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Synology GPL

What's GPL?

As with most of the NAS manufacturers Synology takes work of the open-source community and integrates it into their products. A lot of software (especially low-level things touching the kernel) is licensed under GPL. This has a huge implication on what they can, cannot, and have to do. This is by no means a summary of the GPL licensing, but in short they:

  • can use any of the code for free
  • can integrate GPL code into proprietary code
  • can modify the code and do whatever they want with it
  • can sell it and take all the profit
  • cannot change the license of a derivative work
  • have to include the original source used for building binaries
  • have to publish ALL changes they made to the source

There's more to it but it's not important for our discussion here.

Synology & GPL

Synology has a long standing history of... well... not being so friendly to the open-source community. Historically they didn't release the source code, later on they only gave it to selected people, then finally began releasing archives through SourceForge. Notably, they are released much later than the actual DSM updates utilizing them. Over the years the scope of released materials changed.

Source Code Releases

As of 2021 the directory contains the following versions:

  631branch    2008-09-04
  722branch    2008-12-06
  844branch    2009-05-25
  944branch    2009-12-15
 1142branch    2010-05-03
 1337branch    2011-11-02
 1594branch    2011-11-02
 1742branch    2011-11-02
 1922branch    2011-11-04
 2198branch    2012-03-19
 2636branch    2012-12-06
 3201branch    2013-03-21
 3203branch    2013-06-10 (empty)
 3776branch    2013-09-11
 3810branch    2014-02-20 (contains ffmpeg v1 only)
 4418branch    2014-02-18
 4458branch    2014-05-02
 4482branch    2014-04-23 (contains ffmpeg v2 only)
 5004branch    2014-12-18
 5510branch    2017-09-13
 5565branch    2017-09-12
 5644branch    2017-09-12
 7321branch    2017-09-13
 8451branch    2017-03-27
15047branch    2017-09-13
15152branch    2017-08-22
22259branch    2017-11-01
24922branch    2020-09-11
25426branch    2021-01-19
7.0 Beta       2020-11-03
41890branch    2021-07-?? (pulled as of 2021/07/15, see https://sourceforge.net/p/dsgpl/discussion/862835/thread/a519b80124/)

Scope

As the archives are shared in form of compressed tars it's not easy to compare them. However, there were some notable points in the

  • Earlier releases (up to somewhere around 5004) the code contained in ~1.5GB archives looked like a complete OS code
  • Since ~5004 the code will no longer compile as some constants were replaced with MY_ABC_HERE
  • Releases >5004 removed synobios kernel module code from main branch directories
  • Newer releases contains a subdirectory 6281-source with Linux v2.6.32 which still contains synobios code
  • Releases >5644 no longer publish the full 1.5GB archives but separate packages (e.g. for kernel or ssh)
  • Release 8451 the kernel does not synobios headers at all
  • Since 15047 the kernel does NOT contain full headers for synobios structures (in include/linux/synobios.h)

Accessibility

As mentioned before the company shares GPL sources through SourceForge: https://sourceforge.net/projects/dsgpl/files/Synology%20NAS%20GPL%20Source/ The code is not shared in any repository. Instead, there are a ton of compressed archives. Over the years the organization of them changed and includes 3 different organization schemes:

  • synogpl-<VERSION>.{tar.bz2|tbz|tgz} (~250-1.3GB) - full dump, single platform

    • [todo: add internal structure here]
    • Releases: from 631branch to 1142branch

  • synogpl-<VERSION>-<PLATFORM>.tbz (~550-1600MB) - full dump with platform designation

