ASUS SplashTop and Phoenix Hyperspace infringing kernel copyright and GPL

[Stan Cunningham]

--- On Wed, 5/21/08, Chris DiBona <cdibona at gmail.com> wrote:
> From: Chris DiBona <cdibona at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: ASUS SplashTop and Phoenix Hyperspace infringing kernel copyright and GPL
> To: "Armijn Hemel" <armijn at uulug.nl>
> Cc: legal at lists.gpl-violations.org
> Date: Wednesday, May 21, 2008, 4:41 PM
> I hate to disagree (well, I don't) but start citing
> sections. There is
> no such clause in GPLv2. Please read all of section 3. Note
> it says
> "one of the following" and section b is what
> I'm talking about.

Has anyone on this list bought a Splashtop-containing ASUS motherboard or laptop and can they verify that section b of the GPLv2 is adhered to? The product must be accompanied by a written offer for the source code and the source code must include the complete Linux kernel and not just patches.

> 
> There is nothing wrong with holding people to the license,
> that's an
> important thing to do, but just making up things is wrong.
> 
> Chris
> 
>   3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work
> based on it,
> under Section 2) in object code or executable form under
> the terms of
> Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the
> following:
> 
>     a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding
> machine-readable
>     source code, which must be distributed under the terms
> of Sections
>     1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software
>     interchange; or,
> 
>     b) Accompany it with 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; or,
> 
>     c) Accompany it with the information you received as to
> the offer
>     to distribute corresponding source code.  (This
> alternative is
>     allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if
> you
>     received the program in object code or executable form
> with such
>     an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)