GPL violations by wireless manufacturers

vanstadentenbrink@ahcfaust.nl
Tue, 24 Jun 2003 12:10:23 +0200


[ Please CC replies as I am not subscribed ]

I have had some luck resolving the GPL violation by wireless
manufacturers issue. I have sent letters regarding the issue to
Linksys, Belkin and Buffalo. This is the letter I received from
Buffalo Technologies and below that is the letter I sent to the three
manufacturers:

--------------
Hi Sir,

We are aware of these requirements and we have the PDF document
(attached) and a statement/notice that will be put onto the website
within 48 hours for this product. Please let me know if you require
further assistance or if you would like to talk further.

NOTICE:
This product uses software of GPL/LGPL.
You have the right to acquire source code, change it, and re-
distribute it.
The warranty on the product is only applicable if the original or an
official Buffalo firmware is on the unit.
Please refer to GNU_LICENSE.PDF.
We don’t have any obligation to pay if a user has to pay to
distribute or change the source code.

Thanks for your time.

Craig Reid
Technical Sales Engineer
-----------

-----------
Dear sirs,

Hereby I would like to inform you that the software on at least one
of your products is offered in violation of the General Public
License (GPL) as published by the GNU Software Foundation. This may
not be known to you due to inclusion of acquired or licensed
technology from third-party manufacturers in your product.

The affected product is the Buffalo (Melco) WBR-G54 Wireless Access
Point

The infringement of the GPL consists of the following:

Your product makes use of Linux kernel version 2.4.5 and Busybox
software, which are both licensed under GPL terms and conditions.
The GPL allows copying and distribution of licensed software,
provided that the complete corresponding machine-readable source
code or a written offer to a complete machine-readable copy of the
corresponding source code accompanies the product. As you have
fulfilled neither of these obligations, you are in violation GPL
terms and conditions.

Your product includes a kernel driver module that is inserted into
the GPL licensed Linux kernel when the product is turned on. There
is no possible way for the user to prevent the insertion of this
module into the kernel. It is also impossible for the user to remove
the kernel module from the running kernel. The operation of the
included software on your product depends on the operation of the
kernel module. For these reasons the kernel driver module is not
offered as a separate work as described in Section II of the GPL and
must therefore be distributed under the terms and conditions of the
GPL. As you have not included the complete corresponding machine-
readable source code or a written offer to a complete machine-
readable copy of the corresponding source code you are clearly in
violation of GPL terms and conditions.

Because of the huge liability your company could be facing I advise
you to take appropriate measures to cease offering your product in
violation of the GPL.

With Regards,

Richard Ten Brink
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