

Palm Pre is shipping GPL incompliant - cgray4
http://laforge.gnumonks.org/weblog/2009/06/11/#20090611-palm_pre-gpl_incompliance

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makecheck
Palm is _only_ waiting two weeks, so it seems a little excessive to worry just
yet (especially since finishing anything in 2 weeks seems incredibly efficient
by some corporate standards). But it is okay to ask the question, and remind
them in public of their obligations.

Keep in mind that the "preparation" they're doing could be as simple as
scrubbing everything to make sure they don't accidentally release anything
proprietary. For example, even for open-source packages, it's conceivable that
they have developed some of their own internal tests that use proprietary
data, and so their internal copy of the packages would contain more than they
intend to release to the public.

~~~
prodigal_erik
Imagine what would happen if they said they still need a couple weeks to scrub
everything before they would be applying for FCC approval. This is just
another obligation that comes with the legal landscape they've settled into,
and they shouldn't have shipped without already meeting it.

~~~
ptomato
Bit different. The GPL doesn't require that the source code be _immediately_
available. And if they had just said "sure, we'll go ahead and send that out,
it will take a month to process and then however long mail takes", well...
there's absolutely no GPL violation there.

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ptomato
... No, not so much. They are abiding by at least the letter of the GPL, as
long as they _do_ send the code at some point. The GPL doesn't specify that
they have to ship you the source code _immediately_ , just that they have to
ship you the source code.

~~~
joshu
And now someone will have to do TCP/IP over smoke. Look what you've done.

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bestes
"This sounds suspiciously like "we didn't think about it early enough and now
we need to reproduce the soruce code that was used for actually compiling the
build that is installed on the devices"."

You have _no idea_ how much time and effort goes into tracking these licenses
and associated code.

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nudded
"For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or
for a fee, you must pass on to the recipients the same freedoms that you
received. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the source
code. And you must show them these terms so they know their rights."

straight from GPLv3. So Palm doesn't exactly follow the license does it?

~~~
brl
That's not part of the license conditions. You are quoting the preamble which
has almost zero legal importance.

