Dlink probably violate GPL again with their DIR-45X ?

[Macpaul Lin]

Hi Peter,

2007/9/18, Peter Roozemaal <mathfox at xs4all.nl>:
>
> Macpaul Lin wrote:
>
> > I've bought a DIR-450 and has downloaded its source tar ball from
> > ftp://ftp.dlink.com/GPL/DIR-450/dir45x_sourcecode.tgz But I've found
> > they did release the complete compilation environment.
>
> Did or did not?

Sorry I have a typo here.
They "didn't" release the tar ball with "complete compilation environment"

> And I've opened the box and found its flash is a 8MB "MX
> > 29LV640BTTC". However their kernel source says it is a 4MB flash.
> > #$@#$ "/dlink/dir45x/Kernel/linux2425/drivers/mtd/maps/physmap.c" <--
> > the mtd memory partition. They just release the source of kernel and
> > several well-known GPL applications.
>
> Which is much better than several other companies do.


Yup, but if they did violate the GPL is a violation fact.
There is no business about other company.

> They didn't release the source of the toolchians.
>
> Is not required under the GPL.


Even they released the toolchain but they did release the document of
"how to build the source with those toolchain".

Since toolchains comes with gcc and binutils. I beleived those
toolchains are exactly GPL.
They didn't release the document of "how to build those toolchains from source".
So it's hard to try every single parameters to made these toolchain
workable with the whole tarball.


> They also didn't release the compilation configuration such as main
> > Makefile so I couldn't build the kernel with correct configuration.
>
> What do you mean here?


In their released tar source.
They only give the kernel, kernel's Makefile.
Some application source, like iptable.
But they didn't told you how to build a firmware image from those released
files.
Even you'll don't know how to create a suitable rom filesystem for DIR-450.
Since DIR-450 is a embedded device, you must required some tool to build the
device adoptable firmware image.
They didn't told you how grab things up. They even not let you to rebuild
the source then to upload the rebuilded firmware to DIR-450.

Since each firmware image of embedded device have some image header
structure carrying some information. Such as kernel's length, kernel's
checksum, product model, etc.
D-Link didn't release such kind of source or tools let you to rebuild the
firmware image. They even didn't tell you such kind of information.


> They also didn't release the executable tools for me to make a image
> > header.
> >
> > I have a question first. Do they violated GPL under such kind of
> > situation? Could anyone here help me to push them to release a
> > complete buildable environment?
>
> If I were you I'ld first try to find as much documentation as possible
> on the company's website and try to comprehend it. There may be people
> on the net that did a build of the software.


Ha, That's impossible.
I'm also a software engineer of an embedded router so I could understand
what they hide but that should be GPL or something should be released.
Because I've downloaded all of the firmware binary for DIR-450 from their
website.
I have even use some hack tools like hexdump trying to split-off the image
header, kernel, romfs.
The size of each firmware image is more then 4M bytes.
But according to the source code and configuration in their release.
That's not possible to use a 4MB
flash device with firmware image larger than 4MBytes.
When I opened the box of this device, I've found
the the model number of that flash it makes me convince that
D-link didn't release the "ture" information. They just released the
wrong information.


If that doesn't help you could contact the company and ask for help. As
> far as I can see now the company tries hard to be in compliance with the
> GPL; praise them for that and then ask them to clarify some things.
>
> There is no reason to anger companies that are friendly to GPL software.


That why I'm anger because GPL software is friendly to those ocmpanies
but they didn't friendly to GPL software/community.


Greetings,
>         Peter.
>
-- 
Best regards,
Macpaul Lin

-- 
Best regards,
Macpaul Lin
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