    • [todo: add internal structure here]
    • Platforms:
      • 5281 (1337branch - 1742branch)
      • 6180 (1337branch - 1922branch)
      • 6281 (1337branch - 5004branch >>)
      • 824x (1337branch - 3201branch)
      • 853x (1337branch - 5004branch >>)
      • 854x (1337branch - 2198branch)
      • alpine (5004branch - 5004branch >>)
      • armada370 (3776branch - 5004branch >>)
      • armada375 (5004branch - 5004branch >>)
      • armadaxp (3776branch - 5004branch >>)
      • avoton (5004branch - 5004branch >>)
      • bromolow (1594branch - 5004branch >>)
      • cedarview (2198branch - 5004branch >>)
      • comcerto2k (4458branch - 5004branch >>)
      • evansport (3776branch - 5004branch >>)
      • ppc (1337branch - 3201branch)
      • qoriq (2636branch - 5004branch >>)
      • x64 (1337branch - 5004branch >>)
    • Releases: from 1337branch to 5004branch
    • Note: ranges ignore versions which were incomplete:
      • 3203branch is empty
      • 3810branch contains ffmpeg v1.0 only
      • 4482branch contains ffmpeg v2.0 only
    • Notes
      • >> next to a version means it is available further (in the next format)

  • Full dump + additional libraries

    • Types
      • <PLATFORM>-source.txz (~550-1600MB) - full dump with platform designation
      • <PLATFORM>-<LIB_NAME>.txz (small files)
    • [todo: add internal structure here]
    • Platforms/libs:
      • 6281
        • -source (<< 5510branch - 5565branch >>)
        • -chroot (5510branch - 5565branch)
      • 853x
        • -source (<< 5510branch - 5565branch)
        • -chroot (5510branch - 5565branch)
      • alpine
        • -source (<< 5510branch - 5565branch >>)
        • -chroot (5510branch - 5565branch)
      • armada370
        • -source (<< 5510branch - 5565branch >>)
        • -chroot (5510branch - 5565branch)
      • armada375
        • -source (<< 5510branch - 5565branch >>)
        • -chroot (5510branch - 5565branch)
      • armada38x
        • -source (5644branch only >>)
        • -chroot (5644branch only)
      • armadaxp
        • -source (<< 5510branch - 5565branch >>)
        • -chroot (5510branch - 5565branch)
      • avoton
        • -source (<< 5510branch - 5565branch >>)
        • -chroot (5510branch - 5565branch)
      • braswell
        • -source (5644branch only >>)
        • -chroot (5644branch only)
      • bromolow
        • -source (<< 5510branch - 5565branch >>)
        • -chroot (5510branch - 5565branch)
      • cedarview
        • -source (<< 5510branch - 5565branch >>)
        • -chroot (5510branch - 5565branch)
      • comcerto2k
        • -source (<< 5510branch - 5565branch >>)
        • -chroot (5510branch - 5565branch)
      • evansport
        • -source (<< 5510branch - 5565branch >>)
        • -chroot (5510branch - 5565branch)
      • monaco
        • -source (5644branch only >>)
        • -chroot (5644branch only)
      • qoriq
        • -source (<< 5510branch - 5565branch >>)
        • -chroot (5510branch - 5565branch)
      • x64
        • -source (<< 5510branch - 5565branch >>)
        • -chroot (5510branch - 5565branch)
    • Releases: from 5510branch to 5644branch
    • Notes
      • << next to a version means it was available previously (in the previous format)
      • >> next to a version means it is available further (in the next format)

  • Components segregated by platform

    • Types
      • <VERSION>-source/<LIB_NAME>.txz (mostly small files, except Linux)
    • [todo: add internal structure here]
    • Platforms:
      • 6281 (<< 7321branch - )
      • alpine (<< 7321branch - )
      • alpine4k (7321branch - )
      • apollolake (15152branch - )
      • armada370 (<< 7321branch - )
      • armada375 (<< 7321branch - )
      • armada37xx (24922branch - )
      • armada38x (<< 7321branch - )
      • armadaxp (<< 7321branch - )
      • avoton (<< 7321branch - )
      • braswell (<< 7321branch - )
      • broadwell (7321branch - ) => Linux v3
      • broadwellnk (22259branch - ) => Linux v4
      • broadwellntbap (25426branch - )
      • bromolow (<< 7321branch - )
      • cedarview (<< 7321branch - )
      • comcerto2k (<< 7321branch - )
      • denverton (15152branch, 25426branch - )
      • dockerx64 (7321branch - )
      • evansport (<< 7321branch - )
      • geminilake (24922branch - )
      • grantley (7321branch - )
      • hi3535 (7321branch - 15152branch, 24922branch - )
      • kvmx64 (7321branch - )
      • monaco (<< 7321branch - )
      • purley (24922branch - )
      • qoriq (<< 7321branch - )
      • rtd1296-source (15152branch - )
      • v1000-source (25426branch - )
      • x64 (<< 7321branch - )
    • Releases: from 7321branch to 41890branch (so far, probably will continue)
    • Notes
      • << next to a version means it was available previously (in the previous format)

