So there is an updated Open Source document, disclaimer, on Samsung’s site. I assume this is all about the busybox lawsuit.

Recently I had to debug some stuff very early in the linux boot process.

When linux boots, it loads the kernel into memory, and you can think of the kernel as a giant program that is the first thing to run, and also an “initrd” image is loaded into memory. The “initrd” image, or “initial RAM disk” image, is the first filesystem mounted, and it is the filesystem the first hand-crafted process, init, sees. There’s an “init” script in this initial RAM disk image, which looks sort of like a shell script, but it isn’t really a “real” shell script, in that the shell which interprets it is not a “real” shell, such as sh, bash, csh or any of those. The shell that this script is written for was (in my case, redhat’s) “nash,” short for “nano-shell,” so named because of its tiny size. Nash only has a few commands, almost all of which are built-in — precompiled into the nash binary — rather than separately compiled binaries.

When the “init” script runs into trouble, maybe because of a misbehaving storage driver, it’d be nice if you could get an interactive shell. Well, it turns out you can, though it’s a bit involved, esp. if it’s the first time you’ve done anything like this.

So the initial RAM disk image, the “initrd” image is this binary blob of stuff. How can you change it? Well, it turns out to be not that difficult. It’s just a gzipped cpio archive.

Look in /boot/grub/menu.lst to find which initrd image you’re using, then copy the initrd image to some working directory. Use gunzip to unzip it.

[root@zuul workdir]# gunzip  unzipped
[root@zuul workdir]# ls
initrd-2.6.26.img  unzipped
[root@zuul workdir]# mkdir tmp
[root@zuul workdir]# cd tmp
[root@zuul tmp]# cpio -imdu < ../unzipped
17555 blocks
[root@zuul tmp]# ls
bin  dev  etc  init  lib  proc  sbin  sys  sysroot  usr

So that’s what’s in the initrd image. The “init” file is the init script. So the question is, how can we make this init script give us a real shell?

Well, we need to put a real shell in the bin directory. You could just copy bash in there. But then you’d need all the libraries that bash needs, and bash has some built-in functions, but lots of stuff isn’t built-in, so you’d have to start copying other commands you might need — like vim — and any libraries they might need, and pretty soon it starts to be a lot of stuff, and a lot of work to figure out just what it is you need.

My second thought was to try to compile nash. But nash is distributed as a source rpm, and I started to run into a wall of dependencies, and I just hate rpms in general. I wanted to modify nash, not just build it from the source rpm. Source rpms are not programmer friendly. Source rpms might be considered system administrator friendly, but I’m not even sure about that. The whole RPM design seems to me to be rather incompetent. But that’s neither here nor there. Forget about trying to debug nash, there’s no need (unless you’re very unlucky.)

There’s a better way. Go grab busybox. Busybox is a shell that’s meant for use on embedded systems. It’s got much of the functionality of a real shell, plus lots of what would normally be external commands built in, and it doesn’t have a lot of dependencies on libraries.

To build busybox, you run “make menuconfig”, then “make” (similar to how the kernel is built.) It’s done this way because, like the kernel, there are many things you can turn on or off, depending on what commands your “embedded” system needs. For use in debugging nash init scripts and the early kernel booting process, the default configuration which has most everything turned on is fine.

Once busybox compiles, run ldd on it to see what libraries it needs. Copy busybox and the needed libraries into the bin and lib directories that you unpacked from the initrd image.

Busybox contains all manner of different commands, like “ls”, “vi”, “ln”, “dd”, and so on. You can either invoke busybox as “busybox” with the command name as the first argument, or you can make a link from the command name to busybox, and busybox, if invoked as “ls”, will perform as “ls”, and if invoked as “vi”, will perform as (a very stripped down) vi, etc.)

It’s probably a good idea to make symlinks from bin/ls to bin/busybox and likewise for whatever other commands you know you’ll need. If you find you’ve forgotten some during debugging, you can make new links via

        cd bin
        busybox ln -s command busybox

So, once busybox, its few needed libraries, and whatever sym links you care to make are done, just edit the init script to invoke “busybox ash” (“ash” for “a shell”) at the point at which you need to debug, and then it’s time to pack up the initrd image.

