[PATCH] License issue with rocket driver

Christoph Hellwig

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Jun 6, 2003, 5:50:15 AM6/6/03

to

drivers/char/rocket{,_int}.h have an intereesting and gpl-incompatible
license. Could you please fix it or remove the drier from the tree?
(given that mess that this driver is the latter might be the better
idea..)

The license is:

* The following source code is subject to Comtrol Corporation's
* Developer's License Agreement.
*
* This source code is protected by United States copyright law and
* international copyright treaties.
*
* This source code may only be used to develop software products
* international copyright treaties.
*
* This source code may only be used to develop software products that
* will operate with Comtrol brand hardware.
*
* You may not reproduce nor distribute this source code in its original
* form but must produce a derivative work which includes portions of
* this source code only.
*
* The portions of this source code which you use in your derivative
* work must bear Comtrol's copyright notice:
*
* Copyright 1994 Comtrol Corporation.
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Alan Cox

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Jun 6, 2003, 11:30:14 AM6/6/03

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On Gwe, 2003-06-06 at 10:47, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> drivers/char/rocket{,_int}.h have an intereesting and gpl-incompatible
> license. Could you please fix it or remove the drier from the tree?
> (given that mess that this driver is the latter might be the better
> idea..)

Ditto for 2.4 it appears. Marcelo can you rm the comtrol driver pending
clarification. I'll do the same for 2.2, and Linus needs to pull it for
2.5

Marcelo Tosatti

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Jun 9, 2003, 4:30:20 PM6/9/03

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On Fri, 6 Jun 2003, Alan Cox wrote:

> On Gwe, 2003-06-06 at 10:47, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> > drivers/char/rocket{,_int}.h have an intereesting and gpl-incompatible
> > license. Could you please fix it or remove the drier from the tree?
> > (given that mess that this driver is the latter might be the better
> > idea..)
>
> Ditto for 2.4 it appears. Marcelo can you rm the comtrol driver pending
> clarification. I'll do the same for 2.2, and Linus needs to pull it for
> 2.5

I'm going to do that now in case there is no other fix.

Any answer from the Rocket driver people ?

Alan Cox

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Jun 9, 2003, 9:00:16 PM6/9/03

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On Llu, 2003-06-09 at 21:24, Marcelo Tosatti wrote:
> I'm going to do that now in case there is no other fix.
>
> Any answer from the Rocket driver people ?

I received a mail saying they would fix it but no fix as yet

Bill Davidsen

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Jun 15, 2003, 11:20:05 PM6/15/03

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I don't see that it would disagree with GPL, let's try to get the existing
Linux driver GPL'd with their agreement. I don't see that it helps anyone
to just start throwing out drivers without at least checking with the
author on license terms.

--
bill davidsen <davi...@tmr.com>
CTO, TMR Associates, Inc
Doing interesting things with little computers since 1979.

H. Peter Anvin

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Jun 16, 2003, 2:10:16 PM6/16/03

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Followup to: <Pine.LNX.3.96.103061...@gatekeeper.tmr.com>
By author: Bill Davidsen <davi...@tmr.com>
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel

>
> I don't see that it would disagree with GPL, let's try to get the existing
> Linux driver GPL'd with their agreement. I don't see that it helps anyone
> to just start throwing out drivers without at least checking with the
> author on license terms.

[...]

> > * This source code may only be used to develop software products that
> > * will operate with Comtrol brand hardware.
> > *

If that doesn't contradict the GPL I don't know what does...

-hpa
--
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