If there had been some kind of data sheet for the hardware it could be very likely, at least in the header file. If they somehow both took it from say the closed source driver of another OS by reverse engineering, it is still likely, although much less.
So lets say the BSD driver was first and there is no
documentation. Should I ignore the source code and start reverse engineering myself, or should I look at the source code and base my driver on that? The latter seems to make more sense. In that case, keeping the header file mostly unchanged is very likely and makes sense. The driver would of course be different since the OSes are different.
If I took it from BSD source I should mention the author for his help, but why should I set it under his license. This is the way the hardware works, there is no other way, you can't really write it much differently. My guess is that BSD authors have done and will do the same thing.
The only bad thing is if you don't mention the original author at all. Why do you think BSD people look at linux code and Linux people look at BSD code. To see how it is done. That is sometimes the only way if the hardware manufacturer doesn't give you any specs. But this leads to better drivers for both OSes.
So look how it's done and give credit where credit is due and don't overreact.
This is only valid for device drivers though, as soon as you come into the area of API design and above it becomes a different game because here you have a choice. It is no longer unbendable hardware you are working with.
Another question is why BSD people read the Linux kernel sources? The 2.4.10 kernel is pretty knew and I haven't even compiled it yet, so why are they so quick to read it. I haven't looked at BSD for a long time, except when we heard that they had a driver for bt848 cards and we found that some parts were very similar to ours, but maybe they used the same data sheets.
The BSD people did the same thing with the bttv driver. As long as you don't copy verbatim, as NVIDIA did it (they even left the comments in) and claim that this is all your property, you can't really say anything. Some things have to be coded in a certain way, especially drivers. You can't do it differently if you want to access the hardware.
I haven't seen the code segments they are talking about, so I don't know how far the copying goes, but if it doesn't go beyond what is required by the hardware you can't complain too much. If they learned it from the BSD code how to access the hardware they should mention it somewhere,though. Not that people always do that.
Yes, but they signed over the rights under the assumption that the code stays GPL. Maybe they should have made that a condition of the transferal of their copyright. I don't think FSF projects will suddenly turn commercial.
So this really hasn't been what one would call a GPL project in the traditional sense from the beginning.
At least they opened up the source and continue to do so. If you don't really mean it, you shouldn't put your project under GPL.
to the project under the assumption it was GPL?
Do they also get some compensation?
I am not familiar with the project, but if there has been someone who made a sizeable contribution shouldn't he or she be compensated? I am not talking about small bugfixes, although those can also take a lot of time and effort.
I would say that if such a case exists they would have to take that part of the code out of the commercial product or compensate the author.
innovation? Probably in the same way that publishing a scientific paper stifles the research on the respective subject.
How does it undermine IP? In the same way patents are intended to hide the your methods of accomplishing a task so that noone can improve them.
I guess some people cannot see past their own wallet and confuse innovation and knowledge with
profit and power.
Just MHO
Marcus
They were talking about speed. They also said that they will have a complete test next week. I am not sure if they will publish all the details on their website, though. You will probably have to buy the C`t nagazine to get the full results. They are in the publishing business after all.
Marcus
On the German page http://www.heise.de they already have a first benchmark result for the notebook. They say its performance lies between a 400 and a 600 MHz Pentium III, while the memory throughput is much better.
Slashdot Mirror
If there had been some kind of data sheet for the hardware it could be very likely, at least in the header file. If they somehow both took it from say the closed source driver of another OS by reverse engineering, it is still likely, although much less.
So lets say the BSD driver was first and there is no
documentation. Should I ignore the source code and start reverse engineering myself, or should I look at the source code and base my driver on that? The latter seems to make more sense. In that case, keeping the header file mostly unchanged is very likely and makes sense. The driver would of course be different since the OSes are different.
If I took it from BSD source I should mention the author for his help, but why should I set it under his license. This is the way the hardware works, there is no other way, you can't really write it much differently. My guess is that BSD authors have done and will do the same thing.
The only bad thing is if you don't mention the original author at all. Why do you think BSD people look at linux code and Linux people look at BSD code. To see how it is done. That is sometimes the only way if the hardware manufacturer doesn't give you any specs. But this leads to better drivers for both OSes.
So look how it's done and give credit where credit is due and don't overreact.
This is only valid for device drivers though, as soon as you come into the area of API design and above it becomes a different game because here you have a choice. It is no longer unbendable hardware you are working with.
Marcus
Another question is why BSD people read the Linux kernel sources? The 2.4.10 kernel is pretty knew and I haven't even compiled it yet, so why are they so quick to read it. I haven't looked at BSD for a long time, except when we heard that they had a driver for bt848 cards and we found that some parts were very similar to ours, but maybe they used the same data sheets.
Marcus
The BSD people did the same thing with the bttv driver. As long as you don't copy verbatim, as NVIDIA did it (they even left the comments in) and claim that this is all your property, you can't really say anything. Some things have to be coded in a certain way, especially drivers. You can't do it differently if you want to access the hardware.
I haven't seen the code segments they are talking about, so I don't know how far the copying goes, but if it doesn't go beyond what is required by the hardware you can't complain too much. If they learned it from the BSD code how to access the hardware they should mention it somewhere,though. Not that people always do that.
Marcus
Yes, but they signed over the rights under the assumption that the code stays GPL. Maybe they should have made that a condition of the transferal of their copyright. I don't think FSF projects will suddenly turn commercial.
So this really hasn't been what one would call a GPL project in the traditional sense from the beginning.
At least they opened up the source and continue to do so. If you don't really mean it, you shouldn't put your project under GPL.
to the project under the assumption it was GPL?
Do they also get some compensation?
I am not familiar with the project, but if there has been someone who made a sizeable contribution shouldn't he or she be compensated? I am not talking about small bugfixes, although those can also take a lot of time and effort.
I would say that if such a case exists they would have to take that part of the code out of the commercial product or compensate the author.
innovation? Probably in the same way that publishing a scientific paper stifles the research on the respective subject. How does it undermine IP? In the same way patents are intended to hide the your methods of accomplishing a task so that noone can improve them. I guess some people cannot see past their own wallet and confuse innovation and knowledge with profit and power. Just MHO Marcus
They were talking about speed. They also said that they will have a complete test next week. I am not sure if they will publish all the details on their website, though. You will probably have to buy the C`t nagazine to get the full results. They are in the publishing business after all. Marcus
On the German page http://www.heise.de they already have a first benchmark result for the notebook. They say its performance lies between a 400 and a 600 MHz Pentium III, while the memory throughput is much better.