[Arm-netbook] lessons learned from CT-PC89E laptop GPL Violations, for EOMA/PCMCIA

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

folks, hi,

i've had a couple of people who contacted me, nervous about doing
anything else because of the GPL violations on the CT-PC89E laptop.  i
thought it was important to point a few things out:

1) that lesson was vital, to know *not* to let companies get away with
that, ever again.

2) the kernel that was supplied as-is was dodgy as hell, and there is
some empirical evidence to show that it was "bugged".  there is direct
evidence that it was attempting a very lame and ineffective form of
DRM.

3) knowing that the form-factor was not suitable (SO-DIMM) was only
really the sort of thing you could find out by actually having the
machine in your hands and playing with it.

so, that leave several key vital factors which will be taken into
account for future direction of EOMA/PCMCIA-based systems:

1) absolutely no hardware will be purchased without a guaranteed
supply of all required tools and all GPL-compliant software.

2) *we* will supply the software, and will do so *in advance*.

3) the standard procedure of developing early prototypes will be
followed *prior* to announcing beta availability.

i think that's basically it, for now, but i felt it was important to
point this out: it's valuable information on the direction you _don't_
want to go :)

l.