62-506: BusyBox is a software suite that provides several Unix utilities in a single executable file . It runs in a variety of POSIX environments such as Linux , Android , and FreeBSD , although many of the tools it provides are designed to work with interfaces provided by the Linux kernel . It was specifically created for embedded operating systems with very limited resources. The authors dubbed it "The Swiss Army knife of Embedded Linux ", as
124-533: A Regional Bell Operating Company (RBOC), commonly referred to as "Baby Bells." The company was originally headquartered in Philadelphia and operated in the states of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia. In 1997, Bell Atlantic expanded into New York and the New England states by merging with fellow Baby Bell NYNEX . While Bell Atlantic was the surviving company,
186-488: A fleet telematics system company in Dublin, Ireland , for $ 2.4 billion, to build products that it offers to enterprises for logistics and mobile workforces. On September 12, 2016, Verizon announced its acquisition of Sensity, a startup for LED sensors , in an effort to bolster its IoT portfolio. A few months later, Verizon acquired mapping startup SocialRadar, whose technology would be integrated with MapQuest . Verizon
248-479: A symbolic link or hard link for each different name) in a specific manner with appropriate arguments. BusyBox benefits from the single binary approach, as it reduces the overhead introduced by the executable file format (typically ELF ), and it allows code to be shared between multiple applications without requiring a library . This technique is similar to what is provided by the crunchgen command in FreeBSD ,
310-583: A $ 50 billion lawsuit was filed by two lawyers on behalf of all Verizon subscribers for privacy violations and to prevent the company from releasing additional records without consent or warrant. Protesters staged the National Day of Out(R)age due in part to the controversy. In 2007, Verizon stated that it fulfilled only "lawful demands" for information, but also acknowledged surrendering customer information to government agencies without court orders or warrants 720 times between 2005 and 2007. Verizon won
372-544: A deal in April 2017 whereby Verizon would purchase 12.4 million miles of optical fiber per year from Corning from 2018 through 2020. Months later, Verizon purchased WideOpenWest 's fiber-optic assets in the Chicago market for $ 225 million. Also in 2017, Verizon was sued by New York City for violating its cable franchise agreement, which required the provider to pass a fiberoptic network to all households in
434-473: A default judgement of triple damages of $ 90,000 and lawyers' costs and fees of $ 47,865, and possession of "presumably a lot of high-def TVs" as infringing equipment in the lawsuit Software Freedom Conservancy v. Best Buy, et al., the GPL infringement case noted in the paragraph above. No other developers, including original author Bruce Perens and maintainer Dave Cinege, were represented in these actions or party to
496-477: A lawsuit against Vonage for patent infringement in March 2007. The three patents named were filed by Bell Atlantic in 1997, and relate to the conversion of IP addresses into phone numbers, a key technology of Vonage's business. The company was awarded US$ 58 million in damages and future royalties. Vonage later lost an appeal and was ordered to pay Verizon $ 120 million. In May 2007, Verizon acquired CyberTrust ,
558-456: A new division named Oath Inc., which was rebranded as Verizon Media in January 2019, and was spun off and rebranded to Yahoo! Inc. after its sale to Apollo Global Management . As of 2016 , Verizon is one of three remaining companies with roots in the former Baby Bells. The other two, like Verizon, exist as a result of mergers among fellow former Baby Bell members. SBC Communications bought
620-613: A new division to serve the company's business and government customers. The FCC approved the deal on October 31, 2005, valuing it at $ 8.5 billion. Verizon's 2006 revenues rose by as much as 20% following the purchase. USA Today reported in May 2006 that Verizon, as well as AT&T and BellSouth , had given the National Security Agency landline phone records following the September 11 attacks . That same month,
682-890: A part of the index since the Great Depression . Verizon launched its Fios Internet service, which transmits data over fiber optic cables, in Keller, Texas , in 2004. The company launched Fios TV in September 2005, also in Keller. Twenty percent of qualified homes had signed up by the end of 2004. By January 2006, Fios offered over 350 channels in seven states, including 20 high-definition television channels and video on demand . Mail servers at Verizon.net were configured in December 2004 to not accept connections from Europe by default in an attempt to reduce spam email that
SECTION 10
