Creative Labs XFi drivers.

Creative Labs XFi drivers.

[Tobin Davis]

Creative Labs has released a proprietary driver base for their XFi
cards.  I downloaded it because it claims to have compatibility with
alsa.  In fact, it requires alsa include files to be able to compile.  I
haven't looked at the source yet (this information is all in the
Readme.txt in the  main download) and probably won't (especially since I
don't own a Creative Labs XFi card).

What I don't understand, is are they allowed to use our code to build
their drivers?  They use alsa core modules to interoperate (from what I
can tell in the Readme.txt).  Also, this line in the License.txt is
especially troubling:



> In the event that the Software includes Linux code or drivers, then, unless expressly stated to the contrary, such Linux
> code and drivers are proprietary to Creative and all rights therein are reserved.



I'm deleting all but the big tarball I downloaded.  I'll delete it
later.

-- 
Tobin Davis <tdavis@dsl-only.net>

Re: Creative Labs XFi drivers.

[Clemens Ladisch]

Tobin Davis wrote:
> What I don't understand, is are they allowed to use our code to build
> their drivers?  They use alsa core modules to interoperate (from what I
> can tell in the Readme.txt).

The GPL disallows distributing binaries of GPL-derived code.  Creative
doesn't do that; AFAICS all files interfacing with ALSA are distributed
as source code.

> Also, this line in the License.txt is especially troubling:
> 
> > In the event that the Software includes Linux code or drivers, then,
> > unless expressly stated to the contrary, such Linux code and drivers
> > are proprietary to Creative and all rights therein are reserved.

What's troubling about that?

All code in the package is Creative's, and not licensed under the GPL.
If they'd include some GPL code by somebody else, it would be expressly
stated as such.


Regards,
Clemens

Re: Creative Labs XFi drivers.

[Takashi Iwai]

At Thu, 27 Sep 2007 09:11:12 +0200,
Clemens Ladisch wrote:
> 
> Tobin Davis wrote:
> > What I don't understand, is are they allowed to use our code to build
> > their drivers?  They use alsa core modules to interoperate (from what I
> > can tell in the Readme.txt).
> 
> The GPL disallows distributing binaries of GPL-derived code.  Creative
> doesn't do that; AFAICS all files interfacing with ALSA are distributed
> as source code.

We may change EXPORT_SYMBOL to EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL.  But, it's again the
same game.  You can write a GPL driver that simply bridges the
GPL-exported interface to others.

BTW, I heard some of X-Fi being HD-audio.  Is it true?


Takashi

Re: Creative Labs XFi drivers.

[James Courtier-Dutton]

Takashi Iwai wrote:
> We may change EXPORT_SYMBOL to EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL.  But, it's again the
> same game.  You can write a GPL driver that simply bridges the
> GPL-exported interface to others.
>
> BTW, I heard some of X-Fi being HD-audio.  Is it true?
>
>   

What do you mean? HD-audio.
Some of the X-Fi range are just rebadged SB-Live-24bit, so work with the 
snd-ca0106 driver, that outputs 24bit audio, so might be considered 
HD-audio, but not using the intel hd standard.

James

Re: Creative Labs XFi drivers.

[Takashi Iwai]

At Wed, 10 Oct 2007 16:59:23 +0100,
James Courtier-Dutton wrote:
> 
> Takashi Iwai wrote:
> > We may change EXPORT_SYMBOL to EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL.  But, it's again the
> > same game.  You can write a GPL driver that simply bridges the
> > GPL-exported interface to others.
> >
> > BTW, I heard some of X-Fi being HD-audio.  Is it true?
> >
> >   
> 
> What do you mean? HD-audio.

That's my question too.  I also don't know what exactly it was meant.

> Some of the X-Fi range are just rebadged SB-Live-24bit, so work with the 
> snd-ca0106 driver, that outputs 24bit audio, so might be considered 
> HD-audio, but not using the intel hd standard.

Yeah, that sounds like that.  Thanks for information.


Takashi