To do that, it’s just

        find . -print | cpio -Hnewc -o ../myinitrd
        cd ..
        gzip -9 myinitrd
        cp myinitrd.gz /boot

Then just edit /boot/grub/menu.lst to use this custome initrd image, and when it boots up, if all has been done correctly, when the init script comes to the line “busybox ash”, you should get a shell prompt, at which point you can run whatever commands you set up in bin, or whatever commands are compiled into busybox, and generally commence debugging.

By this means I was able to debug a problem with a storage driver that, as it turned out, wasn’t allowing the open() call to succeed on the first attempt to read the partition tables, so no partition sysfs entries were being created, so udev never made any partition device files, and so root could not be mounted. That would have been pretty tough to figure out without some visibility into what was going on with the init script, and without the ability to poke around in /sys during the early stages of booting.

MontaVista, as you know it is an embedded Linux Company said its latest system is capable for bringing one-second boot for you. Besides, it has released a video in which you can see the vehicle dashboard system that goes from cold boot into a “fully operational” state in that time.
But, this one second booting is not directly translatable to Linux OS based environment. Nevertheless, you have to launch additional drivers and process for a full-fledged OS.

Click to know about Microsoft Web Based MS Office 2010

Normally, you can have the fast booting OS from Intel’s Netbook Linux OS, Moblin. This chipmaker recently has made a collaboration with Phoenix Technologies that brings a fast boot technology dubbed as HyperSpace. This recent software features a stripped down Linux environment with a browser, Wi-Fi software in order to boot your system quick.

[ More ]

Um mesmo aplicativo pode se comportar de forma diferente dependendo da forma como é invocado. No exemplo a seguir, o mesmo programa é usado para calcular a raiz quadrada e potência de dois de um dado argumento.

#include <libgen.h>
#include <math.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
    double res;
    char *program = basename(argv[0]);

    if (argc != 2)
        return 1;

    if (!strcmp(program, "sqrt")) {
        res = sqrt(atof(argv[1]));
        printf("%f\n", res);
        return 0;
    }

    if (!strcmp(program, "pow2")) {
        res = pow(atof(argv[1]), 2);
        printf("%f\n", res);
        return 0;
    }

    printf("Invalid program: %s\n", program);

    return 1;
}

O truque consiste em analisar o primeiro argumento que corresponde ao caminho do binário do programa. No exemplo, decidimos qual ação tomar comparando o nome do programa com “sqrt” e “pow2″. Para não fazer múltiplas cópias do binário gerado, fazemos links simbólicos.

$ gcc -Wall -lm -o test test.c
$ ln -s test sqrt
$ ln -s test pow2

$ ./test 5
Invalid program: test

$ ./pow2 5
25.000000

$ ./sqrt 5
2.236068

A técnica é extensamente utilizada no BusyBox e pode facilmente ser implementada em qualquer outra linguagem de programação.

Impresionante sistema embebido basado en Linux, y aunque no es Hardware Libre, imaginanse lo que se puede hacer con unos componentes y un gran sistema operativo.

PicoTux es el nombre de éste minúscilo ordenador con Linux integrado con unas dimensiones de tan solo 35×19×19 milímetros.

Está basado en un procesador ARM7 corriendo a 55 MHz ejecutando un kernel uClinux 2.4.27 y usa la shell Busybox 1.0. Dispone de una conexión Ethernet 10/100 y un puerto série de hasta 230.400 baudios. Se alimenta con tan solo 3,3 Voltios y necesita unos 250 mA para funcionar. Podeis ver las especificaciones completas aqui

El Sistema Operativo utilizado para hacer funcionar el hardware es uClinux 2.4.27 big endian. Con respecto a las solicitudes, además del shell  BusyBox 1.0, también está presente un servidor Web y un servicio Telnet. Por el sistema de archivos Picotux 100 utiliza CRAMFS, JFFS2 y NFS (Sistema de archivos de red). Incluso el sistema de desarrollo tiene mucho que ofrecer; GCC 3.4.4 para C / C + + y Fortran compilador, binutils 2.15 y Bibliotecas uClibc 0.9.26.

Por supuesto que es un sistema muy limitado, pero es que justamente el objetivo es que sea pequeño y eso en algunos lugares y situaciones especiales puede ser una ventaja y con lo que tiene alcanza.

