On Wednesday 14 February 2007 10:18 am, you wrote:
> On 2/14/07, Jeff Rollin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > Nah, RMS doesn't want this. A lot of `GPL people' don't want this
> > > at all.
> > >
> > > This deal is meant to divide.
> >
> > And this discussion isn't? There are already plenty of divisions within
> > the FOSS world - between the F and OS of FOSS, between Linux and BSD,
> > between the various BSDs. It's not as if TdR started OpenBSD to continue
> > contributing to NetBSD, is it?
> >
> > And yet when a driver is released under the BSD licence, which conflicts
> > with the GPL, when do we hear the bitching about it on the BSD side?
> > Wait, what's that? Oh, we don't?
>
> Why does everyone want to turn this into a GPL vs. BSD license
> discussion? It's not the license that is up for debate; rather it's
> the fact that a driver was (will be?) produced under NDA and bridges
> are now being burned.
>
> It's not a matter of license; if a BSD licensed driver was produced
> from docs acquired under NDA, the problem would be the same. The Linux
> camp would have to reverse engineer our driver and we don't like that
> having to be the only option for anyone.
>
> The problem is that drivers are / will be produced *without open
> disclosure of docs*. It's not that a BSD-licensed driver is better
> for the community; it's the fact that a driver produced under open
> docs _makes the docs available to the community for their own driver
> implementations__. This is something no one should argue about. The
> problem is the NDA, and the shortsightedness; not the license.
>
> DS
I think you hit the nail on the head... I am sure even RMS is not in favour of
this as it goes against the _spirit_ of the GPL. Perhaps he can update v3 to
prevent this?