#1732772414337744-497: A possible buyout. Charter reportedly rejected the deal around the end of May 2017, citing that the offer was too low for them to accept, and its largest shareholder Liberty Media stated that they were not ready to sell. Verizon added to its fiber-optic network and 5G capabilities in February 2017 when it closed its $ 1.8 billion acquisition of XO Communications ' fiber-optic network business. Verizon and Corning Inc. announced
806-489: A privately held provider of global information security services. In September 2007, Verizon Wireless reversed a controversial decision to deny NARAL Pro-Choice America a short code through which the organization could text consumers who had signed up for messaging from the group. The company had initially refused the group access to a code by reserving the right to block "controversial or unsavory" messages. Verizon opened its networks to third party apps and devices for
868-457: A profit of $ 32.5 billion. The same report also criticized Verizon for increasing executive pay by 167% in 2010 for its top five executives while laying off 21,308 workers between 2008 and 2010. However, in its Form 10-K filed with the SEC on February 24, 2012, Verizon reported having paid more than $ 11.1 billion in taxes (including income, employment and property taxes) from 2009 to 2011. In addition,
930-723: A report detailing the problems that led to the failure in January 2013. Verizon reported that it had already addressed or was addressing a number of the issues related to the FCC report, including the causes of generator failures, conducting audits of backup systems, and making its monitoring systems less centralized, although the FCC indicated that Verizon still needed to make additional improvements. The FCC ruled that Verizon must stop charging users an added fee for using 4G smartphones and tablets as Wi-Fi hotspots (known as " tethering "). Verizon had been charging its customers, even those with "unlimited" plans, $ 20 per month for tethering. As part of
992-535: A rescue disk and as an installer for the Debian distribution. Since that time, it has been extended to become the de facto standard core user space toolset for embedded Linux devices and Linux distribution installers. Since each Linux executable requires several kilobytes of overhead, having the BusyBox program combine over two hundred programs together often saves substantial disk space and system memory. BusyBox
1054-548: A result of the controversies around GPLv3/GPLv2 discussions. At the end of 2011 it was relicensed under the BSD-2-Clause license after the project went dormant. In March 2013, it was relicensed again under the 0BSD license. On January 11, 2012, Tim Bird, a Sony employee, suggested creating an alternative to BusyBox which would not be under the GNU General Public License. He suggested it be based on
1116-509: A three-year continuous expansion of the 4G service. Verizon acquired Terremark , an information technology services company, for $ 1.4 billion in early 2011. Ivan Seidenberg retired as Verizon's CEO on August 1, 2011, and was succeeded by Lowell McAdam . In December 2011, the non-partisan organization Public Campaign criticized Verizon for its tax avoidance procedures after it spent $ 52.34 million on lobbying while collecting $ 951 million in tax rebates between 2008 and 2010 and making
1178-602: Is an American telecommunications company headquartered in New York City . It is the world's second-largest telecommunications company by revenue and its mobile network is the largest wireless carrier in the United States , with 114.2 million subscribers as of September 30, 2024. The company was formed in 1984 as Bell Atlantic as a result of the breakup of the Bell System into seven companies, each
1240-788: The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and approved by the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that required Verizon to provide the National Security Agency (NSA) with telephone metadata for all calls originating in the U.S. Verizon Wireless was not part of the NSA data collection for wireless accounts due to foreign ownership issues. Verizon purchased Vodafone's 45% stake in Verizon in September 2013 for $ 130 billion. The deal closed on February 21, 2014, and became
1302-601: The 2012 settlement, Verizon made a voluntary payment of $ 1.25 million to the U.S. Treasury . In August 2012, the Department of Justice approved Verizon's purchase of Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) spectrum from a consortium of cable companies, including Comcast , Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks , for $ 3.9 billion. Verizon began expanding its LTE network utilizing these extra airwaves in October 2013. The Guardian reported it had obtained an order by
SECTION 20
