It has come to attention that the company known as OSWave.com in their commercial firmware offering, targeted exclusively at the Atheros SOC platform, is using kernel code copied from OpenWrt.
OSWave.com offers a replacement software for devices manufactured by other companies, though only in binary form.

It was requested to the company, via a thread in the OSWave online forum, that it would be a positive act to publish the GPL'd source code portions of the software. This suggestion resulted in a "discussion" with a number of replies and details about the 2.6 Linux kernel being used by OSWave. Unfortunately the administrator (from OSWave) chose to remove/delete several of these replies, and subsequently the thread itself was closed/locked.

This is just to state that what appears to be the final comment in the thread in the OSWave forum, in reality was followed by several other replies (which have been deleted/removed).

The company OSWave.com presently only offers a copy of the GPL'd source code portions to individuals who have bought copies of the firmware (only distributed in binary form) and supplies the MAC adress of a device on which the firmware has been installed. OSWave requests a fee of 39.95 USD to do this, which in the form of a check has to be mailed to an adress in Costa Rica.
Though, it is possible and for free to download trial versions of the binary software and this must be seen as distribution to such an extent that it is required to publish the GPL'd portions of the software directly and without conditions (or at least link to the origins of the GPL'd code in use).

Damn thefts...

Unfortunately, they are not alone:

http://gpl-violations.org/news/20071120-freebox.html

Time for gpl-violations fun?

There's something about the vendors in the Wireless ISP industry that seems to think they are above the GPL.  It is harder to find software or hardware targeted at WISPs that doesn't thumb its nose at the GPL than actually abides by it.  Just a few others that like to thumb their nose at it:

WiliOS: http://www.wilibox.com
IkarusOS: http://www.antcor.com
RouterOS: http://www.routeros.com
StarOS: http://www.star-os.com

Also recently, the Software Freedom Law Center has filed suit at two other vendors of WISP equipment:

http://www.softwarefreedom.org/news/200 … 0/busybox/

If you look at High Gain Antenna's website, a few days after suit was filed some GPL information was posted on their firmware page and a source code download page was added.  Looks like an actual filing, not just threats has scared them enough to start complying. 

It seems like almost every one of these companies is located in different parts of the world and seem to think they are immune to GPL enforcement in their neck of the woods. 

Maybe if not just the vendors get sued but a few WISPs do also for illegal distribution, their business of ripping off GPL licensed code will start to collapse.  WISPs tend to be small businesses and running the risk of being sued for copyright infringement certainly won't settle well with most operators.

(Last edited by lschweiss on 28 Nov 2007, 18:32)