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VIA Pulls PadLockSL

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the up-down-up-down dept.

yipyow writes "A few weeks ago VIA Technologies posted software based on Nullsoft's WASTE, as reported here a few days ago. VIA PadLockSL included both a Windows and Linux client and some special extensions to work with security hardware built into certain VIA products. It was released under the GPL so I managed to snag a copy of the source code right before VIA suddenly removed their page (Google cache). I have posted Linux compilation instructions and mirrored the source here. If VIA has decided not to pursue the project further, I think the F/OSS community should turn this project into something, it has potential to be a great tool."

3 of 233 comments (clear)

  1. Be careful by Oculus+Habent · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It might be a good idea to find out why it was removed. Perhaps they discovered a license violation and took it down to prevent a lawsuit. While noble, the automatic assumption that they simply don't want to pursue the project could be placing yipyow in an actionable position.

    --
    That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
  2. Security chip and continued development. by Brobock · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Although without the support of VIA how would one keep developing this since it uses their security hardware. As chip design changes, you would need to know how to make calls to the chip or the program becomes useless... Does VIA offer documentation on their chipsets?

  3. Re:additional mirror by yipyow · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Yes, I saw this, but I don't think I'm doing a bad thing necessarily...if this is legit code, and a legit usage of the GPL, etc., then why are Nullsoft/others making such a big deal out of it? Open source projects get forked all the time, though VIA didn't exactly give WASTE proper credit, they did release it under the GPL. Many companies would just claim it was theirs entirely, and not release the code at all. If this is a legit usage of the GPL, and VIA don't want to support the community, the community can pick up the source code and use it however they can. That is (in my mind) how the Free Software world works, that's the whole point of releasing source code in the first place. PadLockSL is, as far as I can see, a legitimate derivative work as described under the GPL. Can anyone prove me wrong?