Re: Would I be violating the GPL?

["linux-os \(Dick Johnson\)" <linux-os@analogic.com>]

On Tue, 1 Nov 2005, Alexander Fisher wrote:

> On 11/1/05, Michael Buesch <mbuesch@freenet.de> wrote:
>> On Tuesday 01 November 2005 18:44, you wrote:
>>> No, don't take the code without the suppliers permission.
>>
>> I interpreted his text as if he already has permission to use the code.
>>
>>> It contains
>>> trade secrets and you can get into a ot of trouble if there's an
>>> agreement between the two of you.  Contact the supplier.  Tell them to
>>> abstract away thre kernel headers, or rewrite to remove them, or grant
>>> you persmission to open source the driver.
>>
>> I did not say he should open source the driver. That will give trouble.
>> I suggested to write a _device_ specification. Driver specific things do not
>> care.
>
> I've got the source code to the device firmware too.  So despite the
> fact the driver has been written in c++, it might be possible to write
                                   ^^^^^^^^_________

So you must have some user-mode code (which may not have to be GPL)
plus something that gets installed in the kernel??? Certainly you
don't have a working kernel driver written in C++, do you???


> a usable specification.  This isn't something I want to do.  I'd
> imagine this sort of action can really ruin a supplier/customer
> relationship.  What good is a GPLed driver if no one is prepared to
> sell you the hardware?
> So if the conclusion is that the driver can't be distributed under
> anything other than the GPL (further opinions/confirmations welcome),
> I think I've got two options.  Find a different hardware vendor or
> convince the current supplier to relicense their code.
> I'm hoping that the opinions from one or two major linux kernel
> copyright holders will help me in convincing them to do this.
>
> Thanks,
> Alex
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Cheers,
Dick Johnson
Penguin : Linux version 2.6.13.4 on an i686 machine (5589.55 BogoMips).
Warning : 98.36% of all statistics are fiction.
.

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