14 DAY TRIAL // There was a whole explosion of anger and disappointment emanated from GPL supporters, after software developer Cliff Biffle had revealed a few discrepancies between the pre-installed Eee OS and the source code available for download on the producer's website.
Biffle affirmed that the 1.8 GB tarball that included the operating system source code only contained a few kernel headers and some Debian package files that were not related whatsoever to the operating system used on Asustek's Eee machines.
Moreover, the company has performed code alterations to the asus_acpi kernel module, without having even announced the operation in the changelog, not to mention the modified code has not been included. These changes are vital, as they may show the user ways to improve performance of the operating system that runs on Eee notebooks. Asustek failed in living up to the General Public License (GPL) that is the essence of the open source specifications, under which the Linux kernel is distributed.
After a short period of silent denial, Asustek officials have finally considered that it is high time to clarify the source code situation. The two scenarios that we have mentioned in a previous article showed criminal and willful intent to misappropriate intellectual property or mere incompetence, and the company has decided to play the incompetence card.
"Asustek stated that it has always respected the spirit of the GPL and the failure to make the source code available was due to an omission by one of the company's software technicians. The company is working on publishing all the related source code onto Linux forums and will provide downloads," it is written on the company's official website.
GPL infringements have hardly been intended, and they have been settled silently and usually outside the court. Moreover, they are usually the result of omission rather than of criminal intent, but for Asustek, it is the second time to be blamed for foul play regarding the GPL.