BSD family of licenses and consumer rights

[OpenFreeNet]

That's essentially the same thing here though. If they've got to also release the source they built on top of the BSD licensed code, that pretty much converts it from being a permissive license to being a copyleft license.

Not exactly, because with GPL everyone has the rights to use the modified source code (i.e. also the modified code is under GPL), while with this hybrid approach, only a (paying) licensee of the product has the rights to obtain the code, modify it, and use it. So the product remain with a proprietary license, but they cannot hide/lock the sorce code to their licensee. And you can become a licensee only if you buy the product. So, it is restricted set, respect the GPL.

EDIT: obviously doing so, a company like SONY will expose their trade-secrets, so it is far from optimal for companies with proprietary products

 

[T-Aoki]

obviously doing so, a company like SONY will expose their trade-secrets, so it is far from optimal for companies with proprietary products

If it really matters, legal department of SONY would immediately prohibit exporting their product to Brazil and notify customs both of local and Brazil to stop their product from exporting/inporting. Much smaller companies that cannot hire enough staff purely for overseas legal works could miss it and export their product to Brazil, and bitten by it, though.