On Fri, Oct 12, 2012 at 8:24 PM, Khalid Aziz <khalid@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On Wed, 2012-10-10 at 18:44 +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: >> On Wed, Oct 10, 2012 at 11:23:01AM +0800, Lv Zheng wrote: >> > Microsoft Debug Port Table (DBGP or DBG2) is used by the Windows SoC >> > platforms to describe their debugging facilities. >> > DBGP: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/hh134821 >> > DBG2: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/hh673515 >> >> The license for these specifications only covers BIOS implementations, >> not OS implementations. Has this had appropriate legal review? >> > > I agree with Matthew. There are potential legal issues with using > DBGP/DBGP2 tables in Linux. I had added support for SPCR and DBGP tables > many years ago (in early 2.6 kernel timeframe) before Microsoft added > this new license. I pulled the code out (in 2.6.14, I think) after > Microsoft added the new license to these tables. I agree with Matthew's > interpretation that the license is clear only about BIOS vendors being > allowed to use these tables. PCDP table in DIG64 spec was introduced to > get around the legal issues with using SPCR and DBGP in Linux. > > License for DBGP/DBGP2 needs some legal review before this patch can go > into Linux. Matthew, can you point me at the license Microsoft is using for the DBG2 table? I can download the document from Microsoft's site without seeing any reference to it being licensed only for BIOS implementers. All I see is a "this document is provided 'as-is', blah blah blah" blurb at the beginning of the document. It may be that Microsoft has changed the license on this document in the last 6 months. I asked some of my contacts at Microsoft about this and was told that the DBG2 spec was supposed to be freed up; but I wasn't able to get anything absolutely confirmed or in writing. g. -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe platform-driver-x86" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
