Re: [forum] Re: Announcement: Modification to the base XFree86(TM) license.

Re: [forum] Re: Announcement: Modification to the base XFree86(TM) license.

[Sven Luther]

On Fri, Jan 30, 2004 at 05:19:03PM +0100, Egbert Eich wrote:
> Benjamin Herrenschmidt writes:
> 
>  > Losing the ability of porting code straight from these to the fbdev
>  > drivers will basically kill all my efforts to turn the kernel radeonfb
>  > into a decent driver as I need to be able to re-use the code ATI puts
>  > in the XFree version. I suppose the same will happen to linux rivafb.
> 
> Relating to that: exchanging code between XFree86 and kernel has been a
> one-way road so far. The GPL the kernel is under doesn't allow us to
> port back improvements that have been made to the kernel to our drivers
> Even though this isn't covered by the GPL the author of the driver 
> or the changes could still give the permission to do so.
> 
> I whish there was a better exchange between kernel fbdev developers
> and driver developers here.

Maybe a decision on both parts on this would be ok ? XFree86 could make
sure the licence of the driver code would not conflict with the GPL,
keeping the old one for example, and the fbdev driver authors would
dual-licence the code, both GPL and the old xfree86 licence would do
just fine. Benjamin, what do you think about this ?

BTW, CCing this to the linux-fbdev mailing list.

Friendly,

Sven Luther


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Re: [forum] Re: Announcement: Modification to the base XFree86(TM) license.

[Egbert Eich]

Sven Luther writes:
 > 
 > Maybe a decision on both parts on this would be ok ? XFree86 could make
 > sure the licence of the driver code would not conflict with the GPL,
 > keeping the old one for example, and the fbdev driver authors would
 > dual-licence the code, both GPL and the old xfree86 licence would do
 > just fine. Benjamin, what do you think about this ?
 > 
 > BTW, CCing this to the linux-fbdev mailing list.
 > 

Yes, a personal agreement between driver developers would also work.
However they tend to change and other people will make contributions
who all would have to agree also. 
I don't know if a general dual license agreement in the kernel 
file header would be possible. Also it could get removed once 
the author changes. Just like the license in the XFree86 driver 
could be amended. 
Doing this now for existing fbdev driver would involve to ask
anyone who has contributed little more than a typo fix.

Egbert.



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Re: Re: [forum] Re: Announcement: Modification to the base XFree86(TM) license.

[Sven Luther]

On Fri, Jan 30, 2004 at 08:25:40PM +0100, Egbert Eich wrote:
> Sven Luther writes:
>  > 
>  > Maybe a decision on both parts on this would be ok ? XFree86 could make
>  > sure the licence of the driver code would not conflict with the GPL,
>  > keeping the old one for example, and the fbdev driver authors would
>  > dual-licence the code, both GPL and the old xfree86 licence would do
>  > just fine. Benjamin, what do you think about this ?
>  > 
>  > BTW, CCing this to the linux-fbdev mailing list.
>  > 
> 
> Yes, a personal agreement between driver developers would also work.
> However they tend to change and other people will make contributions
> who all would have to agree also. 
> I don't know if a general dual license agreement in the kernel 
> file header would be possible. Also it could get removed once 
> the author changes. Just like the license in the XFree86 driver 
> could be amended. 

I guess already some drivers have such a dual licencing.

> Doing this now for existing fbdev driver would involve to ask
> anyone who has contributed little more than a typo fix.

Yeah, that would be rather problematic, but anyway, most of the things
move from the XFree86 code to fbdev code, and most often, it is not code
that is copied, but the register information and such. It is always
easier to get specs if you are working for XFree86 than if you plan to
do some kernel driver work.

Friendly,

Sven Luther


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Re: Re: [forum] Re: Announcement: Modification to the base XFree86(TM) license.

[Andrew C Aitchison]

On Fri, 30 Jan 2004, Sven Luther wrote:
> Yeah, that would be rather problematic, but anyway, most of the things
> move from the XFree86 code to fbdev code, and most often, it is not code
> that is copied, but the register information and such. It is always
> easier to get specs if you are working for XFree86 than if you plan to
> do some kernel driver work.