#17327724143371364-859: The Bells' former parent AT&T Corporation and took on the AT&;T name, and CenturyLink acquired Qwest (formerly US West ) in 2011 and later became Lumen Technologies in 2020. In 1983, the US Department of Justice came to a settlement with AT&T Corporation to breakup the Bell System. Bell Atlantic Corporation was created as one of the original " Baby Bell " Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs) in 1984. Bell Atlantic's original roster of operating companies included: In 1996, CEO and Chairman Raymond W. Smith orchestrated Bell Atlantic's merger with NYNEX . When it merged, it moved its corporate headquarters from Philadelphia to New York City. NYNEX
1426-411: The BusyBox executable: More commonly, the desired command names are linked (using hard or symbolic links) to the BusyBox executable; BusyBox reads argv[0] to find the name by which it is called, and runs the appropriate command, for example just after /bin/ls is linked to /bin/busybox . This works because the first argument passed to a program is the name used for the program call, in this case
1488-502: The BusyBox project decided against adopting the GNU General Public License Version 3 ( GPLv3 ); the BusyBox license was clarified as being GPL-2.0-only . Since October 2006, Denys Vlasenko has taken over maintainership of BusyBox from Rob Landley, who has started Toybox , also as a result of the license controversies. In late 2007, BusyBox also came to prominence for actively prosecuting violations of
1550-802: The FCC's net neutrality rules and the FCC's determination that broadband access is a public utility rather than a luxury. AT&T and the telecom industry said they would seek to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court . The Wall Street Journal reported that Verizon received more than 1,000 requests for information about its subscribers on national security grounds via National Security Letters . In total, Verizon received 321,545 requests from federal, state and local law enforcement for U.S. customer information. In May 2015, Verizon agreed to pay $ 90 million "to settle federal and state investigations into allegations mobile customers were improperly billed for premium text messages." Verizon Wireless launched
1612-542: The Internet speed of the time to 144 kb per second. In August 2002, Verizon began offering local, long-distance and mobile calling, as well as Internet service, in a bundle . It was initially only available to customers in New York and Massachusetts. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added Verizon Communications to its stock market index in April 2004. Verizon replaced telecom competitor AT&T, which had been
1674-564: The Super Micro case being settled on July 23, 2008. BusyBox and Bell Microproducts also settled out of court on October 17. On December 14, 2009, a new lawsuit was filed naming fourteen defendants including Best Buy , JVC , Samsung and others. In February 2010 Samsung released its LN52A650 TV firmware under GPLv2, which was used later as a reference by the SamyGO community project. On about August 3, 2010, BusyBox won from Westinghouse
1736-466: The argument would be "/bin/ls". BusyBox would see that its "name" is "ls" and act like the "ls" program. BusyBox is used by several operating systems running on embedded systems and is an essential component of distributions such as OpenWrt , OpenEmbedded (including the Yocto Project ) and Buildroot . The Sharp Zaurus utilizes BusyBox extensively for ordinary Unix-like tasks performed on
1798-399: The city by June 30, 2014. Verizon disputed the claims, citing landlords not granting permission to install the equipment on their properties, and an understanding with the government that the fiber network would follow the same routes as its copper lines, and did not necessarily mean it would have to pass the lines in front of every property. Verizon Connect was created in 2018, combining
1860-673: The company reported in the 10-K that most of the drop in employment since 2008 was due to a voluntary retirement offer. Verizon purchased Hughes Telematics, a producer of wireless features for automobiles , for $ 612 million in June 2012 as part of its strategy to expand into new growth areas in its wireless business. The same month, Verizon's E-911 service failed in the aftermath of the June 2012 derecho storm in several northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., with some problems lasting several days. The FCC conducted an investigation and released
1922-696: The company spun off wirelines in Arizona , Idaho , Illinois , Indiana , Michigan , Nevada , North Carolina , Ohio , Oregon , South Carolina , Washington , West Virginia , and Wisconsin into a company that then merged with Frontier Communications in a deal valued at $ 8.6 billion. It sold its interests in telecommunications providers in the Dominican Republic (Verizon Dominicana, previously CODETEL ), Puerto Rico and Venezuela to América Móvil . A decade later, it would continue moves to invest in wireless. In 2015, American Tower Corp. acquired
BusyBox - Misplaced Pages Continue
