RE: Binary Drivers

David Schwartz
2006-12-23T07:19:40Z

> Two of the specific arguments I've heard are (a) that the board (and
> its hardware interfaces that the documentation would describe) involve
> IP licensed from a third party, which the board manufacturer does not
> have a legal right to disclose,

If they can't disclose it, they can't sell it. If they can't sell it, it's
fraud to tell someone that they can buy it. If a contract with a third party
limits your ability to sell something to someone, you have to *tell* *them*
that they do not get all of the rights of ownership because you don't own
some of them and hence can't transfer them.

If I can't tell you what you're buying, I can't sell it to you. It's really
that simple. I might be able to make some kind of agreement with you that's
something like a sale, but it is not a normal sale and you are not buying
the expected type of ownership. To claim it's a sale is fraud.

> or (b) that there is, in fact, no
> suitable documentation, because the boards are developed somewhat
> fluidly and the driver is developed directly from low-level knowledge
> that simply isn't written down in a form suitable for passing on.

You can't sell something that doesn't exist. If you sell a car even though
you can't explain how anyone could drive it, that's fraud. A person who buys
something is entitled to be told how to operate it and make it work (and not
just the one way you think they should use it, they have the right to use it
any way they want if the transaction is a normal sale including all rights).
If you can't tell them that, then they are not actually buying all of the
thing.

> If you're building products with no expectation of supporting outside
> driver developers, both of those are quite possible.

And they're both quite fraudulent. You cannot both sell something and keep
its construction a secret. A person who owns something has a right to be
told what they're buying. If you are only selling some of the rights that
normally come with buying something, you cannot claim you are selling it
free and clear.

As I said before, this same thing used to happen with cell phones. I bought
a Primeco phone, fully believing that I fully owned it. However, Primeco
refused to tell me the code to unlock the phone, demanding $200 to do so.
That's simply fraud -- if I fully own the phone, free and clear, they have
no right to sell access to it to me. You can't sell the car and then charge
for the keys.

DS