[Leaplist] brilliant

[Fred Moore]

On Wednesday 31 January 2007 21:57, John Simpson wrote:
> On 2007-01-31, at 1653, Fred Moore wrote:
> > Checkout the offer the kernal guys have give to all linux hardware
> > manufactures...
> > http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070131081243482
> >
> > The jist is they will write their drivers for them.. this is
> > brilliant.. Looks
> > like most companies now now only say.. ok or no we only support
> > windows..
>
> i'd like to see the details of this part:
>
> "If your company is worried about NDA issues surrounding your
> device's specifications, we have arranged a program with OSDL/TLF's
> Tech Board to provide the legal framework where a company can
> interact with a member of the kernel community in order to properly
> assure that all needed NDA requirements are fulfilled."
>
> or how a company which insists on keeping their specs hidden would be
> able to prevent a GPL kernel driver from being reverse-engineered by
> their enemies (whether that be their competitors, their users, the
> anti-trust investigators, or whoever it is they don't want figuring
> out how their hardware works.)
>

I think the entire offer is to enduce some hardware vendors to release 
specification in order to take advantage of additional revenue from new 
operating system support.   I think most driver stuff is overhiped.  Any 
engineer worth his salt can determine what chips are used.  If custom 
software is involved in an asic or whatever component its operation can be 
determined by a data scope or some other means.  I further suspect that many 
vendors may release the specifications of older devices.  Get the open source 
for the old driver then be able to offer non-open source drivers for newer 
products based upon code of older stuff..  and yes I know this would be a 
violation of the GPL..  In my mind what  is important is that the drivers get 
written..  Till we have drivers for the latest hardware linux will always be 
behind the curve... Fred


> ----------------------------------------------------------------
>
> | John M. Simpson    ---   KG4ZOW   ---    Programmer At Large |
> | http://www.jms1.net/                         <jms1 at jms1.net> |
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
>
> | http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4312730277175242198 |
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------

-- 
Fred Moore
WD8KNI
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