The gpl-violations.org list about legal issues

Shaw - pkarlos | 1 Sep 2007 13:52

PA-Software may be in violation of GPL with Disc Image software

PA-Software may be in violation of GPL with Disc Image software 
PA-Software may be in violation of GPL with Disc Image software, on 
softpedia website they list the software has a gpl licence, 
http://www.softpedia.com/get/CD-DVD-Tools/Virtual-CD-DVD-Rom/Disc-Image.shtml, 
anyhow thought you guys might want to investigate further.

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David A. Desrosiers | 2 Sep 2007 20:56

Re: PA-Software may be in violation of GPL with Disc Image software

On Sat, 2007-09-01 at 05:52 -0600, Shaw - pkarlos wrote:
> PA-Software may be in violation of GPL with Disc Image software 
> PA-Software may be in violation of GPL with Disc Image software, on 
> softpedia website they list the software has a gpl licence, 
> http://www.softpedia.com/get/CD-DVD-Tools/Virtual-CD-DVD-Rom/Disc-Image.shtml, 
> anyhow thought you guys might want to investigate further.

It appears that there is no refefence at all in the code or binaries
about GPL here. Their license is called the "General License" which
could easily be confused with the "General Public License" to someone
who isn't good with licensing. 

They probably just chose the wrong license when they listed their
application on the website.

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Macpaul Lin | 17 Sep 2007 03:54

Dlink probably violate GPL again with their DIR-45X ?

Hi all,

I've bought a DIR-450 and has downloaded its source tar ball from ftp://ftp.dlink.com/GPL/DIR-450/dir45x_sourcecode.tgz
But I've found they did release the complete compilation environment.
And I've opened the box and found its flash is a 8MB "MX 29LV640BTTC".
However their kernel source says it is a 4MB flash. #$ <at> #$
"/dlink/dir45x/Kernel/linux2425/drivers/mtd/maps/physmap.c" <-- the mtd memory partition.
They just release the source of kernel and several well-known GPL applications.
They didn't release the source of the toolchians.
They also didn't release the compilation configuration such as main Makefile so I couldn't build the kernel with correct configuration.
They also didn't release the executable tools for me to make a image header.

I have a question first. Do they violated GPL under such kind of situation?
Could anyone here help me to push them to release a complete buildable environment?

Thanks a lot.

--
Best regards,
Macpaul

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Peter Robinson | 17 Sep 2007 12:45

Sarotech abigs DVP570HD possible violation

Hi All,

I have a Sarotech abigs DVP570HD.

http://www.sarotech.com/english/cgi/pd.cgi?cmd=view&rno=19

When I was updating the firmware some time ago I discovered that it
runs Linux. I found this out the following way.

If you download a firmware from here (choose the Flash version not the
HDD version).
http://www.sarotech.com/english/cgi/main.cgi?cmd=570_firmware

Unzip the file, it has a update directory with a abigs.bin file in it.
If you do a file on it you get the following:

[peterr <at> avatar-d620 update]$ file abigs.bin
abigs.bin: romfs filesystem, version 1 9469808 bytes, named 1.14.

Under linux (I'm using Fedora 7) I can do a "mount -o loop abigs.bin /media/"

and then change to the mount share

Various ls show that its running 2.4.22-em86xx-uc0-sigma as well as
busybox and various other linux bits.

I've emailed them about it at the details on their contacts page but
never got a response.

Let me know if you want any other information.

Regards,
Peter

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mrintegrity | 17 Sep 2007 14:31

Re: Sarotech abigs DVP570HD possible violation

Was the source code on the cd that came with the device or the gpl for
that matter?

Alan

On Mon, 2007-09-17 at 11:45 +0100, Peter Robinson wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> I have a Sarotech abigs DVP570HD.
> 
> http://www.sarotech.com/english/cgi/pd.cgi?cmd=view&rno=19
> 
> When I was updating the firmware some time ago I discovered that it
> runs Linux. I found this out the following way.
> 
> If you download a firmware from here (choose the Flash version not the
> HDD version).
> http://www.sarotech.com/english/cgi/main.cgi?cmd=570_firmware
> 
> Unzip the file, it has a update directory with a abigs.bin file in it.
> If you do a file on it you get the following:
> 
> [peterr <at> avatar-d620 update]$ file abigs.bin
> abigs.bin: romfs filesystem, version 1 9469808 bytes, named 1.14.
> 
> Under linux (I'm using Fedora 7) I can do a "mount -o loop abigs.bin /media/"
> 
> and then change to the mount share
> 
> Various ls show that its running 2.4.22-em86xx-uc0-sigma as well as
> busybox and various other linux bits.
> 
> I've emailed them about it at the details on their contacts page but
> never got a response.
> 
> Let me know if you want any other information.
> 
> Regards,
> Peter
>

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Macpaul Lin | 18 Sep 2007 06:51

Re: Dlink probably violate GPL again with their DIR-45X ?

Hi Peter,

2007/9/18, Peter Roozemaal < mathfox <at> xs4all.nl>:

Macpaul Lin wrote:

> I've bought a DIR-450 and has downloaded its source tar ball from
> ftp://ftp.dlink.com/GPL/DIR-450/dir45x_sourcecode.tgz But I've found
> they did release the complete compilation environment.

Did or did not?

Sorry I have a typo here.
They "didn't" release the tar ball with "complete compilation environment"

> And I've opened the box and found its flash is a 8MB "MX
> 29LV640BTTC". However their kernel source says it is a 4MB flash.
> #$ <at> #$ "/dlink/dir45x/Kernel/linux2425/drivers/mtd/maps/physmap.c" <--
> the mtd memory partition. They just release the source of kernel and
> several well-known GPL applications.

