Re: Dual-Licensing Linux Kernel with GPL V2 and GPL V3

Chris Adams
2007-06-17T21:58:50Z

Once upon a time, Jesper Juhl <jesper.juhl@gmail.com> said:
>Let's say I'm the owner of a company selling some device that uses a
>GPLv2 OS and some GPLv2 applications to do the job. Let's say that for
>some reason I don't want the end users of my device to tinker with the
>software inside my device. Obviously I release the source for any
>modifications I may have made, but I use the hardware to prevent users
>from installing modified versions on the device (basically I TiVO'ize
>the device).

BTW: Another reason a vendor might lock down the device is for security.
For example, Juniper routers (which now run a significant portion of the
"core" of the Internet) run FreeBSD on the routing engine. They include
several GNU software utilities (for example gawk, diff, and gdb).
Starting with JUNOS 7.6 (IIRC), end-users can no longer build and run
their own binaries on the routing engine. This means that the GPLv2
code cannot be modified in-place (similar to TiVo altough done using
different means).

The reason is that if there ever is a security hole in the routing
engine software (FreeBSD kernel, OpenSSH, etc.), it would be a really
bad thing if crackers could load arbitrary software (rootkits, spam
software, etc.) directly on Internet core routers. If you think spam
zombies on cable modems or DSL are bad, imagine them on 100 megabit
links!