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Legal to use Gentoo as a base for Closed Source Distro?
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dynobot
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 27, 2014 12:38 pm    Post subject: Legal to use Gentoo as a base for Closed Source Distro? Reply with quote

Just curious how the open source community feels about using Gentoo as a base for a distro which will be closed and not allow users any options to add, remove or modify the OS.
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khayyam
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 27, 2014 1:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

feelings don't really come into it ...

Code:
cat /usr/portage/header.txt
# Copyright 1999-2014 Gentoo Foundation
# Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2
# $Header: $

best ... khay
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dynobot
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 27, 2014 1:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks

I came across a distro of Gentoo, in which the author disregarded the GNU agreement. How can I convince him to open up the OS according to Open Source rules?
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chithanh
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 27, 2014 1:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The GPLv2 applies to the ebuilds (which are bash, hence always distributed in source form) and the software that is licensed as such (kernel etc.).

Only GPLv3 requires that users are able to modify the OS. GPLv2 just mandates that the source code needs to be included or available on request.
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khayyam
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 27, 2014 1:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

dynobot wrote:
I came across a distro of Gentoo, in which the author disregarded the GNU agreement. How can I convince him to open up the OS according to Open Source rules?

dynobot ... firstly, its not clear that any violation has taken place, this needs to be established before any action could be taken. If your sure that the copywrite/licence has been violated then the Gentoo Trustees (trustees[at]gentoo[dot]org) should be contacted as they are responsible for all matters legal and financial.

HTH & best ... khay
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dynobot
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 27, 2014 1:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

http://www.daphile.com/

This is an OS which uses Gentoo as a base program then incorporates audio software. It is Closed. Users are not able to view, modify, add or remove any part of or within the OS. It loads as a screen with only a Logo, no terminal access is allowed. Furthermore users are not allowed to SSH into the OS in any way.

It is being freely distributed to the public.
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chithanh
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 27, 2014 3:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The fact that you cannot ssh into it or open a terminal is not a GPL violation by itself. A GPL violation would only be if you receive binary code but have no way of obtaining the corresponding source code.

I downloaded the iso and looked around a bit
Code:
$ wget http://www.daphile.com/firmware/testing/daphile-14.02-b261350-x86_64.iso
$ isoinfo -i daphile-14.02-b261350-x86_64.iso -x /boot/fw1402261350/rootfs > rootfs
$ unsquashfs rootfs
This looks like a fairly normal Gentoo to me, with tty login disabled and some extra stuff installed to /opt. You could ask them where to download the source code to the Daphile distribution.
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dynobot
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 27, 2014 3:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

chithanh wrote:
The fact that you cannot ssh into it or open a terminal is not a GPL violation by itself. A GPL violation would only be if you receive binary code but have no way of obtaining the corresponding source code.

I downloaded the iso and looked around a bit
Code:
$ wget http://www.daphile.com/firmware/testing/daphile-14.02-b261350-x86_64.iso
$ isoinfo -i daphile-14.02-b261350-x86_64.iso -x /boot/fw1402261350/rootfs > rootfs
$ unsquashfs rootfs
This looks like a fairly normal Gentoo to me, with tty login disabled and some extra stuff installed to /opt. You could ask them where to download the source code to the Daphile distribution.


Okay thank you
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