GPL Violation in TARGA Traveller 826T MT32 Notebook, sold at LIDL sale today

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
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TARGA NOTEBOOK IN LIDL SALE OF 01 JUN 2005 VIOLATES GPL

BERLIN, Germany - Jun. 01, 2005 -- The gpl-violations.org project has
uncovered violations by TARGA GmbH, a German Notebook Vendor, of the GNU
General Public License (GPL).  

According to gpl-violations.org, TARGA GmbH used GPL licensed software in the
"TARGA Quick Media" software that is pre-installed on their Treveller 826T MT32
Notbooks.

Sales of the Targa Traveller 826T MT32 notebook just started earlier today
at LIDL, one of Germanys largest nationwide low-budget retail stores.

"While there is nothing wrong with using GPL licensed software in commercial
products, it is only permitted under certain obligations, such as passing
on the license agreement, and making available the full corresponding 
source code", says Mr. Harald Welte, Linux Kernel developer and founder of the
gpl-violations.org project.

The gpl-violations.org project has recently uncovered similar GPL violations in
pre-installed media player software on notebook computers of other vendors such
as Medion AG.

Mr Welte continues: "The Free Software community is very happy to see that
notebook vendors actually pre-install Linux onto their devices because they're
dissatisfied with the bootup time of the popular Microsoft(R) Windows(TM)
operating system.  However, Free Software is copyrighted material, much like
any other software.  Redistribution can only happen according to this license."


About the gpl-violations.org project

In the past 16 months, gpl-violations.org has helped uncover and negotiate
more than 30 out-of-court settlement agreements. The gpl-violations.org
project is a not-for-profit effort to bring commercial users and vendors of
Free Software into compliance with the license conditions as set forth by
the original authors.  The project was founded and is managed by Mr. Harald
Welte, a Linux Kernel developer and Free Software enthusiast.
 
For more information on the project, its mission, milestones and goals,
please

see http://gpl-violations.org/

 

Media contact:

gpl-violations.org

Phone: +49-30-24033902

Email: laforge@gpl-violations.org
      

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