On Sat, 31 Jan 2004, Benjamin Herrenschmidt wrote:
> The fact that it is mostly a one way is mostly due to the fact that the
> main problem here is seeking for HW informations.

For several years the mga fb kernel driver has supported dual head and/or
dvi on cards which aren't supported by the XFree86 driver (unless you
use the mga_hal). I've wanted to use kernel code to add this support to 
XFree86, but been put off by the licence problem.

As I remember it, the pertinent register information here was reverse 
engineered, so it is at least arguable that I'd be copying fbdev
intellectual property here if I'd extracted and reused it.
Perhaps I was wrong, but my understanding from my days in a software
house taught me that I'd be breaking copyright not just by lifting
lines of code, but also by reading the code and copying intellectual
property, including register information.

Besides there are only a few ways of writing code to twiddle a bit in
a register - I could easily duplicate a line of code while
reconstructing it from the register description, and it would be hard
to prove that I didn't just copy the line directly.

So, for one developer at least, the reason there has been no traffic
from fbdev to XFree86 is *directly* because of the licence issue.

-- 
Andrew C. Aitchison					Cambridge
			A.C.Aitchison@ntlworld.com



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Re: Re: [forum] Re: Announcement: Modification to the base XFree86(TM) license.

[Sven Luther]

On Sat, Jan 31, 2004 at 09:10:22AM +0000, Andrew C Aitchison wrote:
> On Fri, 30 Jan 2004, Sven Luther wrote:
> > Yeah, that would be rather problematic, but anyway, most of the things
> > move from the XFree86 code to fbdev code, and most often, it is not code
> > that is copied, but the register information and such. It is always
> > easier to get specs if you are working for XFree86 than if you plan to
> > do some kernel driver work.
> 
> On Sat, 31 Jan 2004, Benjamin Herrenschmidt wrote:
> > The fact that it is mostly a one way is mostly due to the fact that the
> > main problem here is seeking for HW informations.
> 
> For several years the mga fb kernel driver has supported dual head and/or
> dvi on cards which aren't supported by the XFree86 driver (unless you
> use the mga_hal). I've wanted to use kernel code to add this support to 
> XFree86, but been put off by the licence problem.

And, have you asked the mgafb driver author about this ?

You can hardly complain about lack of back traffic if you didn't ask him
about it, and if you did, it would be interesting to this discussion to
know what the problems where.

> As I remember it, the pertinent register information here was reverse 
> engineered, so it is at least arguable that I'd be copying fbdev
> intellectual property here if I'd extracted and reused it.
> Perhaps I was wrong, but my understanding from my days in a software
> house taught me that I'd be breaking copyright not just by lifting
> lines of code, but also by reading the code and copying intellectual
> property, including register information.

Yeah, sure. Which is way you ask for getting a licenced copy you can
use or something. I guess that this will be much more likely to happen
from a kernel fbdev driver author than from a commercial entity, will it
not ?

> Besides there are only a few ways of writing code to twiddle a bit in
> a register - I could easily duplicate a line of code while
> reconstructing it from the register description, and it would be hard
> to prove that I didn't just copy the line directly.

I doubt that this kind of stuff is possible to fall under copyright, or
else the copyright law is more broken than i thought. I know that a
bunch of C header files, with only datastructures and functions
declarations cannot be copyrighted.

> So, for one developer at least, the reason there has been no traffic
> from fbdev to XFree86 is *directly* because of the licence issue.

Yeah, but again, was it so because of a definite will on the fbdev
authors part, or because you didn't ask him ?

Friendly,

Sven Luther


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Re: Re: [forum] Re: Announcement: Modification to the base XFree86(TM) license.

