Linksys WRT54G and the GPL
<udhcp maintainer hat on>
Quoted 12 lines
<BusyBox maintainer hat on>
I went through a similar exercise several weeks ago when I saw the thread on the l-k mailing list. It took just a fix minutes to extract the linux kernel and cramfs filesystem from their firmware. Linksys is indeed shipping BusyBox and the Linux kernel without releasing source in violation of the GPL. I had my lawyer (it helps to have a lawyer for a Dad) send them a rather polite but firm letter about 3 weeks ago. No response. So he has now sent them a second letter... Assuming we again get no response, Linksys is going to find themselves in court in the very near future.
<udhcp maintainer hat on>
While a company including udhcp is a really exciting thing for me, its mostly exciting because I get the additional resources of anyone at linksys working on the code, and they get a low cost of ownership dhcp server. Of course, if they don't send me the code, it doesn't help me at all, and I get pissed off.
By downloading the firmware, and looking at the output of strings usr/sbin/udhcpd makes it pretty clear that they have made modifications. Anyway, sign me on for whatever legal actions you are making, caus I want my code back.
Signature · 1 line
Russ Dill
Quoted 5 lines · Russ Dill
While a company including udhcp is a really exciting thing for me, its mostly exciting because I get the additional resources of anyone at linksys working on the code, and they get a low cost of ownership dhcp server. Of course, if they don't send me the code, it doesn't help me at all, and I get pissed off.
Exactly the same is true of my EBSA285 BIOS. The "fix" for the situation that the infringers came up with was to take down the binary download from their website which allowed me to obtain a binary copy of my code. They refused to supply source, and to date, I haven't heard anything from the company concerned.
Signature · 2 lines
Russell King ([email protected]) The developer of ARM Linux http://www.arm.linux.org.uk/personal/aboutme.html