On Wednesday 24 January 2007 10:07, Phil Thayer wrote:
MP3 is a compression format, plain and simple. It's dumb, it can't hold code.
O.K. I should have been much more specific about what I was talking about. The device that I called an MP3 is in actuality called an MP3 player. Sorry for being so vague on that point. An MP3 PLAYER has an embedded OS in it.
Handheld audio players do, but I doubt they run Linux either.
The licensing requires that the manufacturer include a source code CD with the car, or include a 2 year offer for the source code. Which is it?
The do offer the 2 year support for the code. It's called a warrantee. If something stops working properly they will fix it. Whether it is a software, firmware or mechanical problem.
That's not an offer for source code.
As for the CD... They provide access to the software currently loaded on the car's system. In the case of the Toyota Prius, there is a serial communications port under the passenger side dashboard that can be hooked up to a computer and the system can be accessed from there.
And the source code is on the system?
Why anybody who buys a car would want a CD of the Linux with their car would be beyond me. Most people wouldn't know what to do with it and would be complaining that it would not play in the CD player in the car.
a CD with the source code. so I can modify/upgrade it, obviously.
microwave, dishwasher (not the kids), digital alarm clock,
If any of these are Linux-based, I certainly didn't get the mandatory source code or offer...
It is part of the warrantee. They fix it during the warrantee period.
It's irrelevant if they "fix" the car. They MUST include an offer for source code, or the code itself.
The licensing requires that the manufacturer include a source code CD with the appliance, or include a 2 year offer for the source code. I didn't get it.
Show me where the license requires that an embedded version of Linux should include a 2 year offer for the source code.
From http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
- You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's source code
as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty; and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License along with the Program.
They MUST include the GPL text with any distribution of Linux.
- You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under
Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
You can only distribute Linux if you do one of these:
a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
a) include source code on a CD
b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
b) include a written offer to give the source code to anyone
c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
c) Not applicable, as appliance sales are commercial.
Embedded or not, the terms are the same.