On Tue, 2009-06-23 at 20:19 +0100, Ian Guffick wrote: > Hello to all, > > I don't want to get involved in the 'war' that seems to have erupted over > this issue. > I am a user of OpenOCD rather than a developer, I regularly grab SVN head > and compile it under Cygwin for Windows with FTD2XX.lib. And I will continue > to do so for my private build.
You are legally entitled to do so. > It is clear that OpenOCD is GPL. > It is also clear that FTD2XX.lib is not, although no license is published, > the source code is also not published - it cannot be GPL. Correct. > Am I correct in thinking that the 'driver' forms part of the operating > system? Nope. If it did, this would not be a problem. > And that the library is the non-GPL part that is the problem? Correct. > If that is the case, the simple solution is to develop a GPL version of the > library, but continue to use the driver. > As Xiofan Chen pointed out, there is already an incomplete project at > http://sourceforge.net/projects/ftd2xx Arguably, this could work. > IMHO the libusb-libftdi is a massive overkill that causes other problems for > Windows users. Mainly because it is trying to replace the driver, not just > the problematic library. > My own problems with libusb-libftdi are: > 1. I have 6 devices that are regularly used with my PC that use one form or > another FTDI device. Because these are of varying ages, the drivers versions > are different, they must be installed in a correct order or some of the > devices fail. Why is this a problem?, because running FT_Clean in order to > install libusb-libftdi will remove all of these drivers as well. This sounds like a bug in FT_Clean. Please report it to FTDI. I does not sound fair to blame libusb-ftdi for this. > 2. I have two other programs that make use of my JtagKey, replacing the > driver with libusb-libftdi will break these programs. What do these programs do? Can we replace them with open source code alternatives, perhaps in the context of OpenOCD? > I may be wrong with one or more of my assumptions, if I am then please > politely point this out, as I said at the start - I do not want propogate > this war of words. The war is over, but battles still rage due to poor communications. > My intention of replacing FTD2XX.lib with a GPL version is NOT an attempt to > circumvent the GPL, such as the wrapper methods that have been suggested. I > believe that if a GPL library was available, using the existing driver would > not be a GPL violation, and the whole solution would be a cleaner more > palatable solution for all. Does the GPL ftd2xx library use libusb or libftdi internally? This alternative has been suggested before this, but it just seems far more trouble than it would be worth. > I kind of don't need to say this next bit ........ but what are your > thoughts ;-) I have posted several alternatives on the list, but you do not make it clear whether or not you need to distribute binaries. If you do not, then these matters should be of no serious concern for you. Continue to build the package for yourself as you have in the past; nothing has changed. Cheers, Zach _______________________________________________ Openocd-development mailing list Openocd-development@lists.berlios.de https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/openocd-development
