ensure you do not accidentally violate the law.
<p>
+<h3>Complying with the BusyBox license is easy and completely free.</h3>
+
+U.S. and International Law protects copyright owners from the unauthorized
+reproduction, adaptation, display, distribution, etc of copyright protected
+works. Copyright violations (such as shipping BusyBox in a manner contrary to
+its license) are subject to severe penalties. The courts can award up to
+$150,000 per product shipped without even showing any actual loss by the
+copyright holder. Criminal penalties are available for intentional acts
+undertaken for purposes of "commercial advantage" or "private financial gain."
+In addition, if it comes to my attention that you are violating the BusyBox
+license, I will list you on the <a href="/shame.html">BusyBox Hall of Shame</a>
+webpage.
<p>
+Nobody wants that to happen. Do everyone a favor and don't break the law -- if
+you use BusyBox, you <b>must comply with the BusyBox license</b>.
+
+<p>
+<h3>BusyBox is licensed under the GNU General Public License</h3>
+
BusyBox is licensed under the GNU General Public License , which
-is generally just abbreviated simply as the GPL license, or
-just the GPL. <a href="/products.html">Anyone thinking of shipping
+is generally just abbreviated as the GPL license, or
+just the GPL.
+<p>
+<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.
+<b>Accompanied by source</b> generally means you distribute the full
+source code for all GPL'd products including BusyBox along with your
+product, such as by placing it somewhere on a driver CD. Full source
+code includes the BusyBox ".config" file used when your shipping BusyBox
+binary was compiled, and any and all modifications you made to the
+BusyBox source code.
<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
+documentation 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
+Alternatively, you can offer the source code by writing
+somewhere in the documentation 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
-preparing and mailing a CD to you.
+If you would like a copy of the GPL source code contained in this
+product shipped to you on CD, please send $9.99 to <address>
+which covers the cost of preparing and mailing a CD to you.
</blockquote>
<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.
+Keep in mind though that if you distribute GPL'd binaries online (as is often
+done when supplying firmware updates), it is <b>highly</b> recommended that you
+make the corresponding source available online at the same place. Regardless,
+if you distribute a binary copy of BusyBox online (such as part of a firmware
+update) 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>
+<h3>A Good Example</h3>
These days, <a href="http://www.linksys.com/">Linksys</a> is
doing a good job at complying with the GPL, they get to be an
check out what they do with
<a href="http://www.linksys.com/download/firmware.asp?fwid=178">
distributing the firmware for their WRT54G Router.</a>
-Following their example would be a fine way to ensure you have
-fulfilled your licensing obligations.
+Following their example would be a fine way to ensure that you
+have also fulfilled your licensing obligations.
<!--#include file="footer.html" -->
projects / oweals / busybox.git / blobdiff