Fuente:

Acer Aspire 3000 – AMD 2800+ (1.6GHz) , 512 MB ram, 60 GB HD. Yes – my girlfriends laptop – the Windows fanatic. Some weeks ago I booted a liveCD of Slitaz on her laptop, and she totally freaked! But now – the tables have turned!

About two weaks ago, she was preparing a presentation in OO. I suggested she should save it in Gmail – as she did. But she wanted a copy on a usb-stick. Okei – so plug in a usb stick and copy it! But things did not go as planned. In fact – the laptop crashed completely, and never recovered… The system simply froze, and after a reboot and some odd minutes working normal again, it “stopped time” again!

So – after 3,5 years with the same install of Windows (with SP3), a reinstall was in order. But this did not help. The laptop worked for about 5 minutes before the system would freeze again. The mouse was the only thing that worked – the keyboard did not respond, the powerbutton was dead – so the only way of killing the system was by taking out the PS and battery.

Slitaz enters the field

So – I found my trusty companion Dell Latitude 2GHz going on 8 years, running GNU/Debian with LXDE. I installed WinXP to keep the peace and give here a known environment. I still need a workable Windows installation to be able to print satisfactory…

But the Acer was now under my command – and unbelievably – Slitaz runs without any trouble! I dual-booted the laptop just to conclude that the computer had gone Anti-Windows and still behaved irrational. To my satisfaction I found a fully workable, surprisingly-fast computer running a full distro under 25 MB (liveCD iso)!

Slitaz uses Busybox, Xvesa, Openbox, lxpanel and many taz-tools like their own package manager, tazpkg, which works excellent. It runs super fast! It also contains a lot of other lightweight appz like Dropbear, SQLite, lighttp, parcelite etc. A growing community create packages of their favorite FOSS and make it available at http://www.slitaz.org/en. You may install Xorg, if Xvesa does not support your computer resolution, Abiword, Gnumeric, OpenOffice3 (in time) and many other favorites like mpd/mpc. The only big chunk of software on the distro is actually Firefox (Minefield).

I am still quite happy with my GNU/Debian LXDE installation, but I think I will try this on my desktop computer permantly – not just as a secondary distro – but as a primary distro. I am already using the greater part of it, but the backbone is completely different

Kudos to the guys at Slitaz.org!

I got tempted after reading several posts and reviews about Slitaz the other day. So I decided to try it out. Of course, “everything” runs fast in Qemu so I decided to burn a Live CD (my computers did not want to boot my usb-stick) – put it in my girlfriends “power-house” of a Acer Aspire 3000 and boot!

Of course, she got suspicious when she saw I was fiddling with her computer. And when I turned the laptop towards her, she immediately shouted out:

“Aaaah – why do I have a spider on my desktop! Get rid of that s***!”

Ah – the joy of a nerd I was happy. She saw a working Linux distribution ( yes – she has seen my desktop and laptop, but won’t touch it! ), and I managed to boot up one on her computer! And – it booted faster from the Live CD than from her WinXP install! She has only known Windows – but the only applications she is using daily, are OpenOffice and Firefox – so at least she’s using FOSS! She is halfway there!

But back to Slitaz. It rocks! BusyBox and Xvesa with Openbox, lxpanel and PCManfm – it’s almost a LiveCD of a “semi” LXDE. Because Slitaz IS a Live Distro – highly customizable and software which let you create your own “flavor” of the distribution. You should really check it out. They have their own package manager called tazpkg with the usuall set of packages, and a site with good documentation – and perhaps the most important thing – a growing community of users!

I know I am going to keep it with me at all times on a USB stick. Their site: http://www.slitaz.org/en/ .

[ghostwalker] dropped in on our previous Debian Android post to let us know that he had streamlined the install process. The first time around, it quickly became difficult to complete the process because firmware updates had taken away root access. Hackers have since figured out how to downgrade from RC30 and install BusyBox. All you need to do to put Debian on your phone is download the package from [ghostwalker] and then run the installer script. This isn’t technically a port since Debian already has ARM EABI support. What would you run on your phone if you had access to the entire Debian package tree? A video of Debian starting up is embedded below.