1984-410: The company's initial $ 6.75 billion offer in February but then received a higher offer from Qwest Communications . Verizon increased its bid to $ 7.6 billion, which MCI accepted on March 29, 2005. The acquisition gave the company access to MCI's million corporate clients and international holdings, expanding Verizon's presence into global markets. As a result, Verizon Business was established as
2046-456: The company's initial public offering (IPO) (the IPO was ultimately cancelled in 2003 because the company no longer needed to raise revenue for Verizon Wireless due to increased profits), and created a backlog of repairs. This strike did not involve all company employees, as most line technicians and user technicians of the company are in a union. Verizon launched 3G service in 2002, which doubled
2108-428: The company's top priority was to restore service to customers as quickly as possible, and that VoiceLink was a means of doing so in the event that larger repairs had to be done to the infrastructure. The spokesperson stated that it was "hard to argue with disciplining someone who intentionally leaves a customer without service". Verizon was reported to be in talks with Charter Communications in January 2017 to discuss
2170-424: The copper lines. VoiceLink has limitations, including incompatibility with services or devices that require the transmission of data over the telephone line, and a dependency on battery backup in case of power failure. The memo warned that technicians who do not follow this procedure would be subject to "disciplinary action up to and including dismissal". A Verizon spokesperson responded to the allegations, stating that
2232-509: The corresponding full versions of the utilities replaced by BusyBox. Research that compared GNU , BusyBox, asmutils and Perl implementations of the standard Unix commands showed that in some situations BusyBox may perform faster than other implementations, but not always. The official BusyBox documentation lists an overview of the available commands and their command-line options. List of BusyBox commands Programs included in BusyBox can be run simply by adding their name as an argument to
2294-407: The difference being that BusyBox provides simplified versions of the utilities (for example, an ls command without file sorting ability), while a crunchgen generated sum of all the utilities would offer the fully functional versions. Sharing of the common code, along with routines written with size-optimization in mind, can make a BusyBox system use much less storage space than a system built with
2356-485: The dormant Toybox. In January 2012 the proposal of creating a BSD licensed alternative to the GPL licensed BusyBox project drew harsh criticism from Matthew Garrett for taking away the only relevant tool for copyright enforcement of the Software Freedom Conservancy group. The starter of BusyBox based lawsuits, Rob Landley, responded that this was intentional as he came to the conclusion that
2418-571: The exclusive right to lease, acquire or otherwise operate and manage many of Verizon's wireless towers for an upfront payment of $ 5.1 billion, which also included payment for the sale of approximately 165 towers. Verizon used the funds from this sale to support a $ 10.4 billion purchase of AWS-3 spectrum licenses at an FCC auction. In 2016, Verizon sold its wireline operations in Texas, Florida, and California to Frontier. Verizon began negotiations in 2005 to purchase long-distance carrier MCI , who accepted
2480-821: The first time in 2007, a decision that allowed it to participate in the FCC's 2008 700 MHz auction of "open access" spectrum . During that auction, the company bid $ 9.4 billion and won the bulk of national and local licenses for airwaves reaching approximately 469 million people. Verizon utilized the increased spectrum for its 4G service. Verizon acquired Rural Cellular Corp. for $ 2.7 billion in cash and assumed debt in 2008. That summer, Verizon announced it would purchase wireless carrier Alltel for $ 28.1 billion. The acquisition included 13 million customers, which allowed Verizon Wireless to surpass AT&T in number of customers and reach new markets in rural areas. 4chan began receiving reports on February 4, 2010, from Verizon Wireless customers that were having difficulties accessing
2542-449: The latter-day systemd ) using itself to be called as init on startup and mdev at hotplug time. The BusyBox website provides a full list of the utilities implemented. Typical computer programs have a separate binary ( executable ) file for each application. BusyBox is a single binary, which is a conglomerate of many applications, each of which can be accessed by calling the single BusyBox binary with various names (supported by having
BusyBox - Misplaced Pages Continue
2604-567: The lawsuits resulted not in the hoped for positive outcomes and he wanted to stop them "in whatever way I see fit" . Software suite A software suite (also known as an application suite ) is a collection of computer programs ( application software , or programming software ) of related functionality , sharing a similar user interface and the ability to easily exchange data with each other. Advantages Disadvantages Verizon Communications Verizon Communications Inc. ( / v ə ˈ r aɪ z ən / və- RY -zən ),
