On Mon, Sep 14, 1998 at 10:31:49PM -0700, Geoffrey L. Brimhall wrote: > Aside from the technical issues of having Linux use windows device drivers > (such as the video card drivers), are there any legal reasons why a person > could not use the device drivers written for the MS Windows operating system ?
Yes and no. You can NOT distribute the drivers to other people However...if you have a licence for windows you can use it all you want. This is quite similar to the many people using xfstt to have truetype fonts in X...I know I got most of My truetypes from Windows... > The other issue is whether or not the device api set which the drivers use to > communicate with the windows operating system are proprietary or not. They are > certainly an open, published api set (look at the DDK part of the > Microsoft MSDN, where most of these entry points are described). The question > is whether Microsoft owns all rights to usage of these entry points ? If they > don't, then it seems like some kernel drivers could be written which supply > these api points and map them to pertinant UNIX io, thus allowing usage of the > drivers. Excellent quote from a source I forget: "Microsoft technical Documentation has done more to retard the skills of programmers than anything since COBOL" Have you ever tried to write a program for windows? Their documtnation is absolutely horrendous. Not to mention they are FAMOUS for leaving allot of calls undocumented. (Presumably so only they can use them because noone knows about them. This of course allows them to have better programs than everyone else and BEFORE anyone else) As for anything else...You are free to implimenbt the API et al. They can not stop you from doing that (legally) but they don't have to help (from what I understand the undocumented calls have been a thorn in the side of many people working on WINE and similar projects) Also...many device drivers are NOT written by Microsoft. From what it looks like to me (and I have heard) it goes more like this: Company produces something. Company writes a driver Company pays microsoft to look at the driver and certify it is windows compatible (and of course with MOST M$ also includes their driver into the Windows distribution) that sjust what I have heard tho -Steve -- /* -- Stephen Carpenter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --- <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>------------ */ E-mail "Bumper Stickers": "A FREE America or a Drug-Free America: You can't have both!" "honk if you Love Linux"