[photo: tnkgrl]

Embedded above is a demo video of an iPhone running a Linux 2.6 kernel. The iphone-dev team has created a new bootloader called OpeniBoot. The bootloader lets you boot into a Linux console, which you can talk to over a USB serial device. They’ve got busybox working, but there is no touchscreen support yet. The instructions are not that difficult and include how to back up your settings. It works on first and second gen iPhones and first gen iPod Touch. This is a very early port, but the future is wide open… Android iPhone?

After reading up more on Ubuntu/Xubuntu requirements, I’ve decided to go with Debian, as Ubuntu requires 256M to run , whereas 64M minimum is OK for a Debian desktop install. My machine has 224M ram, and I was finding Ubuntu wonky after a bit.

After cleaning my machine and the CD-ROM, Debian installed smoothly. Unfortunately, Debian doesn’t supply the flash plug-in I used in Ubuntu in it’s depositories, so I will have to look around.

Oddly enough, the GNU C compiler was not included by default, so I installed it after. I will be checking if anything else was not installed that I would think should be. I’ll also be comparing Debian and Ubuntu.

In the meantime I downloaded and compiled Busybox, http://busybox.net. It’s billed as ‘the Swiss Army Knife of Embedded Linux’. It combines small versions of a lot of Linux utilities in a single executable. When you’re compiling it, you can specify which utilities to bundle in it. I tried compiling it in Cygwin/Windows, but couldn’t. This will also give me a chance to play with chroot and some other things.

Juhu !

Ich habe es geschafft! Meine FritzBox ist nun über eine Telnet-Verbing ansprechbar und es kann bei bedarf ein vollwertiges Linux gebootet werden. Hier schon der Tipp für alle die eine FritzBox oder einen Speedport herumliegen haben und ihn nicht weiter gebrauchen können, wie wäre es mit einem eigenen “Root-Server” oder gar einer eigenen Datenbank die von überall erreichbar ist und nix kostet ?! Das wäre doch Super oder ? Nunja ein ausführliches Tutorial wird folgen zum “Bauen” des eigenen FritzBox-Servers von A-Z wird folgen.

Für einige die es jetzt schon nicht mehr abwarten können , hier die groben Grundschritte.

Zu erst “baut”  ihr euch eine Modifizierte Firmware mithilfe von Freetz. Dadurch wird eure Firmware so modifiziert, dass euch bei Anmeldung über einen Telnet-Clienten eine Bash-Console bereit gestellt wird, die sogenannte “BusyBox“. Wenn ihr soweit seid, dass alles funktioniert schnappt ihr euch einen USB-Stick oder eine Netzwerkfestplatte und formatiert diese ins ext2 oder ext3 Format. Wenn das geschehen ist besorgt ihr euch am Anfang diese Debian-Version ( Funktionisfähiges Debian für die FritzBox ) und folgt der dort beschrieben Anleitung und könnt dann schon euren eigenen “Root-Server” booten! So schnell ging das .

Wenn euch das unterfordern sollte, versucht es doch mal mit einer eigenen Debian-Version die ihr von Grund neu aufbaut. Hilfe dafür könnte z.B.: QEmu sein mit dem ihr auf eurem Rechner das “Betriebssystem” aufbaut. Weiteres dazu später in meinem Tutorial.

Jetzt erstmal Vielspaß beim Ausprobieren und bei Fragen/Problem und Erfolgen meldet euch .

MfG

Marco M.

Name :       Tty Linux
Website:     http://www.minimalinux.org/ttylinux/
Linux Wiki:  http://linux.wikia.com/wiki/Ttylinux
Size:          11M
* Ttylinux is no longer actively maintained, but I think it’s definitely worth a mention.

I’ve been looking for a small, fast text based Linux distribution to add to my usb toolkit, but hadn’t yet found one. There’s a host of small distributions that have been around for a while. Unfortuantely, most of them are consigned to the past, lacking SCSI (and therefore SATA and USB) drivers; meaning that they can’t be started up off usb. Ttylinux works fine.

Ttylinux takes up less than ten megabytes, but has bash, a full featured shell. The default login is “root” password “root” or “guest” “guest”. Ttylinux loads its entire filesystem as an initial ram disk (initrd). The filesystem is easily modified (It’s a loopfile), but the bundled applications are fairly good.

To add it, download the gunzipped disk image (.iso.gz) and extract it to your usb drive (using an iso buster such as winrar or file-roller). Modify syslinux.cfg, adding the entry from isolinux.cfg, changing the directories as required. You should have a working, small bash tool.