Making it more accessible

We have a plan to make all GPL resources indexed & more accessible. This will involve mirroring them on GitHub and organizing them into repos like so:

[repo: linux-v...]
 [branch: bromolow]
   [tag: build-24922]
   [tag: build-25426]
 [branch: bromowell]
   [tag: build-24922]
   [tag: build-25426]
 [branch: x64]
   [tag: build-24922]
   [tag: build-25426]

[repo: openssh-v...]
 [branch: bromolow]
   [tag: build-24922]
   [tag: build-25426]
 [branch: bromowell]
   [tag: build-24922]
   [tag: build-25426]
 [branch: x64]
   [tag: build-24922]
   [tag: build-25426]

Since GitHub allows for storing (reasonably) unlimited amount of binary/packed files, the source archives (i.e. 1:1 from SF) will be kept as GitHub Releases. Probably this will need one or more separate repos as not everything is organized per-module in SF.

It will allow for an easy comparison and searching. Additionally, to make the process at least half-automatic (more so to keep it consistent) we will keep the list of all libs/modules/archives as a single JSON file. This will also allow for a very easy generation of GH Pages with a matrix of features/libs per version/platform.

{
  "formats": {
    "synogpl-full-platformless": {
      "collection_url": "https://sourceforge.net/projects/dsgpl/files/Synology%20NAS%20GPL%20Source/@@version@@branch/synogpl-@@version@@.@@file_ext@@/download",
      "component_url": null,
      "has_platform": false
    },
    "synogpl-full-platform": {
      "collection_url": "https://sourceforge.net/projects/dsgpl/files/Synology%20NAS%20GPL%20Source/@@version@@branch/synogpl-@@version@@-@@platform@@.tbz/download",
      "component_url": null,
      "has_platform": true
    },
    "mixed-platform": {
      "collection_url": "https://sourceforge.net/projects/dsgpl/files/Synology%20NAS%20GPL%20Source/@@version@@branch/@@platform@@-source.txz/download",
      "component_url": "https://sourceforge.net/projects/dsgpl/files/Synology%20NAS%20GPL%20Source/@@version@@branch/@@platform@@-@@component@@.txz/download",
      "has_platform": true
    },
    "unpacked-components": {
      "collection_url": null,
      "component_url": "https://sourceforge.net/projects/dsgpl/files/Synology%20NAS%20GPL%20Source/@@version@@branch/@@platform@@-source/@@component@@.txz/download",
      "has_platform": true      
    }
  },
  "git": {
    "gh_root": "github.com/user-or-org",
    "repository_name": ""
  },
  "releases": {
    "build-5510": {
      "format": "mixed-platform",
      "vars": {
        "version": 5510
      },
      "components": {
        "linux-3.10.x": { "platforms": "*", "source": "collection_url", "source_path": "sources/linux-3.10.x/" },
        "chroot": { "platforms": "*", "source": "component_url", "source_path": "/" }
      }
    },
    "build-25426": {
      "format": "unpacked-components",
      "vars": {
        "version": 25426
      },
      "components": {
        "linux-3.10.x": { "platforms": "*", "source": "component_url", "source_path": "linux-3.10.x/" }
      }
    }
  }
}