Russel King poinformował na liście Linux Kernel, że Castle Technology Ltd. najprawdopodobniej umieściła w produkowanym przez siebie zamkniętym oprogramowaniu fragmenty kernela linuksowego. Chodzi konkretnie o fragmenty kodu odpowiedzialnego za obsługę PCI oraz zasoby wejścia/wyjścia.
Firma, zapytana o ten problem, nie odpowiedziała, lecz usunęła fragmenty kodu ułatwiające jego identyfikację. Sam kod pozostał. Więcej informacji – w mailu cytowanym poniżej.
From: Russel King Date: Fri, 7 Feb 2003 15:19:26 +0000 Subject: The Linux Kernel and Castle Technology Ltd, UK Hi all, I'm afraid that I have to bring this news to linux-kernel; people who have written code for the Linux kernel need to know about this, and we need to come to a decision about the action we wish to take. Taking no action sends a message that "we don't care what you do with kernel code, even if you violate the terms of the license." It would appear that Castle Technology Limited, UK, have taken some of the Linux kernel 2.5 code, and incorporated it into their own product, "RISC OS", which is distributed in binary ROM form built into machines they sell. This code is linked with other proprietary code. I have a detailed description which shows how the Linux source code can be slightly modified to produce the disputed code, with reasons each modification. This will be provided to people upon private email request. Having discussed this with Linus, Linus is of the opinion that a public letter should be written to Castle Technology Ltd, copied to lkml and various news sites. However, I'd like to get this issue into the minds of people who have touched any of the following code: - PCI subsystem - IO resource allocation The guy who reported the problem to me has already tried to contact the company concerned to ask for the source under the terms of the GPL, and this resulted in the "function signatures" being removed in the next version of the product, while the actual code remained. No other response was forthcoming. Subsequently, during the first week of January, the guy has contacted the company again asking for the source covering the disputed code, this time copying me with the email. Again, no repsonse from Castle Technology has been forthcoming to date. Thanks.
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