ASUS SplashTop and Phoenix Hyperspace infringing kernel copyright and GPL

[Joseph Heenan]

Arnoud Engelfriet wrote:
> Armijn Hemel wrote:
>> On Tue, 2008-05-20 at 14:55 -0700, Chris DiBona wrote:
>>> No one has mentioned if they have the documentation requirement
>>> filled. People can distribute whatever they want if the offer by mail
>>> is in place under v2.  I mean, I think it is easier to just offer the
>>> full required source on a mirror , but I think that providng a patch
>>> set and a link to kernel.org , again provided you are satisfying the
>>> doc requirement, is fine by the text of the license.
>> The license would only allow that in certain circumstances (GPLv2,
>> section 3c). The GPLv2 license talks about 'complete corresponding
>> source code', 'source code', etc., but nothing about patches.
> 
> I do not think it's compliant with GPLv2 to only distribute patches
> and refer people to the original source. You have to make available
> source for anything you distribute in binary form.

I think the point was that it is absolutely fine to make patches 
available via a website without making the full source available. 
*However*, if you do that, the object/executable code must be 
accompanied by:

"a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third 
party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing 
source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the 
corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 
1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange".

ie. you can't just point at a link that offers patches and say "ooo, bad 
company!" without seeing how the binaries have been distributed.

Joseph