On 9/28/06, Mitul Limbani <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Hello,
Nagarjuna and other folks.
I know of a firm named Elitecore Technologies Pvt. Ltd. (the popular
CyberOAM fame) from Ahemdabad, they are using all the GPL products
without distributing source code.
They are using Squid as proxy cache server + Linux Kernel and number of
utilities that comprises of an entire Linux Operating System, and have
been encrypting the entire OS install CD without any mention of source
code download from any of their website.
I would like few other senior members from GPL Violation committee to
demand further clarification with this origanization.
I might be stating the obvious here but using GPL licensed software and making
changes and using them internally (like within a company) is okay. Google,
Yahoo, Amazon and other companies does this and this is not a violation of the
GNU GPL license. Also providing a hosted service such as hardened FTP server
space (with patches whose source code is not available) also does not
fall under
the purview of the GNU GPL license. It is perfectly legal to do that.
However if the company is (re-) distributing the binaries then they must provide
access to the source code. This access can be in different ways such as
via a source code cd, webserver or FTP server within reasonable amount of time
since distributing the binary. If they do not do this then they are in
violation.
You can report violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED] As
far as I know,
Harald Welte (of netfilter fame) works on it part-time so there might
be a delay
in the reply initially. Also I am not sure if you are planning to sue
them, whether
GPL-violations might be able to monetraily help and that too in India.
But do go ahead and report this violation. For all you know it might
be precedent
setting in India.
-- Vinayak
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