Why doesn't VIZIO just comply?

Posted Jan 9, 2026 2:46 UTC (Fri) by marcH (subscriber, #57642)
Parent article: SFC v. VIZIO: who can enforce the GPL?

> but lawsuits are time-consuming and expensive,...

There is a mystery that no trial or judge will ever solve: why doesn't VIZIO just comply and provide the darn GPLv2 sources? They even tried already! So did they change their mind later? Is there some "secret sauce" covered by the GPLv2 that they never intended to release? Or discovered later?

Did the SFC provide some list of missing sources, compilation issues, etc.? Also, did they publish whatever incomplete sources they already got from VIZIO? Or maybe not yet to avoid any risk for the case?

Exceptionally, I'm accepting rumours in the answers :-D But "quality" rumours only!

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Why doesn't VIZIO just comply?

Posted Jan 9, 2026 4:57 UTC (Fri) by IanKelling (subscriber, #89418) [Link] (12 responses)

Hanlon's razor: they don't have the sources and don't know how much effort it would take to find them, if they can be found at all.

Why doesn't VIZIO just comply?

Posted Jan 9, 2026 5:59 UTC (Fri) by felixfix (subscriber, #242) [Link] (4 responses)

This sounds likely. I have worked at many companies where resurrecting sources from even a year earlier would have been impossible. It might have been possible to get close by trial and error, but when you consider that the compiler and ancillary sources and libraries may also have changed, it sounds like the kind of nightmare requests I dreaded, partly for having to explain to managerial nitwits what all the problems were.

Why doesn't VIZIO just comply?

Posted Jan 9, 2026 22:38 UTC (Fri) by jengelh (subscriber, #33263) [Link]

>companies where resurrecting sources from even a year earlier would have been impossible

Section 3b says: """a written offer, valid for at least three years""". If unable or unwilling to be bothered to keep records for 3 years, the way out for the seller is sec. 3a: """Accompany it with the complete [...] code""". Doing neither is just lazy, and morally punishable.

Why doesn't VIZIO just comply?

Posted Jan 11, 2026 9:22 UTC (Sun) by cpitrat (subscriber, #116459) [Link] (2 responses)

No, this sounds unlikely. The article explicitly says that the SFC continued to purchase new hardware to see if the situation evolved. I think they would have been happy with a "we don't manage to provide sources for the 2022 appliance but here are the complete sources for the 2025 one".

Why doesn't VIZIO just comply?

Posted Jan 14, 2026 20:12 UTC (Wed) by IanKelling (subscriber, #89418) [Link] (1 responses)

> I think they would have been happy with a "we don't manage to provide sources for the 2022 appliance but here are the complete sources for the 2025 one".

They, as in, SFC? You are mistaken.

Why doesn't VIZIO just comply?

Posted Jan 14, 2026 20:36 UTC (Wed) by felixfix (subscriber, #242) [Link]

Not necessarily. Apologies, sincere mea culpas, and concrete steps to prevent further missteps go a long way towards defusing anger. Courts have been known to take that into account. And in a practical sense, accepting such steps encourages more cooperation in future cases, while being a shrill absolutist wins no favors and only encourages desperate and vindictive resistance from future transgressors.

One need only look at the difference in combat zones or current ICE ventures to see it play out in real life.

Why doesn't VIZIO just comply?

Posted Jan 9, 2026 10:29 UTC (Fri) by jani (subscriber, #74547) [Link]

Either that, or they have another contractual obligation with higher stakes to keep parts of the source secret. And some developers somewhere made the mistake of bundling that with GPL code to just ship it.

Why doesn't VIZIO just comply?

Posted Jan 14, 2026 15:42 UTC (Wed) by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454) [Link] (5 responses)

They suck and they know they suck and they do not have the faintest idea on the amount of effort it would take to comply and they do not want to in the first place and they despise the SFC.

Do not underestimate the amount of company money an executive is ready to burn to avoid complying with “external” demands. These guys are used to lick the boots of the shareholders and despise everyone else. Companies make expensive mistakes all the time just because being smart conflicted with some manager’s idea of the pecking order.

Why doesn't VIZIO just comply?

Posted Jan 14, 2026 16:56 UTC (Wed) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (4 responses)

In the short term yes, very likely.

After many years of legal struggles reported in the media, things start being different. Shareholders read the news too, even the least competent ones.

Why doesn't VIZIO just comply?

Posted Jan 14, 2026 20:16 UTC (Wed) by IanKelling (subscriber, #89418) [Link] (2 responses)

> Shareholders read the news too

There are no shareholders of Vizio. LWN is doing a favor to Walmart and arguably it's readers by still referring to the historical company named Vizio, but it isn't accurate and I personally don't appreciate it. The entire article should be s/Vizio/Walmart/.

Company names

Posted Jan 14, 2026 20:22 UTC (Wed) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] (1 responses)

We used the same name as appears in the court filings, including in the SFC's complaint. To have done anything else would have been confusing at best. I don't quite see how Walmart would benefit from this..?

