I see that the GL-RM1 is described as open source in several places on the website.
Are there any pointers to exactly how this is open source? What is this based on?
Thank you.
Hello,
The RM1 OS is built on open-source project pikvm.
You can focus on this repo.
We will public the open source in the future, only open the part of the code which RM1 used open source projects.
Thank you.
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Perfect, thanks for explaining this!
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device is being advertised as being open source so that's definitely not good enough.
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Relevant guidance documents and automated deployment scripts will be provided.
What about linux kernel source and u-boot source? I seem to only see userspace codes in that repo.
Those are GPL and are obligated to be made available, right?
One could take their own build of PiKVM and apply it to the comet maybe?
have you maybe read licence of that repo? Tivoization part of GPL v3 requires all all devices sold with any code that has this software to have user buildable firmware. I wont rest until i get to recreate every part of firmware/software that MY comet runs.
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PIKVM is just an application software running on Linux system. Many application software following GPL license can also run on Windows. We cannot expect Windows to open all their source code.
The kernel and uboot parts should indeed follow the GPL agreement. I will further check with rockchip to see if it is possible to open the relevant code.
This is clearly stated in the GPL V3.0 agreement.
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html#license-text
Note that while GPL requires releasing GPL-licensed source code as well as "Corresponding Source" and make the all those release together build-able to produce the final runnable binaries, it doesn't not mean you have to release the source code of the the non-GPL codes that GPL-licensed codes depend on.
Many companies separate of GPL and non-GPL codes, and would release GPL parts of the codes as source along with pre-built (and usually stripped) non-GPL codes in binary/object/ELF form. An example is how Qualcomm really like to release their NSS driver as binary/object to keep their trade secret as secretive as possible. To my knowledge, a large amount of commercial products follow similar way. For GPL-license the kernel and bootloader, they keep trade secrets in separate binary form. For userspace codes, if the particular binary is not based on GPL codes, they don't need to release them.
A side note, as a company whose majority of products are based on OpenWRT, GL-iNet should know better than most that OpenWRT came into existence and is named "WRT" because Cisco used GPL codes in their "WRT" product line, so they had to make it open source, hence there's the community fork of their WRT codes. (Albeit Cisco violated it at first but then they lost the law suit case)