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Open Source and information security mailing list archives
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Date: Wed, 05 Sep 2007 09:22:21 -0400 From: "David H. Lynch Jr." <dhlii@...sys.net> To: netdev@...r.kernel.org Subject: Re: Fwd: That whole "Linux stealing our code" thing Igor Sobrado wrote: >> >> There is definite value in sharing the ath5k HAL between OpenBSD and >> Linux. > > Of course. Sharing knowledge and efforts can only improve both the GPL > and BSD licensed code. It is important in all cases, but becomes > critical when support from manufacturers is limited or even non existent. Cooperation between OpenBSD developers and Linux developers, wwould be wonderful, but this appears to just be the latest of a number of disputes that have devolved into legalism and acrimony. The time wasted fighting over this seems significantly larger than the effort need to solve it. The respective BSD and GPL licensed code is open documentation for the programming of the typically closed device. What is wrong with chosing to rewrite the drivers in contention ? If the level of bile is sufficiently high it might make sense to do so using "clean room" techniques, where one developer uses the source licensed driver as the basis for writing documentation and another developer uses the documentation as the basis for writing a new driver. The original author could/should still be credited. It might even make sense to use projects like this as a means of recruiting new driver developers and building their skills - drafting prospective kernel developers from kernel-newbies, or asking for volunteers on the appropriate lists. Not having looked at the code for either the Linux or BSD atheros driver, but having some limited linux network driver experience, I would be happy to make an attempt at writing a clean Linux GPL driver for atheros cards. Another benefit to this approach is it might cool tempers. Neither the GPL not the BSD/ISC Licenses protect the information their authors have painstakingly extracted about the hardware. If both sides recognize that copyright - particularly Open Source copyright licenses do not somehow make the ideas and information they express proprietary, and that all that is really in contention is credit and a reduction in labor, then maybe it would be easier to get them to agree to modifying licenses. Dave Lynch DLA Systems Software Development: Embedded Linux 717.627.3770 dhlii@...sys.net http://www.dlasys.net fax: 1.253.369.9244 Cell: 1.717.587.7774 Over 25 years' experience in platforms, languages, and technologies too numerous to list. "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction." Albert Einstein - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe netdev" in the body of a message to majordomo@...r.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
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