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authorEric Andersen2004-01-02 09:08:45 +0000
committerEric Andersen2004-01-02 09:08:45 +0000
commit8f3eb1dbab647e0ceca33f573da68ad3f2aa7086 (patch)
tree6a717006a955754cd68b6d306d57ddbd57565f59 /docs/busybox.net/license.html
parenta43faccbdebe37668390e26ff099faf56e1be6e5 (diff)
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Add some details on exactly how to comply with the GPL
-Erik
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+
+<h3>The GPL BusyBox license</h3>
+
+There has been some confusion in the past as to exactly what is
+required to safely distribute GPL'd software such as BusyBox as
+part of a product. To ensure that there is no confusion
+whatsoever, this page attempts to summarize what you should do to
+ensure you do not accidentally violate the law.
+
+<p>
+
+<p>
+
+BusyBox is licensed under the GNU General Public License , which
+is generally just abbreviated simply as the GPL license, or
+just the GPL. <a href="/products.html">Anyone thinking of shipping
+BusyBox as part of a product</a> should be familiar with the
+licensing terms under which they are allowed to use and
+distribute BusyBox. You are advised to take a look over the
+
+<ul>
+<li><a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html">full text of
+the GNU General Public License</a>, and
+<li><a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html">
+Frequently Asked Questions about the GNU GPL</a>
+</ul>
+to be sure you (and your lawyers) fully understand them.
+
+<p>
+
+The following is a quick summary for the impatient. If you
+carefully follow these steps, it will ensure that you are 100%
+authorized to ship BusyBox with your product, and have no reason
+to worry about lawsuits or being listed on the <a
+href="/shame.html">BusyBox Hall of Shame</a> page. You will be
+able to sleep peacefully at night knowing you have fulfilled all
+your licensing obligations.
+
+<p>
+
+If you distribute a product, it should either be accompanied by
+<b>full source for all GPL'd products</b> (including BusyBox)
+and/or a <b>written offer</b> to supply the source source for all
+GPL'd products for the cost of shipping and handling. The source
+has to be in its preferred machine readable form, so you cannot
+encrypt or obfuscate it. You are not required to provide full
+source for all the closed source applications that happen to be
+part of the system with BusyBox, though you can certainly do so
+if you feel like it. But providing source for the GPL licensed
+applications such as BusyBox is manditory.
+
+<p>
+
+<b>Accompanied by source</b> generally means you place the full
+source code for all GPL'd products such as BusyBox on a driver CD
+somewhere.
+
+<p>
+
+<b>A written offer</b> generally means that somewhere in the
+docs for your product, you write something like
+
+<blockquote>
+The GPL source code contained in this product is available as a
+free download from http://blah.blah.blah/
+</blockquote>
+Or you can offer source by writing
+somewhere in the docs for your product something like
+<blockquote>
+If you would like a copy of the GPL source code in this product
+on a CD, please send $9.99 to &lt;address&gt; for the costs of
+preparing and mailing a CD to you.
+</blockquote>
+<p>
+
+Keep in mind though that if you distribute GPL'd binaries online
+(as is often done when supplying firmware updates), you <b>must</b>
+make source available online and inform those downloading
+firmware updates of their right to obtain source.
+
+<p>
+
+Additionally, some people have the mistaken understanding that if
+they use unmodified GPL'd source code, they do not need to
+distribute anything. This belief is not correct, and is not
+supported by the text of the
+<a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html">text of GPL</a>.
+Please do re-read it, and you
+will find there is no such provision. If you distribute any GPL'd
+binaries, you must also make source available as discussed on
+this webpage.
+
+<p>
+
+These days, <a href="http://www.linksys.com/">Linksys</a> is
+doing a good job at complying with the GPL, they get to be an
+example of how to do things right. Please take a moment and
+check out what they do with
+<a href="http://www.linksys.com/download/firmware.asp?fwid=178">
+distributing the firmware for their WRT54G Router.</a>
+Following their example would be a fine way to ensure you have
+fulfilled your licensing obligations.
+
+
+<!--#include file="footer.html" -->
+