From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: "Daniel P. Berrange" Subject: Re: Is anyone working on HVM Paravirt drivers for windows? Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2006 19:52:32 +0000 Message-ID: <20061116195232.GG11977@redhat.com> References: <5961D1CE9895844DAC92BAF285996DF2017E2CF9@G3W0065.americas.hpqcorp.net> <20061114181641.6f6a4358@localhost.localdomain> <20061115132503.GK7490@edu.joroinen.fi> <455AD2BB.E57C.0030.0@novell.com> <1163694863.24087.44.camel@localhost> <455CB8AC.1030905@gmx.at> Reply-To: "Daniel P. Berrange" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Return-path: Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <455CB8AC.1030905@gmx.at> List-Unsubscribe: , List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Sender: xen-devel-bounces@lists.xensource.com Errors-To: xen-devel-bounces@lists.xensource.com To: Michael Paesold Cc: Hiromichi Itou , Xen Devel , "Bruce J (HP-Labs) Walker" , Ky Srinivasan , aball@linux.vnet.ibm.com, Alan List-Id: xen-devel@lists.xenproject.org On Thu, Nov 16, 2006 at 08:14:52PM +0100, Michael Paesold wrote: > Andrew D. Ball wrote: > >That would be sad, but is possible. Just like I don't believe Linux > >drivers should be allowed to be non-GPL, not allowing drivers for > >Windows to be GPL makes sense, unless the kernel is organized with much > >more isolation as more of a microkernel. > > > >Anyone's more informed thoughts on this would be appreciated. > > > >Peace. > >Andrew > > > >On Wed, 2006-11-15 at 07:46 -0700, Ky Srinivasan wrote: > >>I may be wrong here; but I think windows drivers cannot be open-sourced. > >>I recall reading that in windows DDK documentation. > > I don't believe the problem is with Windows drivers, but with the Windows > Driver Development Kit. The DDK has a license incompatible with the GPL. I > think writing a driver without the kit would still be possible, although > difficult because it would require much more knowledge about the Windows > kernel. Just do a chinese wall, clean room implementation then. One person has the DDK and writes a spec for the driver. The second writes the actual driver based on the spec - never looking at the DDK directly. A little more work sure, but certainly doable. Regards, Dan. -- |=- Red Hat, Engineering, Emerging Technologies, Boston. +1 978 392 2496 -=| |=- Perl modules: http://search.cpan.org/~danberr/ -=| |=- Projects: http://freshmeat.net/~danielpb/ -=| |=- GnuPG: 7D3B9505 F3C9 553F A1DA 4AC2 5648 23C1 B3DF F742 7D3B 9505 -=|