In an unexpected twist of events, the gpl-violations.org project took exception to TomTom building an embedded Linux system without going along with the GNU General Public License (GPL) constraints that the Linux kernel used, and custom modifications, be freely available as open source. They were successful in this and TomTom agreed to release the full source code including all additions and changes made in-house. Additionally, TomTom showed their "appreciation" for Free Software by making a donation, described as "significant", to the infamous Chaos Computer Club - read into this what you may.

The result was a breakthrough and brought forth a cornucopia of technical information. The SatNav vendor now provides free downloads for all versions of its GO software from version 4 to the present 6.5. Additionally, TomTom detail the compilers and libraries they used to build the embedded OS and provide both Linux and Windows versions of the necessary toolchain that targets the ARM processor. It is actually surprising how many open source elements are used including terminal emulators, tools to erase flash memory and tools to initialise Bluetooth, the popular MPlayer multimedia player and others and thus gpl-violations.org were right to pursue the matter.

It must be clearly pointed out that the TomTom mapping and navigation application itself remained fully proprietary; it was the GO's operating system which was the subject of the violation. This was fine; for the wiley hackers, the actual SatNav software - despite being the primary focus for general consumers - was totally irrelevant. The goal was to master the box itself.