Re: [PATCH] media: Support Intersil/Techwell TW686x-based video capture cards

Krzysztof Hałasa
2016-01-28T08:51:23Z

Hans Verkuil <hverkuil@xs4all.nl> writes:

>> In my country, it wouldn't be even legal.
>
> It's legal for the GPL license since that gives explicit permission.

In my country, claiming authorship (not co-authorship) of someone's code
is illegal. Even if done with author's permission.

>> I have at least one similar situation here. I'm using frame grabber
>> drivers for an I.MX6 processor on-chip feature. The problem is, the
>> author hasn't yet managed (for years now) to have this functionality
>> merged into the official tree. Obviously, I'm putting some considerable
>> work in it. Does this mean I'm free to grab it as my own and request
>> that it is to be merged instead? No, I have to wait until the original
>> work is merged, and only then I can ask for my patches to be applied
>> (in the form of changes, not a raw driver code).
>
> Wrong. As long as the original code is distributed as GPL you can
> certainly take it, fix it and ask for it to be merged.
>
> This happens all the time if the original author has left the scene, or has
> no time or interest to follow-up on his patches.

This doesn't seem to be applicable in either case.

> For future reference: if someone posts code to a kernel mailinglist and does
> not fix any comments made on the code in, let's say, 1-2 months, then
> someone else might just step in.

Oh, come on. I let it go because Ezequiel wrote he had rewritten the
driver and wanted to merge it instead. I first asked for diffs vs. my
code, but in case of a rewrite such diffs don't make sense.

I don't say nobody is allowed to take my work and add his own on top.
Actually, this was what I proposed at least twice.

Is there a problem with rebasing his work on top of mine, and showing
the real changes? Git makes it easy.
--
Krzysztof Halasa

Industrial Research Institute for Automation and Measurements PIAP
Al. Jerozolimskie 202, 02-486 Warsaw, Poland