"Software development company Loohuis Consulting and process
management consultancy OpenDawn have released a new binary analysis
tool that is designed to detect Linux and BusyBox in binary
firmware. The program, which is freely available for download, is
intended to aid open source license compliance efforts.
"Open source software licenses broadly enable redistribution of
application source code, but some impose additional stipulations on
derivatives. There is an entire class of reciprocal open source
software licenses, sometimes called "copyleft" licenses, that
require derivatives to be distributed under the same terms as the
original code base. The purpose of such licenses is to ensure that
third-party enhancements to the code are disclosed and made
available to all members of the community.
"The most popular copyleft license, the GNU General Public
License (GPL), has become a powerful enabler of collaboration, but
a growing number of companies fall afoul of its requirements."
