Net Integration's NITIX OS

[Hal Duston]

On Sun, 2004-01-18 at 01:33, Jonathan Hale wrote:
> I read a recent review in PC Magazine which stated "NITIX is essentially
> a very stripped down and hardened version of Linux"... and that it "must
> contain an amazingly clean bit of code; it's all of 16MB in size."
> Reading this, I thought to myself, "Wow... I'd like to see how that was
> done..."  So, I went out to your website and, lo and behold, I couldn't
> find it anywhere.  As I would assume you are aware, Linux is published
> under the GNU General Public License which, in part, provides that you
> must:
--snip--

No, they are not required to give you the source code to their
modifications unless they have distributed the binaries to you.  If I
make a personal modification the Linux kernel (and I have), you are most
definitely _not_ entitled to these modifications.  Even if I distribute
these modifications to another party you are _still_ not entitled to
receive these modifications _from me_, unless you are in fact that other
party.  I am _only_ required to distribute the source for any
modifications to any person to whom I distribute the binaries.  I am
_never_ required to distribute the source to my modifications to a GPL'd
work to any and all comers.

> obviously, unless you provide it to me,
> there is no way--short of me purchasing your software and all the other,
> proprietary components which I am not interested in--that I would be
> able to verify that you are doing this instead.  Therefore, at the risk
> of sounding presumptuous, I respectfully request that--if you are
> unwilling to provide it to me--you would at least contact the original
> author, Linus Torvalds, and demonstrate to him that you are, in fact,
> redistributing this code in compliance with the terms of the GPL.

Hrmm, this technique sounds rather familiar. .. .. .. Thinking .. .. ..
Oh yes:

     Dear IBM,

     You have stolen code from us, but we can't actually 
     prove it.  Please give us all your source code so 
     that we can find out for certain if you have in fact
     stolen code from us.

     Sincerely,
     SCO

> Thank you,
> Jonathan K. Hale
> (interested third party)

--
Hal Duston