On Fri, 2006-06-09 at 20:55 -0700, Thomas Vecchione wrote: > > Keep in mind that if you patent your hardware innovations, you're free > > to release an open source driver and no one can rip you off - for > > example Creative did this with the emu10k1. > > > Considering how broken I consider the US patent system, or really the > idea of most software patents, this does nothing to improve my thoughts > on this situation. > I am referring to hardware patents. > I think making it difficult for people to write drivers for their > hardware to be used on Linux is a mistake. if they consider their ideas > innovative enough to keep a driver closed source we may as well kiss the > thought goodbye, RME Fireface for example. We arent spurring innovation > in that sense, we are driving it to other platforms. Admitedly RME > didnt write any of their drivers, however IMO they proved they arent > against working with us(Linux community) but some things get taken a bit > far IMO. Well, it's not really a matter of opinion, I'm just stating what the GPL requires. In order for this to change you'd have to relicense the kernel. Lee
