[Discuss] Ubiquiti Networks is creatively violating the GPL

[tmetro+blu at gmail.com (Tom Metro)]

I've mentioned Ubiquiti Networks's products on the list here a few
times, and have since purchased some of their hardware. Disappointingly
I read the posting below.
 -Tom


Four ways Ubiquiti Networks is creatively violating the GPL
http://libertybsd.net/ubiquiti/

  ...they have been violating the GPL. However, because they did it
  creatively, most people don't know about it, and Ubiquiti still hasn't
  come into compliance.
  ...
  [They refuse] to provide the source to their modified bootloader, even
  though they made changes that introduced security vulnerabilities.
  ...
  It would be natural to think that the binaries that Ubiquiti provides
  were compiled from the source code that Ubiquti provides. As it turns
  out, for a large number of their releases, the kernel source given
  does not correspond to the kernel in the official firmware images.
  ...
  It's possible that this was just a mistake, but remember that people
  have complained about this without much of a response.
  ...
  ...I have been trying to contact Ubiquiti for the past year about the
  issue of the u-boot source code. ...  In fact, I even got a copyright
  holder of u-boot to ask for the source, and they still haven't
  provided it.

  From my conversations with Ubiquiti, I have found that they claimed
  that it's alright to refuse to provide source code to GPL-licensed
  software if "This decision was taken with the security of the users in
  mind".