Palm Pre is shipping GPL incompliant

http://laforge.gnumonks.org/weblog/2009/06/11/#20090611-palm_pre-gpl_incompliance

by cgray4 • 17 years ago

10 10 17 years ago

laforge.gnumonks.org

ptomato2• 17 years ago

... No, not so much. They are abiding by at least the letter of the GPL, as long as they do send the code at some point. The GPL doesn't specify that they have to ship you the source code immediately, just that they have to ship you the source code.

proee• 17 years ago

Thanks for contacting us, "the code's in the mail..."

If there is anything else we can do please let us know.

electromagnetic• 17 years ago

I personally prefer to receive source code through smoke signals, it makes it feel much more important.

joshu• 17 years ago

And now someone will have to do TCP/IP over smoke. Look what you've done.

makecheck• 17 years ago

Palm is only waiting two weeks, so it seems a little excessive to worry just yet (especially since finishing anything in 2 weeks seems incredibly efficient by some corporate standards). But it is okay to ask the question, and remind them in public of their obligations.

Keep in mind that the "preparation" they're doing could be as simple as scrubbing everything to make sure they don't accidentally release anything proprietary. For example, even for open-source packages, it's conceivable that they have developed some of their own internal tests that use proprietary data, and so their internal copy of the packages would contain more than they intend to release to the public.

prodigal_erik• 17 years ago

Imagine what would happen if they said they still need a couple weeks to scrub everything before they would be applying for FCC approval. This is just another obligation that comes with the legal landscape they've settled into, and they shouldn't have shipped without already meeting it.

ptomato2• 17 years ago

Bit different. The GPL doesn't require that the source code be immediately available. And if they had just said "sure, we'll go ahead and send that out, it will take a month to process and then however long mail takes", well... there's absolutely no GPL violation there.

bestes• 17 years ago

"This sounds suspiciously like "we didn't think about it early enough and now we need to reproduce the soruce code that was used for actually compiling the build that is installed on the devices"."

You have no idea how much time and effort goes into tracking these licenses and associated code.

nudded• 17 years ago

"For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or for a fee, you must pass on to the recipients the same freedoms that you received. 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."

straight from GPLv3. So Palm doesn't exactly follow the license does it?

brl• 17 years ago

That's not part of the license conditions. You are quoting the preamble which has almost zero legal importance.

Palm Pre is shipping GPL incompliant

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