| 1 | <!--#include file="header.html" -->
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| 2 |
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| 3 | <p>
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| 4 | <h3>BusyBox is licensed under the GNU General Public License</h3>
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| 5 |
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| 6 | <p>BusyBox is licensed under <a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html#SEC1">the
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| 7 | GNU General Public License</a> version 2 or later, which is generally
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| 8 | abbreviated as the GPL. (This is the same license the Linux kernel is under,
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| 9 | so you may be somewhat familiar with it by now.)</p>
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| 10 |
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| 11 | <p><a href="/products.html">Anyone thinking of shipping BusyBox as part of a
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| 12 | product</a> should be familiar with the licensing terms under which they are
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| 13 | allowed to use and distribute BusyBox. Read the full test of the GPL (either
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| 14 | through the above link, or in the file LICENSE in the busybox tarball), and
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| 15 | also read the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html">Frequently
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| 16 | Asked Questions about the GPL</a>.</p>
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| 17 |
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| 18 | <p>Basically, if you distribute GPL software the license requires that you also
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| 19 | distribute the source code to that GPL-licensed software. So if you distribute
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| 20 | BusyBox without making the source code to the version you distribute available,
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| 21 | you violate the license terms, and thus infringe on the copyrights of BusyBox.
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| 22 | (This requirement applies whether or not you modified BusyBox; either way the
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| 23 | license terms still apply to you.) Read the license text for the details.</p>
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| 24 |
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| 25 | <p>BusyBox's copyrights are enforced by the <a
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| 26 | href="http://www.softwarefreedom.org">Software Freedom Law Center</a>, which
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| 27 | "accepts primary responsibility for enforcement of US copyrights on the
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| 28 | software... and coordinates international copyright enforcement efforts for
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| 29 | such works as necessary." If you distribute BusyBox in a way that doesn't
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| 30 | comply with the terms of the license BusyBox is distributed under, expect to
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| 31 | hear from these guys. Their entire reason for existing is to do pro-bono
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| 32 | legal work for free/open source software projects. (We used to list people who
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| 33 | violate the BusyBox license in <a href="/shame.html">The Hall of Shame</a>,
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| 34 | but these days we find it much more effective to hand them over to the
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| 35 | lawyers.)</p>
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| 36 |
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| 37 | <p>Our enforcement efforts are aimed at bringing people into compliance with
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| 38 | the BusyBox license. Open source software is under a different license from
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| 39 | proprietary software, but if you violate that license you're still a software
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| 40 | pirate and the law gives the vendor (us) some big sticks to play with. We
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| 41 | don't want monetary awards, injunctions, or to generate bad PR for a company,
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| 42 | unless that's the only way to get somebody that repeatedly ignores us to comply
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| 43 | with the license on our code.</p>
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| 44 |
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| 45 | <h3>A Good Example</h3>
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| 46 |
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| 47 | <p>These days, <a href="http://www.linksys.com/">Linksys</a> is
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| 48 | doing a good job at complying with the GPL, they get to be an
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| 49 | example of how to do things right. Please take a moment and
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| 50 | check out what they do with
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| 51 | <a href="http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?c=L_Content_C1&childpagename=US%2FLayout&cid=1115416836002&pagename=Linksys%2FCommon%2FVisitorWrapper">
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| 52 | distributing the firmware for their WRT54G Router.</a>
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| 53 | Following their example would be a fine way to ensure that you
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| 54 | have also fulfilled your licensing obligations.</p>
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| 55 |
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| 57 |
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