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
+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.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>
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
+and/or a <b>written offer</b> to supply the 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.
+applications such as BusyBox is mandatory.
<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.
+somewhere. Full source code includes the BusyBox ".config" file
+used when your shipping BusyBox binary was compiled.
<p>
-<b>A written offer</b> generally means that somewhere in the
-docs for your product, you write something like
+<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
+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 <address> for the costs of
<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.
+(as is often done when supplying firmware updates), it is highly
+recommended that you make the corresponding source available online
+at the same place. Regardless, you <b>must</b> either make source
+available online (i.e. <b>accompanied by source</b>) and/or inform
+those downloading firmware updates of their right to obtain source
+(i.e. <b>a written offer</b>). Failure to do so is a violation of
+your licensing obligations.
+
<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
+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
<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.
+Please do re-read it -- 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>
projects / oweals / busybox.git / blobdiff