GPL Television

I failed to mention this but I had recently appropriated another 32″ LCD TV for the home. It is a Panasonic TH-32C12K screen which is only HD-Ready but has a double-layered screen. I found it for cheap at a local Carrefour for only RM1399 (£250). It even has an SD-Card slot which can be used to view photographs. Anyway, one interesting thing that caught my eye about this television is that it uses GPL software!

I was just browsing through the menus last weekend when I came across a menu entry to display the license entry. Clicking on it displayed both the GPLv2 and LGPLv2 license. Interesting. It is good that Panasonic is a manufacturer that clearly advertises the use of GPL code. It even lists the website to download the source-code. Nice. However, the website where the code is made available is not very well done and I have a feeling that the code is probably not nicely organised either. Still a better attempt when compared to most other houses who co-opt open source code and try to wriggle their way out of their responsibilities just because nobody else knows about it.

Anyway, I thought that this was something worth mentioning.

Published by

Shawn Tan

Chip Doctor, Chartered/Professional Engineer, Entrepreneur, Law Graduate.

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