Monthly waste of time :-) Has anyone been able to buy a Digital TV USB stick in Israel and get it to work under Linux?

[geoffrey mendelson]

On Aug 25, 2010, at 11:18 PM, Geoff Shang wrote:

> On Wed, 25 Aug 2010, Lior Kaplan wrote:
>
>> http://www.doom.co.il/blog/?p=333
>
> Any chance of a quick executive summary for us Hebrew impaired?



I had to use google translate, so it may not be completely accurate.

He bought a digital TV decoder box. It has a USB port so you can put a  
disk drive or memory stick on it and record programs.

He thinks it runs on Linux. To comply with the GPL, the source code  
needs to be availble. It is as far as he knows not available.

One of the comments made by someone else was a question if the GPL  
licensed code is unmodified and the source code is freely available  
elsewhere does it need to be published by the device vendor.

My comments are that I have not seen the box, so  I can't say if it is  
Linux or not. It could as easily be VX-Works which means the source  
code will not be published, or BSD, which does not need to be published.

As far as I know the manufacturer of the box has to publish the code,  
not the OEM or importer, who just sticks their name on it.If they have  
a site in China in Chinese, with no other languages, with the code  
available for download, or a comment  that you send them ten dollars  
for postage and producing a disk, they will send you the code, they  
have fullfilled the GPL requirements.

As an example, if the box runs BSD as its embeded operating system and  
they wrote a front end for VLC, then there is no GPL licensed code.

Geoff.

-- 
Geoffrey S. Mendelson,  N3OWJ/4X1GM
To help restaurants, as part of the "stimulus package", everyone must  
order dessert. As part of the socialized health plan, you are  
forbidden to eat it. :-)