From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261169AbVCGR23 (ORCPT ); Mon, 7 Mar 2005 12:28:29 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S261170AbVCGR23 (ORCPT ); Mon, 7 Mar 2005 12:28:29 -0500 Received: from clock-tower.bc.nu ([81.2.110.250]:26859 "EHLO lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S261169AbVCGR2X (ORCPT ); Mon, 7 Mar 2005 12:28:23 -0500 Subject: Re: Atheros wi-fi card drivers (?) From: Alan Cox To: Mateusz Berezecki Cc: Linux Kernel Mailing List In-Reply-To: <422C7722.40301@gmail.com> References: <422C7722.40301@gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <1110216394.3072.72.camel@localhost.localdomain> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Ximian Evolution 1.4.6 (1.4.6-2) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 17:26:36 +0000 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Llu, 2005-03-07 at 15:45, Mateusz Berezecki wrote: > I've been doing some reverse engineering of madwifi HAL (Hardware > Abstraction Layer) object file recently. > I ended up with an almost complete source code for one chipset so far > and I was wondering if it is legal > to publish such source code on the internet? You should normally avoid doing this. Instead write a description of the chip registers and functions from the source you have produced and get someone else to write a chip driver from that. This avoids the risk of you being held to have "copied" their code - in the EU while you have rights to reverse engineer for interoperability in general if you copy their code that may still be a copyright violation. > The note on a card says it > is "protected by us patents ". > Does the patent apply to the reverse engineered source code, or just to > the hardware? Or is it even legal to create such source code? Depends if you are in the USA. To answer that question you would also need to look at the US patents. If you are in the USA then you should not do this even though it is what patent law was intended for because the US legal system is broken. Another question would be "do Atheros care" as I understand their fundamental issue was compliance with FCC regulations rather than concerns about free software. > I would like to ask for some comments regarding this case. And let's say > the driver works, would it be included into kernel source ? There is other code in the kernel where reverse engineering was used. Alan