Comments by "Mikko Rantalainen" (@MikkoRantalainen) on "Holding corporate criminals ACCOUNTABLE; it's about time we start 😈" video.

  1. 3:25 The important part to understand about GPL is that it requires that the receiver of the source code (that is, buyer of the devices with the GPL'd code running on the chips) is given full copy of the all source code covered by GPL. They can ask for a small fee to cover the data transmission costs (this clause was originally meant to allow billing for the cost of diskettes or a CD-R and it cannot be used to make profit). With modern internet, the cost should be at max the data transmission costs of AWS or Google data centers. As an example, the max cost from AWS to any internet client is 0.09 USD per gigabyte. Full copy of Linux kernel source (covered by GPL) is about 0.3 gigabytes so John Deere could bill about 0.03 USD per copy of their modified version of the Linux kernel. If they have any other GPL'd software running, owners of the devices manufactured by John Deere can request respective source code. And the source code must match the code that John Deere distributes with their devices. The only problematic part could be that if their firmware validates digital signatures for the kernel binary, you cannot swap the modified kernel in place even if you had the full source code. This is called Tivoization and GPL version 3 or greater has terms that prevent this. Linux kernel is distributed with GPL version 2 license that doesn't prevent this loophole for manufacturers that want to make it extra painfull for their customers. However, even with devices with built-in Tivoization you must give the respective source code to anybody who is running the device manufactured by you with the binary version of the GPL'd source code. Note that it doesn't matter if the GPL'd source code was modified or used as verbatim; the manufacturer of the device is required to give out the source code if requested.
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