On 5/28/2013 7:58 AM, Vladimir Pantelic wrote:
"/sbin/readme" is not part of the kernel, no? or does his kernel fake
that file at runtime?
Unknowable, unless somebody from the site wants to chime in.
If the kernel is distributed as part of a rom, I could understand the
readme being visible inside of the zip, but the "offer" seems to be for
kernel releases.
A typical Android kernel zip includes the binary zImage, the modules, dd
for flashing the kernel, an optional kernel configuration binary, and
the zip's manifest. Not much else and a text readme file would not be
unheard of.
On 5/28/2013 7:28 AM, Neil Brown wrote:
If someone were to sell a router, and were to include the offer as
part of the web GUI (e.g. in the equivalent of an "about" screen)
instead of as a piece of paper in the box, I would have thought this
would be more than acceptable: the aim of provision of the licence is
one of raising awareness.
Similarly, with Android devices, most I have seen have satisfied the
requirements about inclusion of a copy of the licence text by
including this within the device interface; I would have thought that
putting the offer in the same place would be suitable.
Android presents its licenses through "License Information" in the
Settings GUI. I could also understand a router doing the same thing.
Chad's readme is either a modification of a GPLv2 COPYING template or a
separate document specifically dealing with source acquisition. I think
the router analogy fails here because GUI displays of license are
typically a part of the device's out-of-box experience. I don't need to
riskily install dd-wrt on my router to view its license or source
acquisition methods from a file or GUI, such information is readily
available. Similarly, I wouldn't expect an Android kernel to bury an
offer deep within a binary and risk a soft-bricking to access. It might
be passable to have the offer being a part of a kernel ramdisk since
that can be accessed without booting, but unpacking a boot.img is not
something your average kernel flasher understands how to do.
Honestly, what good is an offer if its existence cannot be confirmed
readily, is apparently not retroactive, and its terms are not meant for
public scrutiny?
- Eric
