[BusyBox] Licence
david stevenson david at avoncliff.com
Wed Dec 10 18:03:10 UTC 2003
Eric
I note your hall of shame page.
I do not know what the companies listed have released, but I would like to
confirm that a commercial embedded product can include both busybox and non
gpl code.
My understanding is any modifications or linked code would have to be gpl, but
a separate standalone program, could be called from a busybox init without
being seen as a derived work. Is this correct?
David
[BusyBox] Licence
Erik Andersen andersen at codepoet.org
Wed Dec 10 19:18:53 UTC 2003
On Wed Dec 10, 2003 at 06:03:10PM +0000, david stevenson wrote:
> Eric I note your hall of shame page. I do not know what the
> companies listed have released, but I would like to confirm
> that a commercial embedded product can include both busybox and
> non gpl code.
>
> My understanding is any modifications or linked code would have
> to be gpl, but a separate standalone program, could be called
> from a busybox init without being seen as a derived work. Is
> this correct?
You are correct.
A commercial product can certainly contain BusyBox. I consider
the use of BusyBox in commercial products a good thing. The fact
that a product contains BusyBox does not in any way restrict said
product from containing other non GPL code. Just because you use
BusyBox and/or run on Linux you do not need to give away all your
code.
But you are however obligated to distribute the complete source
code to the exact version of BusyBox distributed with your
product, as well as the complete source code to the exact version
of the Linux kernel, and the complete source code for any other
GPL licenses components contained within your product.
Some people choose to distribute the source on a CD accompanying
their product. Others choose to simply include a blurb within
their product docs that says something like:
This product uses software licensed under Open Source
licenses such as the GPL. You have the right to acquire this
source code, change it, and re-distribute it. The warranty
on our product is only applicable however if you are using
the official firmware distributed by us. The source for the
Open Source software contained in this product is available
as a free download here . If you would like a copy of
the source code for this product on a CD, please send your
request to along with $9.99 to cover our cost
to prepare and mail the CD to you.
If you distribute your products' firmware online, you should also
make the source code for the Open Source components such as
BusyBox available online.
Does that make things a bit more clear as to what is and is not
legal?
-Erik
--
Erik B. Andersen http://codepoet-consulting.com/
--This message was written using 73% post-consumer electrons--
[BusyBox] Licence
Paul Fox pgf at brightstareng.com
Wed Dec 10 19:26:41 UTC 2003
> > I note your hall of shame page.
i'm curious as to how this page was derived. most embedded systems
don't give many clues as to where their code comes from, and even then,
a customer would have to ask the company in order to determine that
the source was in use and that the GPL code was denied them. is this
what happened?
paul
=---------------------
paul fox, pgf at brightstareng.com
[BusyBox] Licence
Erik Andersen andersen at codepoet.org
Wed Dec 10 20:18:29 UTC 2003
On Wed Dec 10, 2003 at 02:26:41PM -0500, Paul Fox wrote:
> > > I note your hall of shame page.
>
> i'm curious as to how this page was derived. most embedded systems
> don't give many clues as to where their code comes from, and even then,
> a customer would have to ask the company in order to determine that
> the source was in use and that the GPL code was denied them. is this
> what happened?
In most cases, inquiring minds grabbed firmware updates and
extracted the contents,
-Erik
--
Erik B. Andersen http://codepoet-consulting.com/
--This message was written using 73% post-consumer electrons--
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