Amusing article about busybox

[Felipe Contreras]

On Tue, Feb 7, 2012 at 8:35 PM, Bradley M. Kuhn <bkuhn at ebb.org> wrote:
> Denys Vlasenko forwarded a comment from Tim Bird,
> which was Posted Feb 1, 2012 6:52 UTC (Wed) by tbird20d on LWN:
>>> Tim Bird says this: No. You misunderstand what "unrelated products"
>>> means. It means all the TV sets and digital cameras, which we
>>> properly release GPL source for. What I don't want is for some
>>> trivial mistake by GPL amateurs at some ODM supplier to some obscure
>>> product group to result in SFC having review and veto authority over
>>> our major Linux-based product lines. This is simply unacceptable.
>
> I think Tim is pretty confused here, as I can't relate what he's saying
> above with Conservancy's usual enforcement work.  Tim has never been involved
> with a Conservancy enforcement action, so I believe Tim's retelling half-true
> stories that he's heard elsewhere, and there's a misunderstanding about
> what was required.

Really? So Sony can violate the GPL in some small product, and it
would not affect other product lines, like TVs?

>>> ...Sony has standards in place that product teams are supposed to
>>> follow for GPL compliance. Unfortunately, I can't be sure that every
>>> team is following them, or won't make a mistake. In particular, I can
>>> 't be sure of this for sub-contractors. Sub-contractors may claim
>>> they have given you corresponding source, but have not. It happens.
>
> I think it's somewhat strange for a large company to say: "We can't
> control what my company does".  They have resources thousands upon
> thousands of times greater than Conservancy, yet we can find the time to
> review their product and give them feedback.  Surely they have the
> resources to fix their compliance problems?

You must not know how a big company works. It's not a matter of
resources; it's a matter of control and organization. The bigger a
company is, the more difficult it is to have tight control over all
areas.

I can imagine Sony TVs having a policy of complying with the GPL, and
some other product line having an entirely different opinion, and
without a company-wide stance to open source, the communication
between SFC and Sony lawyers wouldn't be fruitful, and Sony TVs would
be affected negatively, even if that division did everything right.

Cheers.

-- 
Felipe Contreras