LaCie Ethernet Disk RAID

[Christopher Schmidt]

On Thu, Mar 01, 2007 at 06:58:01PM -0500, thinkliberty wrote:
> I just got a "LaCie Ethernet Disk RAID" which runs Linux.
> 
> They even tell you that the OS is Linux in the product feature chart.
> 
> See:
> http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10877
> 
> No where in the documentation (users manual, quick start guide, etc.. ) is a
> copy of the GPL or even a mention of it.
> 
> I called their tech support line to see if they had a website or something
> where I could download the source code or if they could mail it to me and
> the tech support agent told me that I could not have it. That the OS is
> proprietary!
> 
> How could a sane company use software in their product without agreeing or
> understanding the License? If I owned any Lacie stock I would sell it.

Don't they only have to distribute the OS if they modify it? It may be
entirely Linux underneath, but with no modifications to the Kernel, 
running a proprietary distribution on top of that, which doesn't touch
the kernel. Although I don't think that gets them out from not including
the GPL, I think it would mean they don't need to give you the code so
long as they point to where they got it, no? 

Regards,
-- 
Christopher Schmidt
Web Developer