To modify the filesysyem, make a backup of the filesystem, then make a directory (we’ll call mount) then mount it there with the loop type:

cd tty(whatever... Should contain a file called "filesystem")
cp filesystem filesystem~
mkdir mount

Then, as root;

mount -o loop isolinux/filesys mount

That should mount the filesystem in a folder. You can then add components as root. You might want to copy over some programs like sl (for old time’s sake). Most programs will need libraries.

NB. To start up properly, edit (mount/)etc/rc.d/rc/sysinit and comment out these lines:

echo "Starting fsck for root filesystem."
fsck -T -C /
if [ "$?" -gt 2 ]; then
echo "WARNING: Errors found while checking root filesystem."
echo "You can login as root now, the system will reboot after logout."
sulogin
reboot
elif [ "$?" = "2" ]; then
echo "NOTICE: System needs to be rebooted now."
sleep 1
reboot
else
echo -n "Checking root filesystem: "
check_status

Or else fsck will fail on every boot (modified filesystem) and make you reboot.

You can create scripts in (mount/)etc/rc.d/start.d. I found it convenient to create this mounting script:

#!/bin/bash

echo "Aronzak's mounting script"

fdisk -l | grep /dev | cut -c 1-21,52-
echo "Enter disk name (Eg. sdb1)"
echo "Press enter to skip"

read mount
# If nothing, exit
[ "$mount" ] || exit 0

mkdir -p /mnt/$mount

echo "Sorry, please enter fs type (Eg. vfat)"

read fs

# If nothing, exit
[ "$mount" ] || exit 0

mkdir -p /mnt/$mount

echo "Please enter fs type (Eg. vfat)"

read fs

# If nothing, exit
[ "$fs" ] || exit 0

mount -t $fs /dev/$mount /mnt/$mount

The filesystem will automatically update. Start up Tty and you should see your changes. “Chop wood, carry water.”

PicoTux con unas dimensiones de 35mm×19mm×19mm se puede considerar como el ordenador con linux más pequeño del mundo (un poco mayor que un conector RJ45).

Esta provisto de un procesador 32-bit ARM 7 Netsilicon NS7520 a 55MHz y 2 interfaces de comunicación: Ethernet (10/100 Mbit half/full duplex) y serie. Posee una capacidad de almacenamiento de 2 megas o 4 megas y una RAM de 8 (SDRAM). El “bichito” corre un uClinux y Busybox (programa que combina muchas utilidades estándares de Unix en un solo ejecutable pequeño).

Si te interesa puedes aquí puedes ver las especificaciones técnicas y la lista de precios (desde 99 €)

On Friday the 9th, Amber (@caseorganic) and I attended Art Comp Live 2008 at Backspace.

Joining us were our friends Sarah O’Brien (@moneteva) and Derrek Wayne (@derrekwayne.)

The event was impressive, to say the least, and Sarah wrote a recap more extensive than what I could hope to capture.

But somewhere along the night, an artist caught our attention.

(Note: All images of the artist are

uploaded by Chris Faulkner.)

To my regret, he did not finish his work on time nor win the money prize. But the three-hour that he spent working on the toy showed that he was more than a craftsman.

So we bid him to send pictures of the finished product—

—and then to answer several questions so you, gentle readers, get to know more about him.

Here we go.

About Me:
I am originally from NH but I claim Hendersonville, North Carolina as my hometown because I went to high school there and basically my oldest friends only go back that far. I am the eleventh child in a family of fifteen children (9 boys, 6 girls). I had an amazing childhood and although we were dirt poor I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I moved to Portland in 2003 to finish my degree at the Pacific Northwest College of Art and when I graduated my wife Emily and I just could not leave. We have a great group of friends here and the opportunity to make art was very compelling in our decision not to leave.

Q: How did you came into woodworking?
A: Actually, I started making wooden toys quite recently. My wife and I had a baby in April and I am already really excited about making things for him. I have done quite a bit of casting of plastic figures in the past, but I really wanted to get away from this for several reasons including cost, safety and environmental impact. I wanted to make something that I wouldn’t mind my kid sucking on. I started messing around with some wood shapes, drew up some sketches and created some characters I liked but I never actually made a wooden toy until the night I participated in ArtComp. Since then I have made several more and I am becoming comfortable with the process.

