This seems a clear GPL violation to me and Transcend deserve an expensive legal education. "GPL also makes anything linked with a GPL sourced component a deriv

This seems a clear GPL violation to me and Transcend deserve an expensive legal education. "GPL also makes anything linked with a GPL sourced component a derivative work - requiring it too to be licenced under GPL." This isn't correct. The result of linking a GPL work with another work is itself a derived work. To distribute that derived work you are required to make the all sources available under the GPL [or strictly more permissive license - read the GPL yourself if it matters] so you have a choice between: 1 not distributing the derived work (the binary) OR 2 ensuring appropriate release of source code OR 3 coming to a private arrangement to receive a (non-GPL) license from the copyright holders of the GPLed work (not practical or possible with Linux) OR 4 (not recommended) committing copyright infringement by distributing the binary without permission. The GPL is not viral and does not automatically cause licenses to be granted to linked work. It sounds as if Transcend have gone for option 4 which would make them commercial copyright infringers and liable for penalties in most countries of the world (Berne Convention etc).