> First off, one of the rights GPL gives you as end user is the right to modify and run
> GPL licenced code on the device which comes with GPL licenced code.
It doesn't give you that right, or TiVo would not have been able to do what they did. The FSF may have thought you should have that right, but they didn't write it into the GPL.
> That sounds like an obvious licence breach, they have to make the necessary tools to
> build the code available to recipients under GPLv2 aswell. Do you have any more
> information on this?
Linksys WAG354G, I think eventually it got sorted out. However GPLv2 doesn't force you to provide the necessary tools to build the source code, only that the changes to the source code must be made available. Again FSF may have forgotten to add it to v2, but they added it for v3.
There is no mention of tools in GPLv2 & the only mention of compiling/installation is providing the scripts. If those scripts rely on proprietary tools then you can't build it and the GPLv2 hasn't been violated.
You call it a bug, I'd say that if they thought about preventing the TiVo situation then they forgot to write about it in GPLv2. But I believe they didn't come up with the scenario. Which is good because otherwise the TiVo would not have used Linux.
> In fact there's no revenue stream for Linux at all that I'm aware of,
> there are donations to the Linux foundation (from which Linus is paid
> his salary), but overall the kernel developers are directly hired by
> companies who in turn rely heavily on Linux, like Red Hat, IBM, Intel, etc
You say there is no revenue stream and yet you describe a revenue stream.
I'm sure IBM would do the same as TiVo if they were contracted to build some hardware that needed DRM. TiVo hardware has been manufactured by Philips, Sony, Cisco, Hughes, Pioneer, Toshiba, and Humax. I don't know who is responsible for the kernel DRM whether it's TiVo or the hardware partners.
Edited by smf (10/20/13 08:13 PM)
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