Company names

Posted Jan 15, 2026 7:40 UTC (Thu) by IanKelling (subscriber, #89418) [Link]

> I don't quite see how Walmart would benefit from this..?

Vizio is just a brand name owned by Walmart now. There are 1000 reasons Walmart wouldn't want to be known as the one funding this lawsuit. Remember that Microsoft funded SCO lawsuits and then they put out an ad campaign about how they <3 Linux? Don't be dense.

Why doesn't VIZIO just comply?

Posted Jan 15, 2026 14:28 UTC (Thu) by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454) [Link]

After many years your are squarely in sunk cost fallacy land. The sunk cost being not company money (executives do not care) but the reputation of all the managers that let it degenerate into trial instead of complying with the license.

Why doesn't VIZIO just comply?

Posted Jan 9, 2026 8:01 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (1 responses)

The problem is probably (a) they don't have the source (quite likely if it's an OEM TV), and (b) as far as the SFC is concerned, they tried in bad faith.

If they'd come clean and said "We didn't know, our supplier hasn't given us the source, please help us comply" the SFC wouldn't have taken this action, but I think Visio has a reputation for ignoring/fobbing off requests for source, which is why they were targetted.

Cheers,
Wol

Why doesn't VIZIO just comply?

Posted Jan 9, 2026 13:14 UTC (Fri) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

> If they'd come clean and said "We didn't know, our supplier hasn't given us the source, please help us comply" the SFC wouldn't have taken this action, but I think Visio has a reputation for ignoring/fobbing off requests for source, which is why they were targetted.

No, Vizio would never actually say that, for the simple reason that it's an admission of guilt. And per the SFC this suit was filed after 2-3 years of attempts to go about this the nice way.

Vizio is shipping GPL-covered binaries; *they* have the obligation to produce the complete corresponding source code one in one of the ways enumerated in the GPL. "But we don't have access to it!" doesn't absolve them of that legal requirement.

Why doesn't VIZIO just comply?

Posted Jan 9, 2026 17:52 UTC (Fri) by tbird20d (subscriber, #1901) [Link] (5 responses)

I would like to see the list of sources that the SFC considers missing or incomplete. My guess is that one sticking point for the SFC has been the program used to install signed firmware image onto the TV. Now that the judge has ruled that reinstallation is not a requirement of the GPL, it may be that such an installation program is out-of-scope. That doesn't mean that all installation scripts are out-of-scope, but that one might be, for a few different reasons.

If there's more missing than that, it would be interesting to get the details.

Why doesn't VIZIO just comply?

Posted Jan 11, 2026 10:26 UTC (Sun) by ssmith32 (subscriber, #72404) [Link] (2 responses)

As far as the trial goes, hat seems unlikely - at least per the article, the code vizio provided didn't _compile_ so installation isn't the sticking point (yet). But as a general idea, I agree.

My understanding was what the judge ruled out was not reinstallation per se, but rather that reinstallation must result in a working TV.

The more likely reason for vizio not providing the source is far simpler - if the SFC can get a complete set of source code, as defined by the GPL, they know that someone will eventually figure out how to make a working reinstall.

And since it is likely that vizio, as with many TV companies, particularly ones that don't compete on quality, see advertising as the next thing to "unlock growth", having users able to turn their smart TV into a dumb one, or worse, a smart one sans advertising, the ability to reinstall represents an strategic business threat.

Unfortunately, in the US judicial system, the true matter being debated can only be determined by the big hole that no one is talking about.

The GPL was written to, fundamentally, ensure end users retained control of their hardware. Unfortunately, in this scenario, this runs smack up against the business model most TV companies are pursuing nowadays: advertising.

Why doesn't VIZIO just comply?

Posted Jan 11, 2026 10:37 UTC (Sun) by ssmith32 (subscriber, #72404) [Link]

My bad, just catching up on LWN, this was already covered, and covered far, far better, in a previous article - a big thanks to LWN for these last two wonderfully written and nuanced articles on the subject.

Why doesn't VIZIO just comply?

Posted Jan 12, 2026 2:31 UTC (Mon) by jepsis (subscriber, #130218) [Link]

Doing advertising in the Linux kernel??

Why doesn't VIZIO just comply?

Posted Jan 12, 2026 23:51 UTC (Mon) by ossguy (subscriber, #82918) [Link] (1 responses)

Sure, there is lots missing beyond any of that. Vizio has at least half a dozen kernel modules whose modinfo shows "license: GPL" that they haven't provided any source code for, as an example, among many other binaries where source code is missing.

Why doesn't VIZIO just comply?

Posted Jan 15, 2026 1:29 UTC (Thu) by ocrete (subscriber, #107180) [Link]

Is there somewhere a list of what those modules are?

I'm curious to see what SoCs they're using.