Re: [Cooker] Mandrake and Winmodems: hiding source is totally bogus
On Saturday August 10 2002 12:22 pm, Leon Brooks wrote: On Fri, 9 Aug 2002 14:25, Giuseppe Ghibò wrote: In other cases, instead companies released binary only drivers but abandoned it (e.g. the ESS module for ESS based winmodems, or the Lexmark printer drivers) so they would work only on old kernels/distributions. That by itself looks like a fine justification for Mandrake's policy of `GPL only please'. I agree that trade secret issues can block a source release, but that is not the reason which the vast majority of manufacturers hoard their sources. Even NVidia could probably ask Linux-friendly SGI for ~~~ hehehehe... a better GLX licence, and get one. It would be interesting to send an OSS copy of GLX to NVidia and ask them if there are any other IP issues standing between them and a completely OSS set of drivers. Cheers; Leon ... and lose their Xbox contract with M$ ?? All the reasons hardware vendors give for holding source are disingenious at best ... bordering on insider, under the table, quasi leagal, amoral attitudes and behaviors. IOW's they're lyin' while makin excuses and back room deals. Also, Mandrake's position is, and should be IMO, according to this reasoning, http://www.mandrakeforum.org/article.php?sid=427lang=en -- Tom Brinkman Corpus Christi, Texas
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake and Winmodems: hiding source is totally bogus
On Sunday 11 August 2002 09:22 am, Tom Brinkman wrote: ... and lose their Xbox contract with M$ ?? And M$ will have to stop making Xboxes? Actually, they've got themselves locked in. Quite stupid, really, when you compare that to Sony (who makes all the chips themselves). Actually, I think the most likely scenario would be of Microsoft buying Nvidia. -- -- Igor
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake and Winmodems: hiding source is totally bogus
On Sun, 11 Aug 2002 22:52, Igor Izyumin wrote: Actually, I think the most likely scenario would be of Microsoft buying Nvidia. Argh! Don't even think about things like that! )-: Cheers; Leon
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake and Winmodems: hiding source is totally bogus
On Sunday August 11 2002 09:52 am, Igor Izyumin wrote: On Sunday 11 August 2002 09:22 am, Tom Brinkman wrote: ... and lose their Xbox contract with M$ ?? And M$ will have to stop making Xboxes? Actually, they've got themselves locked in. Quite stupid, really, when you compare that to Sony (who makes all the chips themselves). Actually, I think the most likely scenario would be of Microsoft buying Nvidia. Stupid ?? (let's keep it friendly, and this kind'a disscussion doesn't belong on this list anyhow). Sony makes chips ?? Sony sells their name, and it's not all that well deserved lately as their branded products (many they don't even make) for several years now have been substandard. Tradin on their name recognition. Both M$, Sony, and nVidia are tankin' in the world's markets, so I don't believe anybody's fixin to buy the other just yet. Could be (?)... I'm not a big fan of advertised (fake) quality, or stock brokers. Also, a coupl'a of the above have got'a lot'a legal problems too in their business dealngs. So I don't believe M$ is fixin to buy nVidia anytime soon. Sony's doin a dodge. Igor, please read the facts as set out http://www.mandrakeforum.org/article.php?sid=427lang=en You're on the losin end with your thinkin. I beg the pardon of the cooker regulars for even responding ... I'll go back to tryin to stay cooker current with a dialup. No problems (or any I've encountered that weren't already reported). Good work y'all, I like it. 9.0 is slick ;) -- Tom Brinkman Corpus Christi, Texas
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake and Winmodems: hiding source is totally bogus
On Fri, 9 Aug 2002 11:04, Igor Izyumin wrote: On Thursday 08 August 2002 07:52 pm, Leon Brooks wrote: No, I don't. But it _is_ a totally bogus excuse. Their competitors _will_ be clean-rooming their chips and disassembling their drivers anyway. I very much doubt that - it's too hard and too expensive. It's hard enough to write drivers, and even harder to disassemble them. It's easier to develop your own, I would think. But when you have full access to the source code, it's a different story. Strongly disagree. I've done this myself, and a heck of a lot of Linux kernel drivers are the result of similar hackery. Source code _does_ make things easier, but it doesn't tell you how the chip was assembled. However, a simple photomicrograph of the chip does do that, and a disassembly does tell you most of the things that full source code would. It can certainly tell you *how* things need to be done to make the chip work, even if not always *why*. Disassembly is not hard to do, there are tools (including free and Free) which make 99% of the task automatic. It's one of those if-you-outlaw-guns-then-only-outlaws-will-have-guns problems. As things stand, *only* their competitors have access to their `secrets' and not you or I, not their more-or-less friends! What could be a worse situation than that? Better to also give their allies access, no? Well, they won't really care; if their competitors do reverse engineer their drivers, they will pay double for the drivers and will be left with a technology that's a generation old. It's kinda like the joke about stealing computer blueprints... by the time you steal them, they're already outdated. Agree. The goal is to make it harder - it's just like security screws and warranty stickers on hardware. What, by a couple of days? Not significant. Some point-haired-boss moron lawyer makes that decision, not someone with their brains actually operating. Yes, but that's the reality. An OEM won't permit their techies to distribute drivers if it's not ok with the lawyerbots. Yes. Let's change that. Cheers; Leon
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake and Winmodems: hiding source is totally bogus
