Deutsche Telekom W700V GPL violation

[Felix Fietkau]

ard wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 20, 2008 at 01:05:19PM +0200, Felix Fietkau wrote:
>> ard wrote:
>>> I haven't done anything more than string -a the binary :-).
>>> However, the string -a leads me to believe that specific
>>> mips/amazon pci initialisation code is used, which probably is
>>> derived from a standard linux pci initialisation code , and
>>> therefore should be GPL. That alone justifies calling it a
>>> violation, although I think that it needs more technical
>>> disection/proof than just strings -a. (Like: the assembly code
>>> will probably contain enough hints to certain loops and such).
>> The strings that I pasted were not from the amazon arch pci code, they 
>> were from drivers/pci/pci.c
> 
> Ah, but the message strings that I found in that binary were also
> the strings I found in the openwrt mips/amazone repository.
It's not really from OpenWrt itself. The OpenWrt code and this code are 
simply derived from the same (IMHO dual-licensed, at least for those parts 
that are not derived from GPL stuff) code.

>> Sure, if you want to follow up on this, then you should look at the  
>> assembly code. But the chances of those specific strings appearing in the 
>> binary without any of the code around them are very close to zero.
> 
> I think so too, but just text strings in a binary is for me like quote
> rights. If the assembly also reveals the same source, then it is
> definitive a derivative.
> 
> But I think that work is only necessary if T-online (was it?)
> refuses to cooperate.
> 
> The biggest question is to cooperate with whom, since probably
> none of us is author of that specific piece of code.
PCI.c from 2.4 has the following copyright:
/*
  *  $Id: pci.c,v 1.91 1999/01/21 13:34:01 davem Exp $
  *
  *  PCI Bus Services, see include/linux/pci.h for further explanation.
  *
  *  Copyright 1993 -- 1997 Drew Eckhardt, Frederic Potter,
  *  David Mosberger-Tang
  *
  *  Copyright 1997 -- 2000 Martin Mares <mj at ucw.cz>
  */

maybe somebody should try to contact those guys

- Felix