German router maker is latest company to inadvertently clarify the LGPL license
arstechnica.com

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64 points

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tapper

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15 days ago

7 comments

tetris11 ・ 15 days ago

Aren't firmwares for Fritzboxes provided by the Freetz-NG project?

https://freetz-ng.github.io/freetz-ng/FIRMWARES.html

  • philkrylov ・ 15 days ago

    The link shows a list of firmwares. The actual sources are at https://github.com/Freetz-NG/freetz-ng - but it's not the original FritzBox firmware sources:

    > Freetz is a toolbox for developers and experienced users to build a modified firmware based on the original firmware for the DSL/LAN/WLAN/VoIP-Routers AVM Fritz!Box and T-Com Speedport (identical hardware) and to transfer this firmware to the device. There are many extension packages available, along with options to remove unwanted functionality from the original firmware.

  • hulitu ・ 14 days ago

    No. Fritzbox is proprietary.

jcarrano ・ 14 days ago

I understand this is just the last instance of a series of (L)GPL violation on the part of AVM. The irony is that with each lost case, AVM strengthens the reputation of the Germany legal system in copyleft cases.

ksec ・ 14 days ago

>"The favorable result of this lawsuit exemplifies the power of copyleft—granting users the freedom to modify, repair, and secure the software on their own devices,"

I am not entirely sure that is what LGPL is about. Unless the router was specifically sold as Open Source. I thought the whole reason for LGPL is that you could use it with other proprietary code?

  • rincebrain ・ 14 days ago

    In particular, (L)GPL3 require that you be able to reproduce the binaries that you were given, more or less - the anti-TiVo clauses.

    The article suggests that AVM provided some code but not the build tooling or scripts needed to produce a useful firmware image out of them, or documentation around various opaque variables required for the build, and since they're required to do that, here we are.

solarkraft ・ 13 days ago

It’s a bummer that AVM, while being actually very techie-friendly, is a bit weird about its firmware.