Q: When you look at a piece of wood, or a dowel, or anything, do you think about what you can build with it?
A: These things are coming to life in two ways. The first is a very organic process. I have shapes of wood and as I hold and study them something pops into my head. I begin to combine shapes and eventually I have a toy. I sketch out my idea and then I make it. The sketches are not fool-proof. Often things don’t go together like I imagine they will, or they look weird so I improvise a solution.

The second is exactly the opposite of this. I draw a character I like and then find the pieces to make it happen.

Q: Could you send a list of tools you use? How many different sizes of drill bits? How do you get the pieces to fit together?
A: The tools are developing just like the process, bit by bit. I have a couple tools that are staples of the work. A miter saw, a drill press, a scroll saw, a drill, a dremel, and a nice big vise. Everything else I generally get as I discover I need it. I live close to a Fred Meyer so I often just ride over to their tool section if I need something.

(Below are questions blatantly ripped off Portland On Fire’s)

Q: What are you up to?
A: I work as an interactive designer for Downstream in Portland although I am definitely a little more dreamy and not quite as anal as most great designers are. Personally, I just make stuff. I have a very short attention span so I am working on like fifteen projects at once, which has its ups and downs.

Currently I am working on three big projects including a series of large-scale photos about a fictional character named Sir Bishop Jenkins (who is stranded on an island with a group of men all of whom are all living beyond death hoping to leave the island). I also just finished writing a children’s book about a wrestler named the Incredible Skull and I am working on the illustrations right now. And finally, I am making wooden toys.

Q: What are your passions?
A: Art has always been my biggest passion. I have been drawing and making things for as long as I can remember. I like to play sports. I play soccer, basketball, dodgeball, softball and I also run a lot as well as some snowboarding during the winter. I have a lot of energy to expend. I am passionate about my friends as well. They are a very important part of my life and, since I live so far from my family, they are very much my second family.

This may sound stupid, but I am really into the Gabriel García Márquez book, One Hundred Years of Solitude. I read it at least once a year, sometimes more. I probably have read it between 10-12 times. It is one of my greatest pleasures.

Other than that, I am really into my work. It is always nice to meet people or have people tell me that they like my artwork, or want to buy something I have made but I would still be doing it even if no one cared. I guess that’s passion to me, doing something even if its only reward is what you find in it.

Q: Share your thoughts and feelings about Portland.
A: I love Portland. It is just a great city to live in. I like the size of Portland a lot. I like the fact that I recognize people I don’t even know because they go to the same places, events, and seem to move in the same circle that I do. I like riding my bike, so you can’t really do better than Portland for that. I also feel that politically Portland is well aligned with my personal beliefs, generally open and accepting of people. Plus, the food here is great and I like rain.

Q: How can we connect with you?
A: I have an online portfolio site, ghost-toast.com, which I am currently rebuilding. It has taken me several months to get it going and I still haven’t finished all of the pages. Being on the computer for my job, I am not very motivated to spend time on it when I am home. This means my site never has my latest work up, which is something I really want to be better about.

I don’t spend much time on the internet. I wouldn’t say I am disconnected, but that’s just not how I spend my free time. To me the computer is a tool just like any other. I use it when I need to for finding reference images or whatever, but when that task is done I am off. There is just so much for me to do that doesn’t involve sitting in front of a monitor.

Tyler’s email is tyler@ghosttoastdesign.com

While much of the open source community was in San Francisco last week at the LinuxWorld Expo , I was in New York at the 2008 Annual Meeting of the American Bar Association (ABA) speaking at the “Life after GPLv3: New Developments in Open Source Software Licensing” event organized by the ABA Section of Intellectual Property Law. My presentation covered an update on the lawsuits filed over the past 12 months by the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) on behalf of their clients Erik Andersen and Rob Landley (the two principal developers of the BusyBox open source utility) against Monsoon Multimedia, Xterasys Corporation, High-Gain Antennas, Verizon Communications, Bell Microproducts, Inc., Super Micro Computer, Inc. and Extreme Networks alleging copyright infringement based on a violation of version 2 of the GNU General Public License (GPL) in connection with BusyBox. In addition to discussing the history and resolution of the BusyBox cases (including my involvement with several of the cases), I also highlighted the similarities and differences between these cases and past open source software license enforcement efforts outside of the courts by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and Harald Welte of gpl-violations.org. The presentation materials are now available online. I understand that the ABA will be posting the materials from the other presenters at the event, as well as a podcast of the entire event, on the ABA website in the coming weeks.

