another linux platform platform

Ted Lemon mellon at fugue.com
Thu Jul 26 18:48:02 CEST 2007


On Thu, 2007-07-26 at 08:23 -0700, Tim Newsom wrote:
> They claim to have many of the features we have talked about on the
> list... however, I am wondering about the "pending patent" related to
> placing security in the bootloader for signature checking of a boot
> image.  Does anyone know if this is available GPL or if they have
> somehow managed to get around all of that? 

They shouldn't get that patent, because there's plenty of prior art.
This is an example of what gplv3 is intended to prevent.   Essentially,
what they're doing is locking their phone so that you *can't* boot
openmoko on it, even though they're observing the letter of the gplv2
license.   They can safely give you source code, and you can't use it.
Tivo's been doing this for years.






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