A few months back Peter Semelhack of Bug Labs mentioned to me that his new Sony Bravia flat screen TV came with some interesting paperwork: a statement about GPL'd software. As it happened we also own a Bravia flat screen. Sure enough, when I looked at the pile of paperwork that came with it, there was a large folded sheet covered with small type titled REQUIRED PUBLIC STATEMENT FOR GPL/LGPL LICENSED SOFTWARE USED IN THIS TELEVISION. Above almost four pages containing the full full text of the GPL v.2 and the LPGL v.2.1. licenses, Sony says,
The following GPL executables and LGPL libraries are used in this product and are subject to the GPL/LGPL License Agreements included as part of this documentation:
- GPL EXECUTABLES:
- MontaVista Linux Kernel
- busybox
- insmod
- LGPL LIBRARIES:
- libuCibc.so
- ld.so
- libc.so
- libn.so
- libgcc_s.so
- libstdc++.so
Source code for these executables and libraries can be obtained using the following link:
http://www.sony.com/linux
That link leads to a simple page with links to code behind four product categories:
The Bravia link leads to .tgz files for these hunks of code:
The Television link leads to a list of TVs made in the last five years:
I bought our TV, a KDL-40XBR2, in November of 2006, and find it in the 2006 list. When I click on that link, I get to the Open Source Code 06 section of Sony's "Open Source Code - English" page. There I see that my TV runs on the ATI GTX Linux Kernel, which is a blue link that starts downloading the source code when I click on it.
I'm no hacker, so I probably won't do anything funky with our television. (More capable friends are welcome, family permitting.) Instead I'll sit content to know there's one more Linux device in our house, and that clearly we're moving toward GandhiCon IV. That's the last stage suggested by Mohandas Gandhi's famous statement, "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."
Of course, if we've won, that means that Linux in the TV is a feature and not a buried host for functions. How long before that happens? See "CES and Beyond: Watching the Tide Shift to Linux", on page __ for some clues about the prospects.
- Doc Searls