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Originally Posted by doctorow
Sorry my ignorance, but isn't this is a blunt violation of GPL? GPL dictates that you must provide the user a method to recompile the sources and reflash the unit. Sony is actively trying to prevent us from doing this. This is worse than just not delivering the necessary tools.
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No, the GPL has no such requirement. The GPL requires that in order to distribute the binary, you must make available the source to the people you distribute the binary for no more than a reasonable fee for media. The GPL currently has no requirement that any hardware supports or permits modified binaries.
Version 3 of the GPL might have such a requirement, however Linux is licensed under version 2, so any such change won't help until and unless Linux moves to version 3 (unlikely) AND Sony updates to a Linux version after such a change (even more unlikely, if they want to keep people out of the hardware).
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html