code from the same place counts as distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not compelled to copy the source along with the object code.
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.en.html
the source code to be provided is to correspond with the present program that is distributed, and not the source code for a previous version.
But also take into account that aggregation of new work does not fall under the agreement:
In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License.
But how is this stuff enforced anyway? Any by whom? And with what money?
Absent a clearly defined legal entity and sufficient money to litigate, it is surely pragmatic to try to devise an alternative way to achieve the end goal of obtaining the source code.
Firstly, be sure the entity is actually cognisant of any GPL violation, and please give it a chance to correct the same!
Companies care about their reputations, and GPL violation is surely not a good look, and this is something that can be leveraged to encourage compliance.
One option would be to try to write to the entity in question, point out the GPL violations, and threaten to publicly expose absent a satisfactory resolution. If taking this route, identity anonymisation may be advisable since you are threatening to harm the reputation of the entity and this could confer some legal liability. So take care that this approach does not backfire.
Or one could try taking the issue to some kind of news outlet and see if any might be interested to take up the story.
7 Likes