Which is much better than several other companies do.

Yup, but if they did violate the GPL is a violation fact.
There is no business about other company.

> They didn't release the source of the toolchians.

Is not required under the GPL.

Even they released the toolchain but they did release the document of "how to build the source with those toolchain".
Since toolchains comes with gcc and binutils. I beleived those toolchains are exactly GPL.
They didn't release the document of "how to build those toolchains from source".
So it's hard to try every single parameters to made these toolchain workable with the whole tarball.

> They also didn't release the compilation configuration such as main
> Makefile so I couldn't build the kernel with correct configuration.

What do you mean here?

In their released tar source.
They only give the kernel, kernel's Makefile.
Some application source, like iptable.
But they didn't told you how to build a firmware image from those released files.
Even you'll don't know how to create a suitable rom filesystem for DIR-450.
Since DIR-450 is a embedded device, you must required some tool to build the device adoptable firmware image.
They didn't told you how grab things up. They even not let you to rebuild the source then to upload the rebuilded firmware to DIR-450.

Since each firmware image of embedded device have some image header structure carrying some information. Such as kernel's length, kernel's checksum, product model, etc.
D-Link didn't release such kind of source or tools let you to rebuild the firmware image. They even didn't tell you such kind of information.

> They also didn't release the executable tools for me to make a image
> header.
>
> I have a question first. Do they violated GPL under such kind of
> situation? Could anyone here help me to push them to release a
> complete buildable environment?

If I were you I'ld first try to find as much documentation as possible
on the company's website and try to comprehend it. There may be people
on the net that did a build of the software.

Ha, That's impossible.
I'm also a software engineer of an embedded router so I could understand what they hide but that should be GPL or something should be released.
Because I've downloaded all of the firmware binary for DIR-450 from their website.
I have even use some hack tools like hexdump trying to split-off the image header, kernel, romfs.
The size of each firmware image is more then 4M bytes.
But according to the source code and configuration in their release.
That's not possible to use a 4MB flash device with firmware image larger than 4MBytes.

When I opened the box of this device, I've found the the model number of that flash it makes me convince that D-link didn't release the "ture" information. They just released the wrong information.

If that doesn't help you could contact the company and ask for help. As
far as I can see now the company tries hard to be in compliance with the
GPL; praise them for that and then ask them to clarify some things.

There is no reason to anger companies that are friendly to GPL software.

That why I'm anger because GPL software is friendly to those ocmpanies but they didn't friendly to GPL software/community.

Greetings,
Peter.

--
Best regards,
Macpaul Lin

--
Best regards,
Macpaul Lin

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Jon Williams | 18 Sep 2007 12:33

IC-Talk VOIP PBX possible violation

Hi All,
I came across a software IP PBX from a British company called IC-talk
(www.ic-talk.co.uk) whilst researching available products for a
customer.

I contacted the sales department enquiring about the product and
explained my observations that it appears to be Asterisk based, they
replied saying:
"The system is based on Asterisk but to be honest it has virtually
been re-written"
The above statement alone dissuaded me from purchasing the product as
I found it very, hard to believe.

I did further investigation, and especially from screen shots here:
http://www.provu.co.uk/protalk_demo.html
I came to the conclusion that the product appears to be derived
directly from Asterisk <at> Home, a popular Asterisk distribution for Linux
now called Trixbox, with the branding changed and any information
pertaining to it's source (Asterisk, AMP/Freepbx) removed.

I have emailed the company explaining my conclusions, and explaining
they may be in GPL violation of several products, notably Asterisk and
AMP/FreePBX) but without reply.

Regards

Jon

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Armijn Hemel | 18 Sep 2007 12:46

Re: IC-Talk VOIP PBX possible violation

On Tue, 2007-09-18 at 11:33 +0100, Jon Williams wrote:
> Hi All,
> I came across a software IP PBX from a British company called IC-talk
> (www.ic-talk.co.uk) whilst researching available products for a
> customer.

[snip]

> I have emailed the company explaining my conclusions, and explaining
> they may be in GPL violation of several products, notably Asterisk and
> AMP/FreePBX) but without reply.

Well, Asterisk itself is dual licensed. If the company has purchased a
license from Digium, then it does not have to be a violation per se (but
I have not investigated).

armijn

--

-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 armijn <at> uulug.nl | http://www.uulug.nl/ | UULug: Utrecht Linux Users Group
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Thomas Charron | 18 Sep 2007 16:59

Re: Dlink probably violate GPL again with their DIR-45X ?

On 9/18/07, Macpaul Lin <macpaul <at> gmail.com> wrote:
> > If I were you I'ld first try to find as much documentation as possible
> > on the company's website and try to comprehend it. There may be people
> > on the net that did a build of the software.
> Ha, That's impossible.

  OpenWRT currently runs on the DIR-450.  Here is a link to the .mk profile.

https://dev.openwrt.org/browser/trunk/target/linux/rdc/profiles/DIR-450.mk?rev=8790

--

-- 
-- Thomas

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Armijn Hemel | 18 Sep 2007 17:16

Re: Dlink probably violate GPL again with their DIR-45X ?

On Tue, 2007-09-18 at 12:51 +0800, Macpaul Lin wrote:

>         There is no reason to anger companies that are friendly to GPL
>         software.
> 
> That why I'm anger because GPL software is friendly to those ocmpanies but they didn't friendly to GPL
software/community.  

For your information, I have taken this up with D-Link.

armijn

--

-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 armijn <at> uulug.nl | http://www.uulug.nl/ | UULug: Utrecht Linux Users Group
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