Howdie,
First, I am not a lawyer, but I do have some experience with these things. I was also just present in a BOF session in OLS which discussed GPLed violations with specific regards to embedded systems and was hosted by Harald Welte, current IPTables maintainer that has just won several off courst and one on court law suites related to GPL violation in embedded devices. (see http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20040725150736471 for example).
Omer Zak wrote:
Where can I find information about the following issues:
1. Using GPLed software on embedded hardware, where the software is on ROM and cannot be modified by regular users.
There is a legal view that the GPL actually mandates you to allow the end user to run modified software on the original device. Mind you - this not my view, it is the view of Harald Welte (see above) lawyers. In the eyes of those that holds this view, you are mandated to provide a way to replace the GPLed software on the device with your own version and still have a working device. This includes the duty to supply any utility, encryption keys needed to sign new versions(!) and so on and so forth needed to do this.
> 2. What happens if the system must not be modifiable by normal users due to regulatory issues (such as WiFi cards or medical equipment), but the
> manufactures wishes to use GPLed software to implement parts of the system software.
That's very simple: if you are not allowed to give users the ability to change the software, you are not allowed to distribute said GPLed software. Pure and simple.
Once again, the views above are not my own, I am simply repeating views by the legal experts (mind you, in Germen law!) that managed to get the GPLed enforced in a Germen court in an embedded system case.
Cheers, Gilad
-- Gilad Ben-Yossef <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Codefidence. A name you can trust(TM) http://www.codefidence.com
"Those that can, do. Those that can't, complain".
-- Linus Torvalds
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