[Ryan Underwood]

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On Sat, Jan 31, 2004 at 09:10:22AM +0000, Andrew C Aitchison wrote:
> 
> For several years the mga fb kernel driver has supported dual head and/or
> dvi on cards which aren't supported by the XFree86 driver (unless you
> use the mga_hal). I've wanted to use kernel code to add this support to 
> XFree86, but been put off by the licence problem.
> 
> As I remember it, the pertinent register information here was reverse 
> engineered, so it is at least arguable that I'd be copying fbdev
> intellectual property here if I'd extracted and reused it.
> Perhaps I was wrong, but my understanding from my days in a software
> house taught me that I'd be breaking copyright not just by lifting
> lines of code, but also by reading the code and copying intellectual
> property, including register information.

Petr Vandrovec, the author of the vast majority of matroxfb code, has
repeatedly granted requests to re-use the code under X11 license.  Did
you even ask him?

-- 
Ryan Underwood, <nemesis@icequake.net>

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Re: Re: [forum] Re: Announcement: Modification to the base XFree86(TM) license.

[Mark Vojkovich]

On Fri, 30 Jan 2004, Sven Luther wrote:

> On Fri, Jan 30, 2004 at 08:25:40PM +0100, Egbert Eich wrote:
> > Sven Luther writes:
> >  > 
> >  > Maybe a decision on both parts on this would be ok ? XFree86 could make
> >  > sure the licence of the driver code would not conflict with the GPL,
> >  > keeping the old one for example, and the fbdev driver authors would
> >  > dual-licence the code, both GPL and the old xfree86 licence would do
> >  > just fine. Benjamin, what do you think about this ?
> >  > 
> >  > BTW, CCing this to the linux-fbdev mailing list.
> >  > 
> > 
> > Yes, a personal agreement between driver developers would also work.
> > However they tend to change and other people will make contributions
> > who all would have to agree also. 
> > I don't know if a general dual license agreement in the kernel 
> > file header would be possible. Also it could get removed once 
> > the author changes. Just like the license in the XFree86 driver 
> > could be amended. 
> 
> I guess already some drivers have such a dual licencing.
> 
> > Doing this now for existing fbdev driver would involve to ask
> > anyone who has contributed little more than a typo fix.
> 
> Yeah, that would be rather problematic, but anyway, most of the things
> move from the XFree86 code to fbdev code, and most often, it is not code
> that is copied, but the register information and such. It is always
> easier to get specs if you are working for XFree86 than if you plan to
> do some kernel driver work.
> 

   You can take an XFree86 driver, regardless of what the copyright
says, and completely rewrite it as an fbdev driver (which is what
I believe usually happens) and this is not a violation of the
XFree86 copyright or even of the GPL.  Copyright doesn't apply to 
ideas or algorithms in a work.  It's not a patent.  It only applies
to the reproduction of the code.


			Mark.



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Re: [forum] Re: Announcement: Modification to the base XFree86(TM) license.

[Thomas Winischhofer]

Egbert Eich wrote:
> Sven Luther writes:
>  > 
>  > Maybe a decision on both parts on this would be ok ? XFree86 could make
>  > sure the licence of the driver code would not conflict with the GPL,
>  > keeping the old one for example, and the fbdev driver authors would
>  > dual-licence the code, both GPL and the old xfree86 licence would do
>  > just fine. Benjamin, what do you think about this ?
>  > 
>  > BTW, CCing this to the linux-fbdev mailing list.
>  > 
> 
> Yes, a personal agreement between driver developers would also work.
> However they tend to change and other people will make contributions
> who all would have to agree also. 
> I don't know if a general dual license agreement in the kernel 
> file header would be possible. 

Yes, it is. See the current SiS driver source files.

Thomas

-- 
Thomas Winischhofer
Vienna/Austria
thomas AT winischhofer DOT net          http://www.winischhofer.net/
twini AT xfree86 DOT org


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Re: Re: [forum] Re: Announcement: Modification to the base XFree86(TM) license.

