Re: legal issues REALTEK 8169 driver

[xerces8]

Stephen Hemminger wrote:

> On Thu, 11 Sep 2008 09:50:35 +0200
> Johan Visser <johan.visser@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> > Hi,
> > We are using a new SBC with 2 REALTEK 8169 chips on it.
> > We tried the latest kernel drivers, but ran into problems.
> > In average 1 out of 5 times that the system boots, the network won't 
> > come alive.
> > We think it is an initialisation problem.
> > 
> > We looked further on the net, and stumbled upon the Linux driver ( 
> > source code! ) on the REALTEK site.
> >
> http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=13&PFid=5&Level=5&Conn=4&Dow
> nTypeID=3&GetDown=false
> > We tried it, and it solves the problem.
> > We also noted that an earlier version of this driver was merged into the 
> > linux kernel. ( 8.001 or so )
> > 
> > Now the legal issue.
> > in the REALTEK documentation (release_note.txt )is says :
> > 
> > driver version: 8.008.00
> > Modify the GPHY parameters for RTL8111C
> > release date: 2008/07/14
> > <snip>
> > 7. This product is covered by one or more of the following patents:
> >    US5,307,459, US5,434,872, US5,732,094, US6,570,884, US6,115,776, and 
> > US6,327,625.
> > 
> > But the code is GPL... as stated in the source.
> > 
> > Can we use this code in a commercial product without problems ?
> 
> That is a question for your legal staff. Have them read:
>  
> http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/info/GPLv2.html

Also check the GPL FAQ, to avoid asking already answered questions:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html

Regards,
David


--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-net" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html