Hidden underneath the software for reading books on the Amazon Kindle is Linux. In fact, BusyBox is found in many embedded computing products.
"BusyBox is a lightweight collection of standard Linux command-line utilities bundled together in a single executable" (
ArsTechnica, 2007).
The vast majority of companies that use BusyBox comply with the licensing requirements and make source code available. Amazon, for instance, which uses BusyBox in the new Kindle e-book reader, makes its changes to the source code publicly available.
Other open-source software components in the Amazon Kindle include "Alsa, zlib, busybox, and Freetype" (
ArsTechnica, 2007).
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