[Andrew C Aitchison]

On Sat, 31 Jan 2004, Sven Luther wrote:

> On Sat, Jan 31, 2004 at 09:10:22AM +0000, Andrew C Aitchison wrote:
> > For several years the mga fb kernel driver has supported dual head and/or
> > dvi on cards which aren't supported by the XFree86 driver (unless you
> > use the mga_hal). I've wanted to use kernel code to add this support to 
> > XFree86, but been put off by the licence problem.
> 
> And, have you asked the mgafb driver author about this ?
> 
> You can hardly complain about lack of back traffic if you didn't ask him
> about it, and if you did, it would be interesting to this discussion to
> know what the problems where.

"The Author" ?
This is open source code; there may be 27 authors of the relevant file.
In XFree86 code I wouldn't know how to find the author of a file without
looking at that file. My {limited ,mis}understanding of clean room coding 
makes me wary of reading any source unless I know that its licence will 
allow me to do what I wish.

OK. So I've probably been paranoid and lazy, but if the fbdev licence 
had been compatible with the XFree86 one, I would have done the work.
As it is the bar was raised high enough to stop me.

> > So, for one developer at least, the reason there has been no traffic
> > from fbdev to XFree86 is *directly* because of the licence issue.
> 
> Yeah, but again, was it so because of a definite will on the fbdev
> authors part, or because you didn't ask him ?

Isn't the aim of open source licences is to allow people to use the code
without tracking down the author and obtaining permission ?
I can do that with closed source.

-- 
Andrew C. Aitchison					Cambridge
			A.C.Aitchison@ntlworld.com



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Re: Re: [forum] Re: Announcement: Modification to the base XFree86(TM) license.

[Benjamin Herrenschmidt]

> "The Author" ?
> This is open source code; there may be 27 authors of the relevant file.
> In XFree86 code I wouldn't know how to find the author of a file without
> looking at that file. My {limited ,mis}understanding of clean room coding 
> makes me wary of reading any source unless I know that its licence will 
> allow me to do what I wish.

There is at least a maintainer and usually one person who did the
main work, and this (or these) name(s) can usually be found in the
file's head comment. Also, fbdev authors/maintainers usually hang
around the linux fbdev mailing list. You could have tried to
contact them at least ;)

Ben.




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Re: Re: [forum] Re: Announcement: Modification to the base XFree86(TM) license.

[Ryan Underwood]

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On Sat, Jan 31, 2004 at 01:06:23PM +0000, Andrew C Aitchison wrote:
> > And, have you asked the mgafb driver author about this ?
> > 
> > You can hardly complain about lack of back traffic if you didn't ask him
> > about it, and if you did, it would be interesting to this discussion to
> > know what the problems where.
> 
> "The Author" ?
> This is open source code; there may be 27 authors of the relevant file.
> In XFree86 code I wouldn't know how to find the author of a file without
> looking at that file. My {limited ,mis}understanding of clean room coding 
> makes me wary of reading any source unless I know that its licence will 
> allow me to do what I wish.

The only authors that legally matter are the ones listed in the
copyright notices.  There are three copyright notices in the matroxfb
stuff: one is Petr, another is Gerd Knorr and the other is Matrox.  I'm
sure Petr has a pretty clear idea what he wrote, and I doubt Gerd would
get an attitude with you either over anything he did.  Since you haven't
even inquired about it, you don't have much to complain about as I see
it.

> OK. So I've probably been paranoid and lazy, but if the fbdev licence 
> had been compatible with the XFree86 one, I would have done the work.
> As it is the bar was raised high enough to stop me.

Or maybe the license incompatibility was simply a convenient way to cop
out of doing some work?

> > > So, for one developer at least, the reason there has been no traffic
> > > from fbdev to XFree86 is *directly* because of the licence issue.

You can't copy and paste code.  You _can_ rewrite code.  Hardware
interfaces, trivial routines, and problems for which there exist only one
or a few obvious ways of solving them are all examples of where
copyright does not apply.  Porting any code from fbdev to a XFree86
driver *will* involve substantial rewriting.  I know this because I'm
currently doing it for the mga driver.

> > Yeah, but again, was it so because of a definite will on the fbdev
> > authors part, or because you didn't ask him ?
> 
> Isn't the aim of open source licences is to allow people to use the code
> without tracking down the author and obtaining permission ?

