Possible GPL Violation By iRiver

O que deve ter de violação da GPL nesse mundão afora... :D

8. Possible GPL Violation By iRiver
30 Nov 2004 (6 posts) Subject: "GPL violation by iRiver"
People: Marcus Metzler, Alan Cox, Wilmer van der Gaast

Marcus Metzler reported:

I recently bought an iRiver PMP-140 portable multimedia player which runs
under Linux. Unfortunately, I could neither find the offer for the source
code required by the GPL nor would the support people at iriver USA tell me
where I can get the source code. They just said that it is not possible to
get the sources. I also emailed to iRiver Germany but haven`t received an
answer yet. Has anybody else tried to contact them? If you are interested,
there is a new firmware available here (http://service.iriver.co.kr/
cs_view.asp?idx=409&page=0&p_name=PMP-140&SrchItem=&SrchString=&SrchProduct
=) (klick on PMP100kor-v201.zip).

Using string on the unzipped files shows that at least the Linux kernel and
busybox are used in the firmware.

I tried to send this email to legal@lists.gpl-violations.org but it came
back with a no route to host error which I also get for the website now,
although I could load it just a half an hour ago.

What should be the next step?

Alan Cox said he hadn't tried to contact them, "but I've received various bits
of their publicity and other stuff which clearly states they are Linux based.
They've certainly not tried to hide the fact so that is promising. In fact its
archived (http://www.iriver.com/html/company/press/copr_pr_view.asp?searchField
=&searchString=&page=1&idx=51&tmpSearchField=all&tmpSearchString=) ."

Marcus replied, "I know and it never looked like they tried to hide the fact
they were using linux. But I have bought other hardware that uses linux based
firmware and they always mentioned it in there manuals even if they neglected
to offer the sources at first. There is no mention about the GPL or Linux on
their copyrights pages or anywhere else in the manual. You can find it online
on their website: http://www.iriveramerica.com/support/pmp100.aspx"

Wilmer van der Gaast remarked, "AFAIK iRiver is a Korean company (sometiems new
versions of the firmwares are also available for download there weeks before
they're on the international site), so maybe you should try to contact them
there."

End of thread.