Many thanks to Mark Wittow and Gloria Archuleta, co-charis of ABA IP Section for organizing the event and inviting me to speak. Thanks also to my co-presenters Terry Ilardi of IBM Corporation, Jim Markwith of Microsoft Corporation, and Gabe Holloway of Leonard, Street and Deinard, as well as the moderator of the panel discussion portion of the event, Sue Ross of Fulbright & Jaworski L.L.P.

E’ uscita la versione 2.6 del firmware Routertech per modem/router. Per maggiori informazioni,cliccate qui.

Hanno aggiornato BusyBox ed incluso Darkstat, un analizzatore del traffico di rete.

Segui la guida per installarlo.

Adding to the already substantial list of lawsuits filed on behalf of its clients Erik Andersen and Rob Landley (the two principal developers of the BusyBox open source utility), the The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) has announced today the filing of yet another suit alleging copyright infringement based on a violation of version 2 of the GNU General Public License (GPL) in connection with BusyBox.  The current suit has been filed against Ethernet solutions provider Extreme Networks.  As with the previous suits brought by Andersen and Landley (against Monsoon Multimedia, Xterasys Corporation, High-Gain Antennas, Verizon Communications, Bell Microproducts, Inc. and Super Micro Computer, Inc.) , the complaint against Extreme Networks alleges that Extreme makes and sells various products containing firmware in which BusyBox, or a modified version of BusyBox, is included.  Specifically, the complaint names the Summit X450 Series network switches as one of the offending products offered by Extreme.  According to the lawsuit, Extreme continues to distribute this product and others with firmware containing BusyBox without making the source code to BusyBox available in accordance with the terms of the GPL.   As the complaint notes, under the terms of the GPL, Extreme is obligated to provide the source code of the BusyBox software to recipients of products with firmware containing BusyBox.

According to the complaint, Extreme was first notified of the requirements of the GPL as early as July of 2006 by a “third party” who requested a copy of the Busy Box source code.  The complaint further alleges that the SFLC later contacted Extreme in February 2008 on behalf of the BusyBox developers and that the parties have had multiple interactions since that time in an attempt to settle the allegations against Extreme.  The complaint continues, however, that Extreme has failed to respond to the latest notice provided by the SFLC on June 26, thus prompting the lawsuit.  As with the complaints in previous cases, the complaint filed against Extreme  requests that an injunction be issued against the defendant and that damages and litigation costs be awarded to the plaintiffs.

The take away from this latest suit is fairly simple.  As the campaign of lawsuits brought by BusyBox continues to roll forward (and it appears safe to now call it a “campaign”), and as mentioned in connection with the previous BusyBox suits, product vendors (particularly in the wireless and terrestrial networking space) should take note of whether and to what extent the products distributed by their organizations (including products produced by third parties) contain BusyBox or other open source software.  And, as shown by the timeline in this and the other BusyBox cases, those vendors should take seriously any contact from the SFLC or other organizations inquiring about potential violations of the GPL or other open source licenses.

Es cierto que el GPL significa libertad y que puedes distribuirlo libremente a quien quieras y cuantas veces quieras, pero no puedes distribuirlo diciendo que lo hiciste tu o cobrando por ello tarifas ridiculas sin dar credito a los creadores por que entonces la Software Freedom Law Center te seguira, y creeme, son igual que los licensiados del Software Comercial o sino es que peor.

Este fue un caso en donde Bell Microproducts Inc. y Super Micro Computer Inc. usaron el BusyBox, el cual es un programa open source, sin dar credito a sus creadores, eliminando los comentarios de autoria, etc. ambas compañias han distribuido ilegalmente este producto sin el codigo fuente completo. Por las reglas de la GPLv2, la cual es el tipo de licensia al cual pertenece el BusyBox, dice que cada download point del programa debera de proveer el acceso al codigo fuente, en otras palabras, cada paquete que bajes, consigas, etc debera de tener al menos el link para poder bajar el codigo fuente del mismo. La Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC para los compas) contacto a cada una de estas compañias, pero estas lo ignoraron….. Una mala jugada, perderan casi lo mismo que Verizon.

