[arp242]

> Back in 2020 they also attempted to stop the sale of modified AVM second hand products running custom firmware

I can't find anything on that.

(and it's not that I disbelieve you, but details do matter, so very high-level descriptions isn't something I can really do anything with).

[pantalaimon]

https://www.heise.de/select/ct/2020/8/2006507573746296454

[jeroenhd]

All I knew was what was reported in Dutch tech news. It looks like AVM won: https://www.heise.de/news/Rechtsstreit-um-gebrauchte-Fritzbo...

I just read up on the details, as best as I could with machine translation and my terrible German anyway.

Basically, a couple of thousand modems made for ISPs that got sold off after replacement ended up getting bought by Woog, which then flashed the latest official firmware for the hardware (which wasn't distinct from the carrier hardware in any way) into them. AVM didn't want them to sell carrier modems with unlocked firmware.

When I read about this stuff first, it was all labeled "custom firmware", but it looks like the firmware wasn't so custom after all.

Either way, AVM sued a company selling second hand hardware and now a tens thousands of perfectly functional modems seemingly ended up in a landfill somewhere.

[arp242]

As I understand it, it's more of a trademark thing than GPL thing, but I'm also just relying on my German lessons where my favourite word was "schlaffen", and trademark law mostly just seems to be the "most convenient law" rather than an actual trademark dispute.

I kind of understand AVM's viewpoints on that one because they probably had a special deal with the ISP to sell these modems at a cheap price and now they're basically competing against themselves, but scrapping thousands of perfectly functional devices is of course just silly. My fritzbox had a "eco mode" or some such and I'm pretty sure that the scrapping completely obliterated the savings of eco mode of all fritzboxes combined.

I'm not hugely impressed by either case, but I also don't really think it backs up the "AVM is notorious for GPL violations" and "they intentionally violated the patents" (with an implied "they just ignore any IP law they don't like").

[ibotty]

You might have missed my comment. It's not easy to get the sources which you as customer have the right to get. They are notorious, because they never comply voluntarily and for some models never comply. Just because people are not suing them all the time does not make it less of an issue.

See https://github.com/Freetz-NG/freetz-ng/discussions/134 (and possibly translate it).