2666-694: The merged company moved its headquarters from Philadelphia to NYNEX's old headquarters in New York City. In 2000, Bell Atlantic acquired GTE , which operated telecommunications companies across most of the rest of the country not already in Bell Atlantic's footprint. Bell Atlantic, the surviving entity, changed its name to Verizon, a portmanteau of veritas (Latin for "truth") and horizon . In 2015, Verizon expanded into content ownership by acquiring AOL , and two years later, it acquired Yahoo! Inc. AOL and Yahoo were amalgamated into
2728-519: The project and became the official maintainer between December 1999 and March 2006. During this time the Linux embedded marketplace exploded in growth, and BusyBox matured greatly, expanding both its user base and functionality. Rob Landley became the maintainer in 2005 until late 2006, then Denys Vlasenko took over as the current maintainer. In September 2006, after heavy discussions and controversies between project maintainer Rob Landley and Bruce Perens ,
2790-433: The settlements. On December 15, 2009, Perens released a statement expressing his unhappiness with some aspects of the legal situation, and in particular alleged that the current BusyBox developers "appear to have removed some of the copyright statements of other BusyBox developers, and appear to have altered license statements". BusyBox can be customized to provide a subset of over two hundred utilities. It can provide most of
2852-520: The single executable replaces basic functions of more than 300 common commands. It is released as free software under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2 , after controversially deciding not to move to version 3 . Originally written by Bruce Perens in 1995 and declared complete for his intended usage in 1996, BusyBox initially aimed to put a complete bootable system on a single floppy disk that would serve both as
2914-409: The site's image boards. Administrators of the site found that only traffic on port 80 to the boards.4chan.org domain was affected, leading them to believe the block was intentional. On February 7, 2010, Verizon Wireless confirmed that 4chan.org was "explicitly blocked" after Verizon's security and external experts detected sweep attacks coming from an IP address associated with the 4chan network. Traffic
2976-484: The system's shell. BusyBox is also an essential component of VMware ESXi , Tiny Core Linux , SliTaz 5(Rolling), and Alpine Linux , all of which are not embedded distributions. It is necessary for several root applications on Android and is also preinstalled with some "1 Tap Root" solutions such as Kingo Root . Toybox was started early 2006 under the GPL-2.0-only license by former BusyBox maintainer Rob Landley as
3038-550: The technology news website SugarString in October 2014. The publication attracted controversy after it was reported that its writers were forbidden from publishing articles related to net neutrality or domestic surveillance . Although Verizon denied that this was the case, the site (described as being a pilot project) was shuttered in December. In August 2015, Verizon launched Hum , a service and device offering vehicle diagnostic and monitoring tools for vehicles. On August 1, 2016, Verizon announced its acquisition of Fleetmatics ,
3100-704: The terms of its license (the GPL) in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York . What was claimed to be the first US lawsuit over a GPL violation concerned use of BusyBox in an embedded device . The lawsuit, case 07-CV-8205, was filed on September 20, 2007, by the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) on behalf of Andersen and Landley against Monsoon Multimedia Inc., after BusyBox code
3162-596: The third largest corporate deal ever signed, giving Verizon Communications sole ownership of Verizon Wireless. On January 14, 2014, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the FCC's net neutrality rules after Verizon filed suit against them in January 2010. In June 2016, in a 184-page ruling, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld, by a 2–1 vote,
SECTION 50
#17327724143373224-652: The time. Bell Atlantic changed its name to Verizon Communications in June 2000, when the FCC approved the US$ 64.7 billion merger with telephone company GTE, nearly two years after the deal was proposed in July 1998. The merger was announced on April 4. The name Verizon derives from the combination of the words veritas , Latin for truth, and horizon . The approval came with 25 stipulations to preserve competition between local phone carriers, including investing in new markets and broadband technologies. The new entity