No.  The aim of open source licenses is to allow people to use the code
_under the terms the author chose_ without tracking down the author and
obtaining extra permissions.

> I can do that with closed source.

I don't see how you have greater freedom with closed source licenses,
but feel free to elaborate.

-- 
Ryan Underwood, <nemesis@icequake.net>

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Re: Re: [forum] Re: Announcement: Modification to the base XFree86(TM) license.

[Sven Luther]

On Sat, Jan 31, 2004 at 01:06:23PM +0000, Andrew C Aitchison wrote:
> On Sat, 31 Jan 2004, Sven Luther wrote:
> 
> > On Sat, Jan 31, 2004 at 09:10:22AM +0000, Andrew C Aitchison wrote:
> > > For several years the mga fb kernel driver has supported dual head and/or
> > > dvi on cards which aren't supported by the XFree86 driver (unless you
> > > use the mga_hal). I've wanted to use kernel code to add this support to 
> > > XFree86, but been put off by the licence problem.
> > 
> > And, have you asked the mgafb driver author about this ?
> > 
> > You can hardly complain about lack of back traffic if you didn't ask him
> > about it, and if you did, it would be interesting to this discussion to
> > know what the problems where.
> 
> "The Author" ?
> This is open source code; there may be 27 authors of the relevant file.
> In XFree86 code I wouldn't know how to find the author of a file without
> looking at that file. My {limited ,mis}understanding of clean room coding 
> makes me wary of reading any source unless I know that its licence will 
> allow me to do what I wish.

This is not acceptable. You are making wild accusations, and didn't even
try to contact the relevant people. To my knowledge, Petr is the sole
author of matroxfb, and there should not have been any problem in at
least asking him about this.

> OK. So I've probably been paranoid and lazy, but if the fbdev licence 
> had been compatible with the XFree86 one, I would have done the work.
> As it is the bar was raised high enough to stop me.

Yeah, whatever, but with you asking that the fbdev drivers change their
licence, it is the same thing as the GPL zealots not liking the new
XFree86 licence. 

The way to solve this is by cooperation, not by staying aloft and
pointing the finger to the opposite side.

> > > So, for one developer at least, the reason there has been no traffic
> > > from fbdev to XFree86 is *directly* because of the licence issue.
> > 
> > Yeah, but again, was it so because of a definite will on the fbdev
> > authors part, or because you didn't ask him ?
> 
> Isn't the aim of open source licences is to allow people to use the code
> without tracking down the author and obtaining permission ?

Yes. But the aim of GPLed code is that those author give you the
permission, but also force you to give back the changes you do under the
same licence. And altough i contribute to project with the licence the
project choose, i would never choose something else as the GPL for my
own projects. If someone else wants access to the code, they can ask me
for it, and we can discuss stuff and arrive to an arrangement.

> I can do that with closed source.

Well, the only reason you need to contact the author is because you want
some additional right from him, if your project was GPLed, it was no
problem.

Friendly,

Sven Luther


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Re: Re: [forum] Re: Announcement: Modification to the base XFree86(TM) license.

[Harold L Hunt II]

Sven Luther wrote:

> On Sat, Jan 31, 2004 at 01:06:23PM +0000, Andrew C Aitchison wrote:
> 
>>On Sat, 31 Jan 2004, Sven Luther wrote:
>>
>>
>>>On Sat, Jan 31, 2004 at 09:10:22AM +0000, Andrew C Aitchison wrote:
>>>
>>>>For several years the mga fb kernel driver has supported dual head and/or
>>>>dvi on cards which aren't supported by the XFree86 driver (unless you
>>>>use the mga_hal). I've wanted to use kernel code to add this support to 
>>>>XFree86, but been put off by the licence problem.
>>>
>>>And, have you asked the mgafb driver author about this ?
>>>
>>>You can hardly complain about lack of back traffic if you didn't ask him
>>>about it, and if you did, it would be interesting to this discussion to
>>>know what the problems where.
>>
>>"The Author" ?
>>This is open source code; there may be 27 authors of the relevant file.
>>In XFree86 code I wouldn't know how to find the author of a file without
>>looking at that file. My {limited ,mis}understanding of clean room coding 
>>makes me wary of reading any source unless I know that its licence will 
>>allow me to do what I wish.
> 
> 
> This is not acceptable. You are making wild accusations, and didn't even
> try to contact the relevant people. To my knowledge, Petr is the sole
> author of matroxfb, and there should not have been any problem in at
> least asking him about this.

