Australian Telco Telstra Complies With GPL 90
An anonymous reader writes "Late last year, Australia's biggest telco Telstra was sharply criticised for using GPL'd code in several of its new products — but not publicly distributing changes it made to the code when doing so. However, it looks as though the company has now come clean, publishing a source code CD of the files changed in its development effort and acknowledging the GPL and Lesser GPL. It's good to see companies responding to the open source community this way and engaging — makes a change from the past!"
Re:Just for clarity (Score:5, Informative)
They're only distributing the files they changed? Then that's not complying with the GPL. The GPL very clearly requires "complete corresponding machine-readable source code". Basically, if you get a product with binaries of GPL licensed code, then you must be able to recreate those binaries from just the files that the vendor made available. Just pointing to someone else's distribution of the source is not allowed (there's only one exception: you got the code in binary form yourself and redistribute it non-commercially).
Can I suggest reading the article next time? It would have been quicker than typing up your post. From the article:
Gratton last week said he had requested and received a copy of the CD. “It looks like a complete GPL source release, all of the GPL components I identified seem to be there and there are build tools covering the BSP (board support package) for the SoC (system-on-a-chip) in the T-Hub,” he said.
Re:"Engaging"? (Score:5, Informative)
How is this anything but an eventual response to an internal snafu which could've resulted in (much more expensive) litigious actions?
The GPL violations, and the resulting denial of compliance (for years, wasn't it?) was nothing but bad press. In contrast, had they admitted to the snafu right off the bat and addressed it promptly (a couple months? 6 on the outside?) it'd have been another thing entirely - the press would've been positive. GNU 'compliance' types just want the (free to the violators) adherence to the GPL - they don't care about the money or licensing aspect of it.
In my mind, this almost says less than doing nothing about it at all - "oh, we've got another release, let's include those license files and source code this time".
(What do you want to bet the code is significantly aged and with numerous vulnerabilities known for a long time?)
Actually, it wasn't Telstra who was doing the wrong thing in the first place. The company that makes the T-Hub device, that included the GPL code, and that hadn't released their code is Sagemcom. Telstra just re-sell the device with their sticker on it. (Very much like how iiNet sell Belkin-made modems under the brandname "BoB".) Is a shop selling physical objects a GPL licensee if the manufacturer of one of its physical object happened to include some GPL code? Would Wal-Mart be in breach if they'd stuck one of these on their shelves? In this story, Telstra has put pressure on Sagemcom to make the code available and comply with the GPL. I think that's a good outcome, and I can see why it would take some time for Telstra to comply -- they didn't have the code to be able to release it.