3286-533: The utilities specified in the Single Unix Specification (SUS) plus many others that a user would expect to see on a Linux system. BusyBox uses the Almquist shell , also known as A Shell, ash and sh. An alternative for customization is the smaller 'hush' shell. "Msh" and "lash" used to be available. As it is a complete bootstrap system, it will further replace the init daemon and udev (or
3348-453: The venture. Vodafone retained 45% of the company. The deal was valued at approximately $ 70 billion and created a mobile carrier with 23 million customers. Verizon Wireless merged Bell Atlantic's wireless network, Vodafone's AirTouch and PrimeCo holdings, and the wireless division of GTE. Due to its size, Verizon Wireless was able to offer national coverage at competitive rates, giving it an advantage over regional providers typical of
3410-559: Was accused by Communications Workers of America of deliberately refusing to maintain its copper telephone service in 2016. The organization released internal memos and other documents stating that Verizon workers in Pennsylvania were being instructed to, in areas with network problems, migrate voice-only customers to VoiceLink, a system that delivers telephone service over the Verizon Wireless network, instead of repairing
3472-568: Was consolidated into the Bell Atlantic name by 1997. Two months before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) gave final approval on the formation of Verizon Communications, Bell Atlantic formed Verizon Wireless in a joint venture with the British telecommunications company Vodafone in April 2000. The companies established Verizon Wireless as its own business operated by Bell Atlantic, which owned 55% of
3534-614: Was discovered in a firmware upgrade and attempts to contact the company had apparently failed. The case was settled with release of the Monsoon version of the source and payment of an undisclosed amount of money to Andersen and Landley. On November 21, 2007, the SFLC brought two similar lawsuits on behalf of Andersen and Landley against two more companies, Xterasys (case 07-CV-10455) and High-Gain Antennas (case 07-CV-10456). The Xterasys case
3596-702: Was headed by co-CEOs Charles Lee, former CEO of GTE , and Bell Atlantic CEO Ivan Seidenberg . Verizon became the largest local telephone company in the United States, operating 63 million telephone lines in 40 states. The company also inherited 25 million mobile phone customers. Additionally, Verizon offered internet services and long-distance calling in New York, before expanding long-distance operations to other states. Approximately 85,000 Verizon workers went on an 18-day labor strike in August 2000 after their union contracts expired. The strike affected quarterly revenues, resulting in Verizon Wireless' postponement of
3658-547: Was maintained by Enrique Zanardi and focused on the needs of the Debian boot-floppies installer system until early 1998, when Dave Cinege took it over for the Linux Router Project (LRP). Cinege made several additions, created a modularized build environment, and shifted BusyBox's focus into general high-level embedded systems . As LRP development slowed down in 1999, Erik Andersen, then of Lineo, Inc. , took over
3720-844: Was originating from the region. Individual domains would only be unblocked upon request. The move was criticized by its customers for disrupting their communications without notice, causing them to initiate a class-action lawsuit. Verizon proposed a settlement in April 2006. Beginning in 2005, Verizon reinforced its focus on its mobile phone, Internet, and TV businesses by selling a number of its U.S.-based wireline-focused businesses and international assets. It sold 700,000 lines in Hawaii in 2005, and spun off lines in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont in January 2007, which were then purchased by FairPoint Communications for $ 2.72 billion. Verizon also shed its telephone directory business in 2006. In May 2009,
3782-539: Was restored several days later. The chairmen of Verizon and Google agreed that network neutrality should be defined and limited in August 2010. In October 2010, Verizon Wireless paid $ 77.8 million in refunds and FCC penalties for overcharging 15 million customers for data services. The company stated the overcharges were accidental and only amounted to a few dollars per customer. Verizon introduced its 4G LTE network in 38 markets, as well as airports in seven additional cities in December 2010. The company planned on
SECTION 60
#17327724143373844-710: Was settled on December 17 for release of source code used and an undisclosed payment, and the High-Gain Antennas case on March 6, 2008, for active license compliance and an undisclosed payment. On December 7, 2007, a case was brought against Verizon Communications over its distribution of firmware for Actiontec routers; this case was settled March 17, 2008 on condition of license compliance, appointment of an officer to oversee future compliance with free software licenses, and payment of an undisclosed sum. Further suits were brought on June 9, 2008, against Bell Microproducts (case 08-CV-5270) and SuperMicro (case 08-CV-5269),
#336663