Re: Linux, UDI and SCO.

Benjamin Grosman (bgrosman@healey.com.au)
Mon, 21 Sep 1998 17:50:14 +1000 (EST)


> > Go to <URL: http://www.equinox.com/tech/ftp_sst2.htm#a7>, look for
> > "kernel bug". Anyone who advocates binary-only drivers should be
> > forced to try to get an Equinox SST card working on 2.0.35.
> >
> > In this case the driver is even available as Intel assembly code,
> > obviously made by gcc.
>
> Its also derived from Ted Tso's serial driver and seems in violation of the GPL
> if you compare their assembler with the output of gcc -S on serial.c
>
> The good side of that btw, is its probably trivial to turn their driver
> back into C since you can paste bits back into serial.c

Does anyone actually follow up on these probably violations of the
licensing terms? Is anyone compiling a list or keeping notes of any of
this, or is it just around in the collective memory of the developer
community?

Has the topic of actually attempting to take action, even if no more than
a formal notice to the list of a suspected breach, investigated by a few
people?

I'm not sure what it would encourage or engender. I'm not sure if the
effects would be entirely positive. But maybe if those who write GPL'ed
code were to voice their displeasure at others ripping off their code, it
could encourage co-operation from driver/hardware vendors? Or maybe it
would just prevent them from writing any drivers for linux at all.

Thoughts?

Ben

---
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