Note: this is really a topic for the eCos maintainers (of which I am
included), so I've cc'd them to this reply. (sorry for the duplication)
On Mon, 2005-01-31 at 14:43 +0000, CLUGSTON wrote:
Dear Gary,
I have purchased a VIPER board from Arcom UK that came pre-flashed
with Redboot. There was a problem with the Flash which ment in the
end that I had to return the board, but this problem lead me to inquire
after the source code for Redboot. It turns out that they wanted £100
or about $180 USD for a 'Reboot Development' CD-Rom. I explained that
by my understanding of the GPL that there where obliged to make the
modifications available to anyone, especially anyone who has payed
for a board with it embedded into it. They said that their engineers
had spent the time making it unique to the Viper and therefore they
have to charge for it.
Can you give me any clarification on whether or not they are allowed
to do this or not before I purchase the CD?
Sorry for the direct email, but I didn't want to disscuss this on the
mailing list. I have included below a section of a similar discussion
from the list about 18mths ago that there was no follow up to.
This is definitely *not* allowed under the GPL. They can charge you a
fee, but only to the limit of what it costs them to produce the sources
on a distribution medium. From section 3 of GPL (rev 2):
3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it,
under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of
Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable
source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections
1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your
cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete
machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be
distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
customarily used for software interchange; or,
c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer
to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is
allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you
received the program in object code or executable form with such
an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
Thanks for any information you can offer.
I don't know how you can push them on this though. Perhaps the other
maintainers can make some suggestions.