On Jan 7, 2008 3:31 PM, Forest Bond <forest@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > On Mon, Jan 07, 2008 at 03:20:02PM -0500, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote: > > On Jan 7, 2008 1:49 PM, Forest Bond <forest@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > Hi, > > > > > > On Wed, Nov 14, 2007 at 12:06:34PM -0500, John W. Linville wrote: > > > > On Wed, Nov 14, 2007 at 12:00:51PM -0500, Forest Bond wrote: > > > >> On Sun, Nov 04, 2007 at 09:07:31PM -0500, Forest Bond wrote: > > > >>> The post is here: > > > >>> > > > >>> http://forums.viaarena.com/messageview.aspx?catid=28&threadid=78745 > > > >>> > > > >>> Any noise that can be contributed is welcome and appreciated. You'll need > > > >>> to create an account to post, though. > > > > > > > >> I also added these. Perhaps having plenty of content/links regarding this > > > >> issue will help to increase visibility: > > > >> > > > >> http://www.alittletooquiet.net/text/a-license-for-the-via-vt6656-linux-driver/ > > > >> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-source-2.6.22/+bug/162671 > > > > > > > > Excellent...I appreciate your efforts as an agitator! :-) > > > > > > At this point I am not anticipating positive results WRT this endeavor, and am > > > unable to pursue further assistance from VIA. Further, I've seen that the > > > driver in question likely exhibits some interesting quirks that makes it > > > difficult to use. It is also bit-rotting out of relevance. > > > > This is unfortunate to hear... > > > > > Can the driver be used as a reference for a fresh implementation? I've not > > > written a driver before, but would be open to the possibility. > > > > IANAL but I believe It basically depends on the license the vendor > > issued the driver under and its sources under. If no license was used > > then I believe the standard copyright license terms should be assumed. > > What license was used throughout the driver files? > > > > > What are the legal ramifications of a driver author having access to > > > proprietary source code? > > > > Again, I believe it depends on the license/NDA/terms under which the > > driver author obtained access to such proprietary source code. The > > more details you provide the better. > > The license was omitted. This was presumably an oversight, but intentions are > always hard to know when the other party isn't saying anything :) I'm calling their offices now, we should be able to just talk to someone from their dev team... > There's little doubt in my mind that we get nothing more than fair use out of > this package, though. The question is "is that enough?". Code copying is > obviously not allowed, but is a new (and sufficiently different) implementation > allowed? I think so but IANAL so not too sure, we can then ask SFLC to verify in the end what's possible or not. Luis - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-wireless" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
