Re: Monta Vista software license terms

[andrea.glorioso@binary-only.com]

Just a quick clarification before this thing explodes in another "ten
thousan messages" thread.

>>>>> "np" == Nicolas Pitre <nico@cam.org> writes:

    np> On Wed, 5 Feb 2003 andrea.glorioso@binary-only.com wrote:
    >> >>>>> "rl" == Robert Love <rml@mvista.com> writes:
    >> 
    rl> Further, all of the source is available anyhow in various open
    rl> source projects.
    >> I failed to find any source for Montavista XIP implementation,
    >> which they claim they have put on their "Consumer Electronics"
    >> release.

    np> Hey, it's one of my many duties to release this XIP code to
    np> the community.  In other words, Monta Vista do actually pay me
    np> to give that source away.

That's wonderful (no kidding).

    np> It's just  not   up to  the   cleanliness level  I   expect of
    np> community source  even if customers  usually don't care, and I
    np> didn't have time to clean it up yet.  But if you really insist
    np> I can give you a raw patch.

It would be quite interesting for me, sincerely.  Feel free to send me
the patch if you can.

    np> I find it quite saddening that a lot of people only care about
    np> making up shit while the company in question is devoting a lot
    np> of money in salary to hire kernel developers full time whose
    np> work has always been merged to community trees so far.

As far as I'm concerned, I just wrote:

-   that  Montavista claims  they implemented    XIP as  part of their
"Consumer Electronics Edition" package;

- that source  code is included in Montavista  preview kit, but that I
couldn't find any XIP reference in it;

- that  probably XIP is a part  of the CEE   edition but *not*  of the
preview kit, hence the  lack of source code  for that specific part in
the ISO I downloaded; incidentally, that also means that right now I'm
not  entitled  to have source   code for Montavista XIP implementation
(and I stated that clearly);

I  personally  don't  have anything  against   Montavista, and I think
they're doing a  good work (I  know  that you have to  balance between
distributing source code and having your old-minded customers run away
in fear).  I  still think that having  an encrypted ISO image is  pure
brain damage, because  it doesn't buy  Montavista anything as far as I
can tell and it just slows down casual observers  - which, by the way,
are the kind of people Montavista is supposed to attract. :)

Let's straighten out this  issue.  Maybe a  public development tree of
Montavista kernels, with  a  big red  flag saying  "don't use this  on
production systems" would be enough.

Best regards,

--
Andrea Glorioso                   andrea.glorioso@binary-only.com
Binary Only                           http://www.binary-only.com/
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