Replace the eepro100 driver with the e100 driver??

Replace the eepro100 driver with the e100 driver??

[Ben Greear]

The e100 license appears to be compatible, and it has some nice features, like
interrupt-cooelescing that I don't think are supported in the eepro100..

I keep thinking that if everyone could get behind a single driver,
especially one with corporate support, we may have a more stable
result...

Here's the license:

[root@lanf2 e100-1.6.13]# more LICENSE 
Copyright (c) 1999-2001, Intel Corporation 

All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, 
    this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice,
    this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation 
    and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

 3. Neither the name of Intel Corporation nor the names of its contributors 
    may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 
    without specific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS''
AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE
DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT,
INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT
LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR
PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF 
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING 
NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE,
EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. 

[root@lanf2 e100-1.6.13]# 

Opinions?

Ben

-- 
Ben Greear <greearb@candelatech.com>          <Ben_Greear@excite.com>
President of Candela Technologies Inc      http://www.candelatech.com
ScryMUD:  http://scry.wanfear.com     http://scry.wanfear.com/~greear

Re: Replace the eepro100 driver with the e100 driver??

[Jeff Garzik]

On Wed, 19 Sep 2001, Ben Greear wrote:
> The e100 license appears to be compatible, and it has some nice features, like

Old news, and it is definitely -not- compatible :/

Every Linux distributor (or other entity) that ships e100 -must-
get an specific exemption from Intel's lawyers, because the license
does not cover patent liability.

So as I understand it (IANAL), with an exemption, Intel can sue an
end user over patent issues.  The GPL would protect against such
business...

Also AFAIK, this is a problem with most if not all IP covered by patents
-and- a BSD license.

Again, IANAL, but this is what I was told from a trusted source, and
backed up by another...

	Jeff

Re: Replace the eepro100 driver with the e100 driver??

[Christoph Hellwig]

In article <3BA90EF2.527C9A50@candelatech.com> you wrote:
> The e100 license appears to be compatible, and it has some nice features, like
> interrupt-cooelescing that I don't think are supported in the eepro100..
>
> I keep thinking that if everyone could get behind a single driver,
> especially one with corporate support, we may have a more stable
> result...
>
> Here's the license:

Even if the license were compatible (it isn't) I wouldn't ever choose
to replace eeproo100 with e100 - whilst eeproo100 is a rather nice
behaving Linux driver, e100 is an utter piece of crap.  Never seen
a driver so full of interface violations, wrong types, races, bugs,
etc..

	Christoph

-- 
Of course it doesn't work. We've performed a software upgrade.

Re: Replace the eepro100 driver with the e100 driver??

[Alan Cox]

> The e100 license appears to be compatible, and it has some nice features, like

Compatible but unsafe. Its no longer safe to accept BSD licensed code into
the Linux kernel because of the US patent law situation (the GPL prevents
someone patenting things, feeding them into Linux under the GPL then sueing
everyone who uses it - BSD does not). On that issue there is a patent 
licensing proposal from intel that may resolve it.

> interrupt-cooelescing that I don't think are supported in the eepro100..
> I keep thinking that if everyone could get behind a single driver,
> especially one with corporate support, we may have a more stable
> result...

We have been trying for a very very long time to get intel to help with
the mainstream driver. The mainstream driver doesnt contain huge delay 
loops, is written in a way linux folk understand and is rather cleaner
[IMHO]. It is unfortunate Intel wouldnt help out with the kernel driver but
that is their policy it seems.

Alan