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Comment by wmf | Hacker News Reader

From a company's perspective, it must suck to get nagged or even sued over GPL compliance and then have no one use the code. So combining enforcement with firmware development is a much more positive approach that will hopefully generate less ill will.

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So I'll be a cynic and say that it's often due to the actions of the company that prevent the user from "using" the code, at least on that device. How many devices have a linux kernel but lock the bootloader down for example?

99.9% of embedded Linux devices.

Note that allowing this is 100% intended: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PmHRSeA2c8&t=47m20s

Yeah, though a really strict reading of GPLv2's "the scripts used to control compilation and installation" might suggest that it's not, since maybe the source code has to include the signing key to get it onto the device. But I don't think anyone's dying on that hill, they just made a new license.

I believe Bradley Kuhn does subscribe to this interpretation of GPLv2, based on watching this talk he gave at LibrePlanet 2020 https://media.libreplanet.org/u/libreplanet/m/preventing-the...

First slide on the topic at 13:55

Returns to the slide at 17:20

If I remember correctly, somewhere else in the talk he says something like, "I don't think we need GPLv3 for this", but I don't remember where (earlier or later) and don't have time to re-watch the whole talk to hunt for it right now.

(edit: although I think he still prefers v3 / thinks it is stronger. Really you should just watch the talk instead of taking my memory of what he said for granted)

Is it? The one new thing I've looked at (the Akai MPC Live drum machine) had everything wide open. Root console, no password. This also seems to have been the case for a lot of older network appliances etc, but it might have changed in recent years?

You have a 0.1% device.

Meanwhile, billions of Linux-based Android devices have locked down bootloaders like the parent comment said.

Have you really tried to upload and run a modified version of the firmware on the device? Is guarantee void if you do it (in case it actually works)?

It would also suck more to write a kernel from scratch because you didn't want to follow a simple rule when using the most popular and well developed kernel in the world.

I don't get the ill will point. We're talking about companies that are knowingly and wilfully breaking the terms of the GPL.

They aren't entitled to violate the terms of the GPL. They aren't entitled to sell unauthorised copies of Disney DVDs either, and for the same reasons. Compliance with copyright law, and compliance with the licence terms of software that doesn't belong to you, are not optional.

If no one used it then there is no difference from it being closed source so there is no reason not to open source it.

No, GPL compliance has significant cost, especially if the company doesn't know what they're doing.

It would be nice if there was less misinformation out there about what the cost actually is. Companies are required to pay that cost if they intend to ship Linux legally. They should not be using Linux otherwise.

Not sure I agree there's a big cost if you do know what you're doing, THB. I'm notsure about Yocto, but I think the buildroot system has GPL compliance baked in. Like packages have licenses and you can export a dump of what you're required to provide. If you're using a proper distro it should be even easier.

I think he's talking about companies that don't know what they're doing. Keeping track of changes is one thing, but even if it takes companies like Tesla years to become compliant, it's seems pretty clear that companies might not know what they should do once they start shipping devices.

Raising awareness and offering alternatives all seems good, but I still hope litigation is a last ditch effort.

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