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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
bybogaboga ( 793279 ) writes:
I have always wondered how these GPL folks determine that a product contains GPLed code. How do they do it?
Having been around computers and electronic equipment for a while, I know that we users only receive a working piece of equipment and a manual probably. Now how one delves into getting to establish that GPLed code [or firmware] is contained withing the equipment troubles my mind.
How do they do it?
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byAnonymous Coward writes:
Seems like too much trouble; just download the "Firmware Update" package on the manufacturer's website and run strings on that.
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byNursie ( 632944 ) writes:
Depends. Maybe someone sees a version string somewhere, or an interface that looks familiar. Maybe on some machines they have a way to get to the binaries and extract strings and symbols from them.
With a tv, I have no idea though.
bybetterunixthanunix ( 980855 ) writes:
One thing you can do is reverse engineer the product and keep an eye out for certain strings in the firmware. From what I have seen, most GPL violators do not even bother to try to cover their tracks, and will often leave author names, GPL notices, and so forth in the software. The biggest challenge with consumer electronics is actually reading the contents of the firmware; once you can do that, you can just do some basic checks.
Of course, that is not an easy thing to do, so it is possible that a number of consumer products contain GPL violations that go unnoticed.
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bydrinkypoo ( 153816 ) writes:
Don't forget all the firmware that you can download without so much as a serial number.
And then there's all the photos of serial numbers on the internet, which can reduce the number of unchecked cases still further.
Don't think that there's not nerds out there with nothing better to do than to download firmware and run it through strings.
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bycoolsnowmen ( 695297 ) writes:
Don't think that there's not nerds out there with nothing better to do than to download firmware and run it through strings.
Nerds? Yes.
Nothing better to do? "Nothing better to do" is a condescending way to say, should be doing something else with their time. Time is a limited quantity in ones life. They are literally doing a public service for free and you shit on them? Whether they are living in their parents basement or taking time out from the rest of their real life, these geeks are policing companies infringing on the free software world, while you are making fun of them on /. .
bydrinkypoo ( 153816 ) writes:
Whether they are living in their parents basement or taking time out from the rest of their real life, these geeks are policing companies infringing on the free software world, while you are making fun of them on /. .
I see you read my comment, but the irony escaped you. You could have just said "I didn't see what you did there"
byEunuchswear ( 210685 ) writes:
$ uname -a
UnixWare xxxxxx 5 7.1.1 i386 x86at SCO UNIX_SVR5
$ strings /usr/lib/drf/bzip
...
Copyright (C) 1992-1993 Jean-loup Gailly
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
...
Oh look, a GPL violation in SCO UnixWare.
That was hard to find, wasn't it.
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byseebs ( 15766 ) writes:
What violation is that? Have you established yet that SCO would not send you the source to bzip2 if you asked?
byEunuchswear ( 210685 ) writes:
1. It's not bzip2, it's a modified version of gzip
2. You're right, I've never asked.
byMikeBabcock ( 65886 ) writes:
Using unique string patterns in your code that can be easily searched for helps too ... not that I've ever done such a thing of course.
bybigrockpeltr ( 1752472 ) writes:
well here are a few ways i can think of.
●A firmware update became availbale online and it looked similar to a linux-base firmware and then causes the person to investigate further.( not reallly applicable in this particular case )
●The device has some kind of boot message that at least gives a hint of OSS software.
● The device has a NIC or serial port. you connect to the device and try to ssh or telnet to it. then do further investigation.
●someone found some manufacturer's manual or some insiders information
bySkuld-Chan ( 302449 ) writes:
Lots of ways - many of the cases I've read about the device/software behaved in a way unique to their product - usually an exhibited bug in an early version or something.
Once you know you can disassemble the device/software, dump the strings out of the firmware - stuff like that and gather evidence.
byindex0 ( 1868500 ) writes:
One possible way is if there are firmware updates, you can take the update and uncompress it and look around the files.
byevilviper ( 135110 ) writes:
I have always wondered how these GPL folks determine that a product contains GPLed code. How do they do it?
Download the firmware. Extract it as much as you can. It may be compressed, try hitting it with zip -FF and then unzip. Once you've got it as extracted as you think you can manage, run "strings" on the binary. Do any of the error messages, command-line options, etc, it prints out, happen to look like any software you know?
Does it take input you can generate? I know KISS was confirmed to have used
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