Re: [Linux-fbdev-devel] Re: [forum] Re: Announcement: Modification to the base XFree86(TM) license.

On Mon, Feb 02, 2004 at 01:59:54PM +0000, Dr Andrew C Aitchison wrote:

On Sat, Jan 31, 2004 at 09:10:22AM +0000, Andrew C Aitchison wrote:

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On Fri, 30 Jan 2004, Sven Luther wrote:

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Yeah, that would be rather problematic, but anyway, most of the things
move from the XFree86 code to fbdev code, and most often, it is not code
that is copied, but the register information and such. It is always
easier to get specs if you are working for XFree86 than if you plan to
do some kernel driver work.

On Sat, 31 Jan 2004, Benjamin Herrenschmidt wrote:

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The fact that it is mostly a one way is mostly due to the fact that the
main problem here is seeking for HW informations.

For several years the mga fb kernel driver has supported dual head and/or
dvi on cards which aren't supported by the XFree86 driver (unless you
use the mga_hal). I've wanted to use kernel code to add this support to 
XFree86, but been put off by the licence problem.

On Sat, 31 Jan 2004, Sven Luther wrote:

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And, have you asked the mgafb driver author about this ?

You can hardly complain about lack of back traffic if you didn't ask him
about it, and if you did, it would be interesting to this discussion to
know what the problems where.

On Sat, Jan 31, 2004 at 01:06:23PM +0000, Andrew C Aitchison wrote:

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"The Author" ?
This is open source code; there may be 27 authors of the relevant file.
In XFree86 code I wouldn't know how to find the author of a file without
looking at that file. My {limited ,mis}understanding of clean room coding 
makes me wary of reading any source unless I know that its licence will 
allow me to do what I wish.

 
On Mon, 2 Feb 2004, Sven Luther wrote:

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This is not acceptable. You are making wild accusations, and didn't even
try to contact the relevant people. To my knowledge, Petr is the sole
author of matroxfb, and there should not have been any problem in at
least asking him about this.

I didn't intend to make *any* accusations, and don't understand what
accusations I'm supposed to have made.
I clearly have to explain my starting position more clearly;
it is probably wrong, and almost certainly the cause of most of the 
confusion, however it is how I came into this arguement, and maybe seeing 
how I'm thinking will let you see that I wasn't making accusations.

My understanding of copyright/patents/plagarism (I'm vague and confused 
about which this covers) is that merely by reading your document,
I am allowing the possibility that I may use that information in something
which I later write.
 This is the principle behind "cleanroom" development, see
	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleanroom, 
meaning 2.

If my licence to use your document doesn't allow me to do what I wish,
it is therefore better for me not to read your document.

My understanding about fbdev was that it was GPL-licenced, and that
it is *not* OK to incorporate GPL-ed code into XFree86.
Since I can't read the source code, I can't see who owns the bit I'm 
interested in and can't therefore ask permission to use it under a 
different licence.

I merely wished to point out that the GPL-licence *had* affected my
decision not to copy anything from fdbdev into XFree86.
Call me lazy, mis-informed, confused and paranoid, but I resent the
suggestion that I've been making accusations, wild or tame.

Well, i seriously doubt that reading the first lines of a file would
contaminate you, after all you could use head to look at them or
something. Also, you could have written to linux-fbdev mailing list if
you were interested, or even have asked on devel@xfree86.org, and those
with interest in fbdev matters would have responded to you.

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OK. So I've probably been paranoid and lazy, but if the fbdev licence 
had been compatible with the XFree86 one, I would have done the work.
As it is the bar was raised high enough to stop me.

Yeah, whatever, but with you asking that the fbdev drivers change their
licence, it is the same thing as the GPL zealots not liking the new
XFree86 licence. 

The way to solve this is by cooperation, not by staying aloft and
pointing the finger to the opposite side.

I didn't intend to ask that fbdev change their licence (although I wish
they would). I merely intended to point out that, however much the fault
was mine, the perception of the licence conflict had blocked transfer
from fbdev to XFree86.

Well, i believe this was not the only issue involved. And i guess that
if the XFree86 Project was asking the fbdev people that they move to a
dual licence or something such, in order to better share information and
code between the fbdev drivers and the XFree86 drivers, then
undoubtfully this would have happened, with the natural problem of
searching for non-active authors of past code. I believe that Benjaming
Herrenschmidt raising its concern about driver code consecutive to the
announcement of the XFree86 licence could be the natural place to start
such an agreement.

Since Sven and Benjamin both suggested that transfer from fbdev to
XFree86 wasn't important, I thought it reasonable to relate my
experience showing that transfer in that direction was desirable and
that the GPL-licence was a hinderance.

Ok.

I also realize that I have a habit of using complex and precise English.
As many people in this discussion are not native English speakers,
that is not smart, and may be why some of my intended meaning has
not got through. I apologize for this.

:))

Friendly,

Sven Luther