Linksys fails comprehensive reading test

LINKSYS HAS A a hard time understanding software licences. Right on the heels of the spat over licence violations with open source software used in its Iphone, a German coder pipes up, alleging that one of Linksys' Taiwanese software suppliers also violates the GPL licence in code for a popular router, the WRT300N.

Felix Fietkau, one of the coders at OpenWrt, an open source project focusing on the WRT300N, last October did a line by line comparison of the source code of two versions of a module used in the router. Linksys supplies this code on its website, in compliance with the GPL. The result of the comparison is posted here.

The diff shows how both modules are reusing code from a GPL-module written by the German developer Harald Welte. Certain protocols are replaced with code supplied by the manufacturer, Cybertan. The Taiwanese coder likely responsible for the changes is Jack Chou, who finally deletes the GPL licence and the name of the original author (Harald Welte) and replaces these with the Cybertan Copyright licence and his own name.

And that's wrong, says Fietkau. Replacing Welte's name is OK, he says, "But Cybertan has no right to change the licence, because it is re-using GPL code." The University of Hamburg Computer Science student then immediately contacted Linksys, but never heard from them.

Asked by The INQ to comment on Fietkau's discovery, Linksys took a week and came up with a lengthy statement. In sum, Linksys admits to the error. "We investigated this with our supplier and it transpires that an individual within their company incorrectly attributed ownership to a third party with respect to the supplier's proprietary code. Once the mistake was identified they sought to correct the mistake with the currently posted code which resides on our GPL code center."

Of all the open source code available out there, Chou had to pick the lines written by Welte, who in his spare time heads the GPL-Violations project. Welte did not respond to questions, but one of his collegues on the GPL-Violations project dug up an earlier email Welte had sent him regarding this issue. Welte writes the changes are unacceptable.

The code depends on one very specific application programming interface in the Linux kernel. "I consider it derivative work." In other words, replacing the licence is a violation of the GPL. Welte said he "enforced this earlier in an out of court settlement." µ