Wild accusations?  How do you get wild accusations from pointing out 
that there "may be 27 authors of the relevant file"?  If anyone is 
making wild accusations, it is you.  Andrew simply stated the point that 
this is not an issue about proving whether *one* file doesn't have 
issues; rather, it is the issue of having to prove that *all* files do 
not have issues, and many of these files may be just as messy in 
authorship as Andrew is suggesting.

Harold


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Re: Re: [forum] Re: Announcement: Modification to the base XFree86(TM) license.

[Sven Luther]

On Mon, Feb 02, 2004 at 08:13:45AM -0500, Harold L Hunt II wrote:
> Sven Luther wrote:
> 
> >On Sat, Jan 31, 2004 at 01:06:23PM +0000, Andrew C Aitchison wrote:
> >
> >>On Sat, 31 Jan 2004, Sven Luther wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>On Sat, Jan 31, 2004 at 09:10:22AM +0000, Andrew C Aitchison wrote:
> >>>
> >>>>For several years the mga fb kernel driver has supported dual head 
> >>>>and/or
> >>>>dvi on cards which aren't supported by the XFree86 driver (unless you
> >>>>use the mga_hal). I've wanted to use kernel code to add this support to 
> >>>>XFree86, but been put off by the licence problem.
> >>>
> >>>And, have you asked the mgafb driver author about this ?
> >>>
> >>>You can hardly complain about lack of back traffic if you didn't ask him
> >>>about it, and if you did, it would be interesting to this discussion to
> >>>know what the problems where.
> >>
> >>"The Author" ?
> >>This is open source code; there may be 27 authors of the relevant file.
> >>In XFree86 code I wouldn't know how to find the author of a file without
> >>looking at that file. My {limited ,mis}understanding of clean room coding 
> >>makes me wary of reading any source unless I know that its licence will 
> >>allow me to do what I wish.
> >
> >
> >This is not acceptable. You are making wild accusations, and didn't even
> >try to contact the relevant people. To my knowledge, Petr is the sole
> >author of matroxfb, and there should not have been any problem in at
> >least asking him about this.
> 
> Wild accusations?  How do you get wild accusations from pointing out 
> that there "may be 27 authors of the relevant file"?  If anyone is 
> making wild accusations, it is you.  Andrew simply stated the point that 

Ok, sorry, shouldn't have said it so, maybe it was a bit exagerated.
Still this is degenerating in GPL bashing, which will bring us nowhere.
And if you didn't make the effort to ask at least once, where will we
go. I am sure that a post to the linux-fbdev mailing list would have
solved everything, or maybe the main maintainer of the matroxfb driver ?

> this is not an issue about proving whether *one* file doesn't have 
> issues; rather, it is the issue of having to prove that *all* files do 
> not have issues, and many of these files may be just as messy in 
> authorship as Andrew is suggesting.

Still, there is a mailing list where all linux fbdev authors are, or at
least most of them, and bitkeeper will mostly give us full history, so i
doubt it is as bad as you say.

Also, most fbdev authors have also been XFree86 contributors in the
past, so i don't really know what the problem is here.

Friendly,

Sven Luther


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Re: Re: [forum] Re: Announcement: Modification to the base XFree86(TM) license.

