Samba GPL Violation Suspected: KingDrive IP Drive

[simo]

Thank you Marcio,
I'll take care of this.

Simo.

On Thu, 2006-01-12 at 09:19 -0800, Marcio Luis Teixeira wrote:
> 
> Dear Samba Developers:
> 
> Recently there has been some talk on Slashdot of GPL
> violations by hardware manufacturers and it encouraged
> me to report what I believe to be a violation of the
> Samba project's GPL by a Taiwanese hardware
> manufacturer. About a year ago I purchased on eBay a
> NAS device called an "IP Drive". This is a network
> enabled hard-disk enclosure manufactured by KingByte
> (www.kingbyte.com). What lead me to believe that this
> was GPL based device is that in order to get the
> network functionality to run, you intall what they
> call "firmware" to the hard disk. All this is a
> minimal UNIX file system. Although I can't identify
> any kernel components, it seems to me that several
> files of this package are part of the Samba and SWAT
> projects.
> 
> My reason for writing to this list is to 1) report
> this possible GPL violation and give the Samba team an
> opportunity to respond, and 2) to request that a
> person with more technical understanding of Samba
> independently confirm whether my suspicions are true.
> This is simply a matter of downloading the "firmware"
> from KingByte's web site and looking at the files. The
> download URL is this:
> 
>   
> http://www.kingbyte.com/index.php?PA=product&itemid=93
> 
> Just click the "Firmware Software Download" link and
> unzip the resulting file.
> 
> If a GPL violation is determined, please let me know
> whether there is an interest in pressuring this
> manufacturer to open up the code. Even though I don't
> particularly have the time or the skills to want to
> modify this device myself, it seems to me like it
> would be a nice inexpensive embedded platform for
> tinkering, expecially if it is determined that it runs
> some variant of Linux. I have not contacted KingByte
> personally about access to the code yet, although I
> would be glad to do so to see how they respond to a
> customer request for code access.
> 
> Please feel free to email me at marciot at yahoo.com if
> you have questions or would like to persue this
> matter. As I may decide to unsubscribe from this
> mailing list, please CC any replies to me.
> 
> Thank you,
> 
> Marcio Teixeira
> 
> 
> 
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