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El Reg reports:
Linux kernel developer Christoph Hellwig has sued VMware in Hamburg, Germany, over alleged violations of the GNU General Public License.
Hellwig's suit, which is backed by New York advocacy group the Software Freedom Conservancy, alleges that VMware's proprietary ESXi hypervisor products use portions of the code that Hellwig wrote for the Linux kernel, in violation of the terms of version 2 of the GPL.
"In addition to other ways VMware has not complied with the requirements of the GPL," the Conservancy wrote in a blog post on Wednesday, "Conservancy and Hellwig specifically assert that VMware has combined copyrighted Linux code, licensed under GPLv2, with their own proprietary code called 'vmkernel' and distributed the entire combined work without providing nor offering complete, corresponding source code for that combined work under terms of the GPLv2."
This isn't the first time Hellwig has made such claims. He first accused VMware of violating the GPL in 2006 via the Linux Kernel Mailing List, even threatening to sue. It now seems that the proverbial other shoe has finally dropped.
(Score: 4, Informative) by tonyPick on Friday March 06 2015, @12:19PM
AIUI this isn't technically the case, and if you distribute the binaries you need to be able to distribute complete source.
From http://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2008/compliance-guide.html [softwarefreedom.org]
The license terms apply to anyone who distributes GPL’d software, regardless of whether they are the original distributor. Take the example of Vendor V , who develops a software platform from GPL’d sources for use in embedded devices. Manufacturer M contracts with V to install the software as firmware in M’s device. V provides the software to M, along with a compliant offer for source. In this situation, M cannot simply pass V ’s offer for source along to its customers. M also distributes the GPL’d software commercially, so M too must comply with the GPL and provide source (or M’s own offer for source) to M’s customers.
This situation illustrates that the offer for source is often a poor choice for products that your customers will likely redistribute. If you include the source itself with the products, then your distribution to your customers is compliant, and their (unmodified) distribution to their customers is likewise compliant, because both include source. If you include only an offer for source, your distribution is compliant but your customer’s distribution does not “inherit” that compliance, because they have not made their own offer to accompany their distribution.
Also touched on (indirectly) in the FAQ: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#DistributingSourceIsInconvenient [gnu.org]
(Usual IANAL disclaimer here)