Re: SFLC's GPL court enforcement -- track record

[Tim Smith]

In article <E_qik.9628$cg.7900@fe085.usenetserver.com>,
 Hyman Rosen <hyrosen@mail.com> wrote:
> Alexander Terekhov wrote:
> > I've obtained a copy of 4.0.16.1.56.0.10.7-MI424WR.rmt from
> > http://www2.verizon.net/micro/actiontec/actiontec.asp and can confirm
> > that this transaction yielded no "written offer to provide the source"
> > whatsoever. Go try it yourself.
> 
> Have you installed the firmware on your router?
> Perhaps in the unpacked file system that results,
> you can find the offer.

At the risk of being overly picky, would that count?  That requirement 
is that the written offer "accompany" the distribution.  The file format 
does not appear to be any of the common archive formats, so there 
doesn't appear to be any reasonable way for most people to unpack it.

Apparently, some Linksys routers also use .rmt files for firmware, and I 
did find one page where someone described a bit of the format, based on 
reverse engineering.  Assuming that both routers are using the same .rmt 
format, it appears that there is a gzip'ed image of an ext2 filesystem 
inside.

However, if I take Actiontec's .rmt file, and find every place inside it 
that has the right signature to be gzip'ed data, and start trying to 
gunzip from there, it fails.  The data at all those locations reports 
various errors that indicate invalid gzip data.

This, I would say that IF there is a written notice in there, it does 
not "accompany" the distribution of the GPL software--it is *part* of 
the distribution.  To "accompany", I'd say it has to either be a 
separate file that comes with the GPL file(s), or it has to be bundle 
with the GPL file(s) in an archive format that is reasonably common 
(zip, tarball, etc).


-- 
--Tim Smith