On Fri, 9 Aug 2002 14:25, Giuseppe Ghibò wrote: In other cases, instead companies released binary only drivers but abandoned it (e.g. the ESS module for ESS based winmodems, or the Lexmark printer drivers) so they would work only on old kernels/distributions. That by itself looks like a fine justification for Mandrake's policy of `GPL only please'. I agree that trade secret issues can block a source release, but that is not the reason which the vast majority of manufacturers hoard their sources. Even NVidia could probably ask Linux-friendly SGI for a better GLX licence, and get one. It would be interesting to send an OSS copy of GLX to NVidia and ask them if there are any other IP issues standing between them and a completely OSS set of drivers. Cheers; Leon
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake and Winmodems: hiding source is totally bogus
Leon Brooks wrote: On Fri, 9 Aug 2002 06:45, Igor Izyumin wrote: Sometimes, they don't have a choice. Yeah, like about once in every two blue moons. They may have trade secrets or something within the driver that would prevent it from being open-sourced. For example, if nVidia open-sourced their driver, their competitors could use their work for their own chips. Do you think they want that? No, I don't. But it _is_ a totally bogus excuse. Their competitors _will_ be clean-rooming their chips and disassembling their drivers anyway. It's one of those if-you-outlaw-guns-then-only-outlaws-will-have-guns problems. As things stand, *only* their competitors have access to their `secrets' and not you or I, not their more-or-less friends! What could be a worse situation than that? Better to also give their allies access, no? Some point-haired-boss moron lawyer makes that decision, not someone with their brains actually operating. Cheers; Leon IMHO, the fact is that sometimes the same company don't probably totally owns the code they include in the closed (or partially closed source) drivers. they ship. E.g. for NVidia I've read it's due to code written from SGI (GLX). Also other companies have claimed the same policy (e.g. the Matrox has the HAL library in closed source object binary only [and thus not included in XFree]). Others instead tried a different approach and let their drivers to be included open source in the main linux/XFree tree (e.g. Adaptec, Compaq for RAID). In other cases, instead companies released binary only drivers but abandoned it (e.g. the ESS module for ESS based winmodems, or the Lexmark printer drivers) so they would work only on old kernels/distributions. Bye. Giuseppe.
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake and Winmodems: hiding source is totally bogus
Leon Brooks wrote on Fri, Aug 09, 2002 at 08:52:30AM +0800 : They may have trade secrets or something within the driver that would prevent it from being open-sourced. For example, if nVidia open-sourced their driver, their competitors could use their work for their own chips. Do you think they want that? No, I don't. But it _is_ a totally bogus excuse. Their competitors _will_ be In the case of winmodems that is the reason. It's not bogus there. We don't have to like it, but it's true. Blue skies... Todd -- Todd Lyons -- MandrakeSoft, Inc. http://www.mandrakesoft.com/ UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things. -- Doug Gwyn Cooker Version mandrake-release-9.0-0.2mdk Kernel 2.4.18-21mdk msg69802/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake and Winmodems: hiding source is totally bogus
On Friday 09 August 2002 04:39 pm, Todd Lyons wrote: In the case of winmodems that is the reason. It's not bogus there. We don't have to like it, but it's true. Not only that, but they also don't want people fiddling with their drivers. Since software winmodems are basically soundcards that hook to the phone line, you could make them do a lot of possibly illegal things with the phone line. If the company released an open-source driver for them, they could potentially get their FCC certification revoked. The hardware vendor doesn't want extra liabilities. -- -- Igor
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake and Winmodems: hiding source is totally bogus
On Fri, 9 Aug 2002 06:45, Igor Izyumin wrote: Sometimes, they don't have a choice. Yeah, like about once in every two blue moons. They may have trade secrets or something within the driver that would prevent it from being open-sourced. For example, if nVidia open-sourced their driver, their competitors could use their work for their own chips. Do you think they want that? No, I don't. But it _is_ a totally bogus excuse. Their competitors _will_ be clean-rooming their chips and disassembling their drivers anyway. It's one of those if-you-outlaw-guns-then-only-outlaws-will-have-guns problems. As things stand, *only* their competitors have access to their `secrets' and not you or I, not their more-or-less friends! What could be a worse situation than that? Better to also give their allies access, no? Some point-haired-boss moron lawyer makes that decision, not someone with their brains actually operating. Cheers; Leon
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake and Winmodems: hiding source is totally bogus
On Thursday 08 August 2002 07:52 pm, Leon Brooks wrote: No, I don't. But it _is_ a totally bogus excuse. Their competitors _will_ be clean-rooming their chips and disassembling their drivers anyway. I very much doubt that - it's too hard and too expensive. It's hard enough to write drivers, and even harder to disassemble them. It's easier to develop your own, I would think. But when you have full access to the source code, it's a different story. It's one of those if-you-outlaw-guns-then-only-outlaws-will-have-guns problems. As things stand, *only* their competitors have access to their `secrets' and not you or I, not their more-or-less friends! What could be a worse situation than that? Better to also give their allies access, no? Well, they won't really care; if their competitors do reverse engineer their drivers, they will pay double for the drivers and will be left with a technology that's a generation old. It's kinda like the joke about stealing computer blueprints... by the time you steal them, they're already outdated. The goal is to make it harder - it's just like security screws and warranty stickers on hardware. Some point-haired-boss moron lawyer makes that decision, not someone with their brains actually operating. Yes, but that's the reality. An OEM won't permit their techies to distribute drivers if it's not ok with the lawyerbots. -- -- Igor
