Re: Binary drivers and GPL

[Andre Hedrick]

Shawn,

Obviously you can not and will not listen to reason.
I can make it become hardware, using a CAM card.

Do not preach to me about DMCA, if it was not for me, you and everyone in
the world would be saddled with it.  The other folks involved in that
issue forced it underground, and I will bet we are saddled with it now.

http://www.sigmadesigns.com/pdf_docs/harmony_brochure.pdf

It is here dude like it or not!  Who is using it?

The PVR people or the SETTOP box people using Linux, and my work!
Read that document and see, where kernel 2.4 drivers for DRM/DMCA are
active in the world.

Who owns a large stake in the copyright for ATA and all of SATA, me.
Yet I have to stand around and wait for it to be quietly stolen, and I
know whos, I know the whens, I know the hows of it all.  I do not know
the exact wheres.  I have a list a mile long and much of the proof.
But I have no money to fight.

There is a precedence about copyright that effects a very big issue, and
bigger than me making money.  I will leave and use another platform over
the issue.

If it is deemed under copyright law and the holders reject binary
modules and the precedene set and used as a legal basis from one statement
in 1995, then it all goes.  Every embedded module, every appliance with a
module, every binary module out there, and a dynamic shift away to other
platforms will result.

So get over yourself, and you have to choice to load or not load a module.
You have a choice to purchase hardware w/ or w/o binary modules.
You have a choice to purchase software as a binary module.

I am part of the latter, but have the ability to stuff it in to a Digital
Rights Management device aka Content Addressable Memory, and provide a
legal gpl driver that is nothing but the original source code wrapper.
You see people are creative enough to find ways to bypass GPL.

If I can do it so can anyone else.
Do I like being forced to use a CAM in order to operate in Linux, NO.

Later ...

Andre Hedrick
LAD Storage Consulting Group

On Sun, 5 Jan 2003, Shawn Starr wrote:

> 
> I am not a copyright holder. The only patch that got added to 2.5 was
> very, very minor (trivial fix, 2 lines). My patchset is GPL but I still
> have no copyright on this either.
> 
> I know you need to make money all and all and so do I. But, I could care
> less if people decide to pull out of Linux because they can't make money
> from it. It's not going to stop me from working on it for free.
> 
> I should mention this you do realize that if companies decide to use
> binary only drivers it restricts my ability to work on a kernel thats
> in constant development. This also ties in the DMCA (for those in the USA)
> by not allowing reverse engineering on hardware and software
> (because companies may decide to add 'security features') so now we can't
> develop drivers anymore for fear of lawsuits. From there on it gets
> really, really messy and that would bring development of drivers to a halt.
> 
> Shawn.
> 
>  On Sun, 5 Jan 2003, Andre Hedrick
> wrote:
> 
> >
> > Shawn,
> >
> > You can go download the IETF iSCSI working document.
> > You and anyone less can go write a driver to replace me.
> > I already stated, I will use another platform, like NetBSD if forced.
> > This is not hardware unless I decide to use a CAM card, then the wrapper
> > around the object in question becomes the GPL driver.
> >
> > I originally asked you offline as not to add more noise, while I am
> > waiting to see what my peers who are the copyright holders have to say
> > about the issue.
> >
> > Are you a copyright holder in the kernel today?
> > If so, I can tell you will object on the LGPL issue and deny.
> > Where is the files so I can evaluate my position now.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Andre Hedrick
> > LAD Storage Consulting Group