Kmart Android tablets and the GPL

Matthew Garrett

July 29, 2010

The Augen Android tablet [ http://blogs.mykmart.com/2010/07/augen-7-inch-android-tablet-update.html ] being sold in Kmart stores at the moment is (shockingly) running a 2.6.29 kernel and Android 2.1 on top of that. It's also (shockingly) currently impossible to get hold of the source code for the kernel - Augen (whose corporate address is a small unit in Florida) say that the software comes installed on the units by the OEM and they don't have any access to the source either. This isn't an excuse, of course, and they say that they hope to have it on their website within the next few days - but even so, it seems that the Android device GPL violation trend [ http://projectgus.com/2010/07/open-source-in-android-tablets/ ] is still on course. It'll be interesting to see what the long-term outcome of this kind of violation is, especially with these devices increasingly being sold by mainstream stores.

17:51:00