Cisco isn't malicious -- just organizationally-challenged

Cisco isn't malicious -- just organizationally-challenged

If not, a simple ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ link somewhere in the license documentation would be (nearly) enough...

Except it's not as your "nearly" comment alludes to. The responsibility of ensuring the source code is available resides with the entity distributing the binaries. I suppose if they made arrangements with a third party to ensure the source would be available for the next 3 years they might get away with it.

The company I'm currently working for distributes a product which is essentially Ubuntu + it's own proprietary user space. As it wanted to control the updates that go out we mirrored the Ubuntu release and made an apt repository available. When I was building the server I made sure we mirror the source packages as well so apt-get source will work. You get exactly the same source code as you would downloading from Ubuntu's servers (modulo the snapshot date) but this way ensures we are in compliance.

If companies can have lawyers looking at the contracts they sign with proprietary vendors why can't they offer the same care and attention to detail when dealing with FLOSS code? It's not rocket science.