Messages in this thread |  | | | Date | Fri, 27 Aug 2004 17:50:03 -0700 | | From | Craig Milo Rogers <> | | Subject | Re: kernel 2.6.8 pwc patches and counterpatches |
| |
On 04.08.28, Rob van Nieuwkerk wrote: > The author of the pwc driver has publicly stated that this > NDA has expired more than 1 year ago !!! > > Despite this he refuses to release the source code for the binary-only > driver. Of course it is his right to do so: it is his code. > But I think it is important for everyone to know this fact.
I agree that everyone should know this. It shows remarkable integrity and restraint on Nemosoft's part, and is, I feel, in concordance with the values that Linux recently expressed in his message regarding the GPL and lawyers.
In one of Nemosoft's messages, he said that we wasn't releasing proprietary data on the Philips chips, even though his NDA has expired, because (and I'm paraphrasing here) he wants to maintain a good working relationship with Philips. I believe that this is an important point, and a critical one for long-term success. We, the Linux community, should want Philips to voluntarily release the details on their chips. This is important because we should want Philips to release *new* programming details on *new* chips in a timely fashion; preferably, in an open-source-conformant fashion.
As you can see, if Nemosoft were to unilaterally breach Philips' confidence in him, then Philips might stop telling him the programming details on new chips. Linux would potentially have working open source drivers for older chips, but potentially no drivers at all, open or closed source, for new chips by this manufacturer.
Craig Milo Rogers - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
|  |