Wouldn't Cybits also violating GPL? [LWN.net]

Wouldn't Cybits also violating GPL?

Posted Nov 3, 2011 9:24 UTC (Thu) by mchehab (subscriber, #41156)
Parent article: ELCE11: Till Jaeger on AVM vs. Cybits

> Surf-Sitter is installed on the router by the user downloading firmware from AVM, running a program that modifies the Linux kernel in the firmware and adding a user-space program to it, then installing the modified firmware onto the router.

I don't know Cybits patch, but, if it is modifying the Kernel to export some of the kernel internal structs to be used on userspace, they're likely not using the interfaces intended to be seen on Userspace. So, their userspace stuff may actually be a GPL derivated work.

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Wouldn't Cybits also violating GPL?

Posted Nov 3, 2011 12:25 UTC (Thu) by butlerm (subscriber, #13312) [Link]

That is the "its a derived work if I say it is a derived work" standard, which certainly hasn't been upheld by any court anywhere. In this case though, I don't think it matters - they have to comply with the basic terms of the license in order to distribute at all.