Interpreted language(s) in the base
Dag-Erling Smørgrav
des at des.no
Thu Aug 19 09:13:23 UTC 2010
Luigi Rizzo <rizzo at iet.unipi.it> writes:
> Having sources in some fantastic new language 'fuffa' and no 'fuffa2c'
> tool is almost as bad as having no source (in fact, it is like the
> joke of supplying source for the GPL'd software in your brand new
> LCD tv or appliance. I'd like to know who will ever be able to build
> an updated image and upload it to the appliance)
Actually, the GPL requires that you provide the source in a buildable
condition (even if you only ship patches), and most mid-to-high-end AV
equipment these days will load and run (or flash) software from a USB
mass storage device or CD / DVD. That's certainly the case for my Sony
Bravia TV (http://products.sel.sony.com/opensource/source_bivl.shtml)
and my NAD Bluray player (not Linux, AFAIK).
Furthermore, the GPLv3 forbids the use of GPLv3 software on devices that
can't be flashed by the user (the "TiVo clause"), although the bits that
are most commonly used in embedded devices (Linux itself and busybox)
are still under GPLv2.
DES
--
Dag-Erling Smørgrav - des at des.no
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