On Tue, Feb 13, 2007 at 06:04:08PM +0000, Jeff Rollin wrote: > On 13/02/07, Steven <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > Hi, > > > > I happened to see this on the slashdot rss feed, and out of > > curiosity took a look. > > > > Free Linux Driver Development FAQ > > http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/13/0220233&from=rss > > > > Is this bad news for the OpenBSD developers efforts to free hardware > > documentation? If it is, how can OpenBSD users, and users of other > > FOSS, help? > > > > -- > > W. Steven Schneider <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > > > Well as I understand it one of the things they are looking for are specs on > which to base their own drivers. Also as I understand it, they cannot work > under NDA's, so any specs released to them would be released to the public. > > This is only bad if the specs are released under a licence that would > prohibit OBSD people from looking at them. If companies go so far as > releasing the specs to Linux people, I can't see that happening, although of > course using the GPL'ed Linux drivers released under such conditions > would/might be problematic. > > Maybe it's time for the OBSD dev community to make similar overtures, > though, just in case > > Jeff R
The guy announcing this put together a FAQ (linked from the /. article) explaining that he has no problem with signing NDAs, but that the code will not be obfuscated in any way. So it seems that he's not going to push for companies to release specs. Also in the FAQ is that he's not concerned about the BSDs. To me he's saying he doesn't care about open source or free software, as long as it works in Linux and can have the GPL license on it then it's fine. There *may* be some companies that release specs for this. I doubt any of the Linux people would dream of discouraging that directly. But any companies sitting on the fence on that issue now have a great excuse to keep specs locked up tight under NDA, while pretending to be "open." So it seems like this does suck, not just for *BSD, but for Linux as well. -- Darrin Chandler | Phoenix BSD Users Group [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://bsd.phoenix.az.us/ http://www.stilyagin.com/darrin/ |