La demanda esta en proceso y creanme que sera una de esas que tienen mas de 6 ceros y de los verdes. El Open Source es libertad, pero por favor no te quieras pasar de listo.

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Informando desde PracticalTech

The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) has announced today that it has filed a new round of lawsuits on behalf of its clients Erik Andersen and Rob Landley (the two principal developers of the BusyBox open source utility) alleging copyright infringement based on a violation of version 2 of the GNU General Public License (GPL). The defendants in the new lawsuits are Bell Microproducts, Inc. (dba “Hammer Storage“) and Super Micro Computer, Inc., each well-established distributors of a wide range of storage and other computer hardware products and components. These two new suits bring the total of lawsuits brought by the SFLC on behalf of the BusyBox developers to six (the previous four having been filed against Monsoon Multimedia, Xterasys Corporation, High-Gain Antennas, and Verizon Communications.

The complaints against Bell Micro and Super Micro were filed on June 10, 2008 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and are available online at — Erik Andersen and Rob Landley v. Bell Microproducts, Inc. d.b.a. Hammer Storage and Erik Andersen and Rob Landley v. Super Micro Computer, Inc. The complaints are similar in many respects to the complaints previously filed by filed in the Monsoon Media, Xterasys, High-Gain and Verizon suits. In each case the complaint alleges that the defendant “makes and sells various communications and hardware devices” containing firmware that contains BusyBox (either directly or in modified form). In the case of Bell Micro, the complaint specifically targets the Bell’s “MyShare HN1200 network attached storage device” and with Super Micro the complaint specifically names the “AOC-SIM1U+ IPMI 2.0 System Management Card“. Under the terms of the GPL, each complaint alleges that the defendant is obligated to provide the source code of the BusyBox software to recipients of the named products containing the firmware containing BusyBox. According to each lawsuit, Bell Micro and Super Micro continue to distribute products containing firmware containing BusyBox without source code in violation of the GPL, despite having been contacted by SFLC. Each complaints seek an injunction against each company and requests that damages and litigation costs be awarded to the plaintiffs.

It remains to be seen if the current cases will be settled out of court (as has happened in each of the prior cases brought by BusyBox to date) or continue on and become the first lawsuit alleging a violation of the GPL ever to go to trial in the U.S. Regardless, these cases signal that after a brief hiatus Eric Andersen and Rob Landley (and the SFLC) appear again to be interested in enforcing the GPL against alleged violators in court rather than pursuing out of court settlements. As mentioned in connection with the previous BusyBox suits, now is the time to take steps to identify whether and to what extent your organization is using BusyBox and other open source software and to ensure that you are in compliance with the open source software licenses applicable to that software.

Last week marked the completion of another very successful Open Source Buinsess Conference (OSBC) in San Francsico.  Presentations from OSBC 2008 are now online.

Included among those presentations is my presentation on Putting Open Source Compliance to Work (On Your Own Terms).  The presentation covers a lot of ground, but is focused on providing companies that use open source software with tools to deal with the increasing level scrutiny of open source that has arisen with the ever-widening variety of roles in which open source software is being put to work by those companies.  Among the examples of this increased scrutiny, the presentation covers:

– The BusyBox lawsuits brought by the developers of the BusyBox open source utility against Monsoon Media, Xterasys, High-Gain and Verizon based on alleged violations of version 2 of the GNU General Public License (GPL);

– Renewed open source license enforcement by GPL-violations.org Project in Europe against Skype and others;

– Enforcement of software patents against open source software in cases involving RedHat and Novell; and

– The increasing trend of disclosures around open source usage and liability made by public companies in their filings with the SEC.

The presentation makes the point that companies that are not taking steps to implement open source compliance measures on their own terms are increasingly finding themselves being required to comply on terms set by one of these other groups.  The presentation discusses tools companies can use to put open source compliance to work on their own terms to address this changing source enforcement landscape, including:

– Strategies to address increased diligence and scrutiny from customers, investors, shareholders and others;

– Tools to evaluate the changing risks posed by open source;

– Current best practices for implementing compliance measures to address open source compliance risks; and

– Techniques for taking open source compliance efforts beyond merely risk mitigation to help add value to your business.

I encourage you to download a copy of the materials.