Deutsche Telekom W700V GPL violation

[ard]

Hello,

On Sat, Jun 14, 2008 at 02:00:16AM +0200, Sebastian Gottschall wrote:
> [ipriv]:    Usage: iwpriv interface [private-command [private-arguments]]
>                interface [roam {on|off}]
>                  interface [port {ad-hoc|managed|N}]
>  Not yet implemented...
> The command %s need exactly %d argument...
> Interface doesn't accept private ioctl...
>  %s (%X): %s
>    Invalid command : %s
>   Invalid private ioctl definition for
> (and others)
>
> which shows that the linux wireless tools are compiled in

As others said: I don't think that is evidence. It merely states
that they are using an OS that also implements ioctl's and uses
wireless.
Besides that: if it uses iwpriv in some way: that code has been
around for so long that you might be able to trace it back to a
non GPL fork.

> additionally the vendor ported madwifi to his own operating system and  
> included the wireless extension interface which is part of the linux  
> this can be proved with other text patterns too

Well, madwifi for one is licensed under f.i. BSD. It doesn't
steal any extension interface (you actually can't steal an
interface, unless you believe in patents).

> since the firmware uses slot of linux based drivers (non gpl drivers  
> like madwifi and others), its also very likelly that other parts of the  
> linux kernel are stolen

Most vendors deliver drivers that can be used under a
licensing "as you see fit", since good support means it will be
sold more and that means $$$.

> to build up this non gpl'ed operating system

There is a difference between stealing and thinking alike.

> for sure there is no sourcecode provided for anything

But you have the binaries. Which I wanted to check too, but I
have no way of examining the .bin file.
Can you make the extracted file available? I am also curious.
Next to that, you might be able to document your findings in a
wiki. Do not use the wording "stolen" in any way, just show the
parts were you think some code has been (ab)used.

As others say (and especially since we regularly see
violation reports which in fact were no violations): we don't
want to see SCO cases ;-). I think it is better to let a
GPL-violation go, than to have a bad image.

Regards,
Ard van Breemen