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ASUS Makes Statement on Eee PC Source Code Violation

M

malware

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ASUSTeK has attempted to clarify recent accusations that it has violated the GPL (general public license) by failing to provide source code for the modifications it made to the Linux-based operating system (OS) shipping on its Eee PCs. ASUS stated that it has always respected the spirit of the GPL and the failure to make the source code available was due to an omission by one of the company's software technicians. The company is working on publishing all the related source code onto Linux forums and will provide downloads soon. ASUS had provided a download on its web site which it labeled as the source code of the Eee PC's Linux OS, however, customers with experience in the open source community recently determined that the file did not in fact contain the entire source code as required by the GPL license leading to accusations that the company was in violation of the spirit of the open source community as well as copyright law.

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That's a very swift response from ASUS. They admitted an oversight. And they are indicating that they will NOT ONLY honor the spirit of the GPL, but make more info available to the community. Top marks so far.

Maybe I will look into the Eee once they get a decent screen size version out next year.
 
That's an interesting question. "Who" would actually sue, and who would the payment be paid to? Yes, interesting problem.

As it is, if ASUS do and they have indicated, then I think a legal case against them, would in itself, be against the whole spirit of GPL. The import point is that code-on-code cannot be proprietary and it is made available to the public. So long as ASUS do that, then all is OK.

BUT IT THERE A TIME LIMIT? I'm not sure that GPL indicates HOW QUICKLY the source needs to be published. Answers on a postcard please.
 
ASUS will do the right thing, but the Linux Community is being stupid. I bet the rules state you must publish both at the same time, the source and the actual OS.
 
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