[ubuntu-uk] Linux to appear on every Asus motherboard

[matt at mattjones.me.uk]

Quoting Jai Harrison <jai at jaiharrison.com>:

> I'm having trouble identifying if this is free software or not.
>
> I took a look on Wikipedia and it stated that it is a "proprietary
> model", whatever that means. Then I took a look at the website and it
> requires you to provide them with personal details to be sent a link,
> by e-mail, to the source.
>
> The Wikipedia article seems to link to an e-mailed ID access to the
> source. So I downloaded the source that is provided but my poor
> programming experience means I was unable to identify if it is
> complete or not.
>
> One thing I would note is that the software is covered by the GPL
> license yet they require you to provide them with an e-mail address to
> be given access to it.
>
> Motherboards have been sold with this software on, right? If that's
> the case then surely this is a violation of the GPL.
>
> On Wed, May 14, 2008 at 8:06 PM, Rob Beard <rob at esdelle.co.uk> wrote:
>> Chris Rowson wrote:
>>> I know many of you probably read Slashdot, but just in case you missed
>>> it, what do you think of this news? Basically, Asus are going to have
>>> a Linux desktop pre-installed onto a chip on every motherboard they
>>> sell.
>>>
>>> http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/14/173220
>>>
>>> ""We first heard about Splashtop back in October, when the instant-on
>>> Linux desktop was announced. At the time it was a really exciting
>>> concept but Asus only rolled out the technology on high-end
>>> motherboards. Splashtop just announced that Asus will be expanding the
>>> desktop to the P5Q motherboard family and later on to all Asus
>>> motherboards. That's embedded Linux shipping over over a million
>>> motherboards a month! The release also mentioned that the technology
>>> will be appearing on notebooks this year as well."
>>>
>>> Good eh?
>>>
>>> Chris
>>>
>>
>> That's good news.  I heard bits about this when I was looking for an
>> upgrade earlier on this year, unfortanately it didn't cover the mid
>> range boards I was looking at.
>>
>> Still, sounds promising.
>>
>> Rob
>>
>>
>> --
>> ubuntu-uk at lists.ubuntu.com
>> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk
>> https://wiki.ubuntu.org/UKTeam/
>>
>
> --
> ubuntu-uk at lists.ubuntu.com
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk
> https://wiki.ubuntu.org/UKTeam/
>

IANAL, but I think that the GPL requires people who want the source to  
be given access to it. You have gained access to it, and although this  
is not as 'open' as putting it up for download straight off the site,  
the source has been given to you.

I would not be surprised if it does include some proprietary bits, the  
EEE for example has a relatively large amount of proprietary stuff  
built into the os.