[Dr Andrew C Aitchison]

On Sat, Jan 31, 2004 at 09:10:22AM +0000, Andrew C Aitchison wrote:
> On Fri, 30 Jan 2004, Sven Luther wrote:
> > Yeah, that would be rather problematic, but anyway, most of the things
> > move from the XFree86 code to fbdev code, and most often, it is not code
> > that is copied, but the register information and such. It is always
> > easier to get specs if you are working for XFree86 than if you plan to
> > do some kernel driver work.
> 
> On Sat, 31 Jan 2004, Benjamin Herrenschmidt wrote:
> > The fact that it is mostly a one way is mostly due to the fact that the
> > main problem here is seeking for HW informations.
>
> For several years the mga fb kernel driver has supported dual head and/or
> dvi on cards which aren't supported by the XFree86 driver (unless you
> use the mga_hal). I've wanted to use kernel code to add this support to 
> XFree86, but been put off by the licence problem.

On Sat, 31 Jan 2004, Sven Luther wrote:
> > > And, have you asked the mgafb driver author about this ?
> > > 
> > > You can hardly complain about lack of back traffic if you didn't ask him
> > > about it, and if you did, it would be interesting to this discussion to
> > > know what the problems where.

On Sat, Jan 31, 2004 at 01:06:23PM +0000, Andrew C Aitchison wrote:
> "The Author" ?
> This is open source code; there may be 27 authors of the relevant file.
> In XFree86 code I wouldn't know how to find the author of a file without
> looking at that file. My {limited ,mis}understanding of clean room coding 
> makes me wary of reading any source unless I know that its licence will 
> allow me to do what I wish.
 
On Mon, 2 Feb 2004, Sven Luther wrote:
> This is not acceptable. You are making wild accusations, and didn't even
> try to contact the relevant people. To my knowledge, Petr is the sole
> author of matroxfb, and there should not have been any problem in at
> least asking him about this.

I didn't intend to make *any* accusations, and don't understand what
accusations I'm supposed to have made.
I clearly have to explain my starting position more clearly;
it is probably wrong, and almost certainly the cause of most of the 
confusion, however it is how I came into this arguement, and maybe seeing 
how I'm thinking will let you see that I wasn't making accusations.

My understanding of copyright/patents/plagarism (I'm vague and confused 
about which this covers) is that merely by reading your document,
I am allowing the possibility that I may use that information in something
which I later write.
 This is the principle behind "cleanroom" development, see
	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleanroom, 
meaning 2.

If my licence to use your document doesn't allow me to do what I wish,
it is therefore better for me not to read your document.

My understanding about fbdev was that it was GPL-licenced, and that
it is *not* OK to incorporate GPL-ed code into XFree86.
Since I can't read the source code, I can't see who owns the bit I'm 
interested in and can't therefore ask permission to use it under a 
different licence.

I merely wished to point out that the GPL-licence *had* affected my
decision not to copy anything from fdbdev into XFree86.
Call me lazy, mis-informed, confused and paranoid, but I resent the
suggestion that I've been making accusations, wild or tame.

> > OK. So I've probably been paranoid and lazy, but if the fbdev licence 
> > had been compatible with the XFree86 one, I would have done the work.
> > As it is the bar was raised high enough to stop me.
> 
> Yeah, whatever, but with you asking that the fbdev drivers change their
> licence, it is the same thing as the GPL zealots not liking the new
> XFree86 licence. 
> 
> The way to solve this is by cooperation, not by staying aloft and
> pointing the finger to the opposite side.

I didn't intend to ask that fbdev change their licence (although I wish
they would). I merely intended to point out that, however much the fault
was mine, the perception of the licence conflict had blocked transfer
from fbdev to XFree86.
Since Sven and Benjamin both suggested that transfer from fbdev to
XFree86 wasn't important, I thought it reasonable to relate my
experience showing that transfer in that direction was desirable and
that the GPL-licence was a hinderance.

I also realize that I have a habit of using complex and precise English.
As many people in this discussion are not native English speakers,
that is not smart, and may be why some of my intended meaning has
not got through. I apologize for this.

-- 
Dr. Andrew C. Aitchison		Computer Officer, DPMMS, Cambridge
A.C.Aitchison@dpmms.cam.ac.uk	http://www.dpmms.cam.ac.uk/~werdna



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