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Comment by walterbell | Hacker News Reader

(nested 2 links from OP)

https://m.seeedstudio.com/productDetail/3052

> This Azure Sphere development kit can be only used for prototyping. It cannot be built into a product for commercial distribution. It cannot be re-sold or used as part of a production environment ... The software included in this product contains copyrighted software that is licensed under the GPL, LGPL or other open source license

Can GPL software be restricted by use case?

> To use the MT3620 Dev Board for Azure Sphere, you’ll need a Windows 10 PC

What's the timeline for allowing use of Ubuntu or Red Hat Linux to develop for Microsoft Linux with Azure Sphere?

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The restriction must be on the hardware part of the development kit. I don't see how they could forbid anybody to copy the software.

It requires you to click a checkmark box for "I agree to the restrictions" to add it to your cart. I suppose that's what they consider to be restricting your usage to their approved use cases, not copyright.

That link is blue (similar to hyperlink) but it doesn't have Terms & Conditions or other text that defines a legal agreement. Unclear what is being asked or agreed.

Only after you've agreed to it does it popup the text "This development board can be only used for prototyping, it cannot be built into a product for commercial distribution. It cannot be re-sold or used as part of a production environment."

I suspect adding anything about restrictions was a last-minute job for Seeed, and it's probably not something given too much effort on their part. Realistically, an $85 devboard isn't going to end up being built into production items. And they're probably going to be a low enough quantity item for Seeed that they can manually look into any instances where someone has ordered more than 3 or 4 and just stop sending any more to them if it really rises up to being enough of a problem for Microsoft to complain.

I think they mean that the prototype hardware cannot be built into a product.

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