tomhudson's Journal: I see the natives are restless again ...

More noise about how "evil" it is to replace busybox with MIT/BSD-licensed code. http://laforge.gnumonks.org/weblog/2012/02/index.html

The fact is that what the SFC was doing - requiring the source for ALL software, not must modified busybox - was illegal (thanks to Barnes and Noble vs Microsoft for reminding us that you cannot do this sort of "tying").

Besides, we now have so many ways to work around the GPL legally that it's becoming moot. For example - load the original into memory, patch the memory image, then run. Copyright law (on which the GPL depends) only applies to works in a fixed medium - in-memory images don't count - so you don't have to distribute either the code for doing the in-memory patches. or the code for doing the patching. Any part of the license that says you cannot modify the in-memory image is void, as it goes beyond the rights granted to the copyright holder by copyright law.

In other words, the GPL is "defective by design".

Happy Valentine's Day [tt]