From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Arjan van de Ven Subject: Re: wireless (was Re: 2.6.18 -mm merge plans) Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 12:35:29 +0200 Message-ID: <1149503730.3111.46.camel@laptopd505.fenrus.org> References: <20060604135011.decdc7c9.akpm@osdl.org> <20060605010636.GB17361@havoc.gtf.org> <20060604181515.8faa8fcf.akpm@osdl.org> <20060605083321.GA15690@rhlx01.fht-esslingen.de> <1149497109.3111.28.camel@laptopd505.fenrus.org> <1149503215.30554.6.camel@localhost.localdomain> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Andreas Mohr , Andrew Morton , Jeff Garzik , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, netdev@vger.kernel.org, linville@tuxdriver.com, Denis Vlasenko , acx100-devel@lists.sourceforge.net, acx100-users@lists.sourceforge.net Return-path: Received: from pentafluge.infradead.org ([213.146.154.40]:61675 "EHLO pentafluge.infradead.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1750905AbWFEKfh (ORCPT ); Mon, 5 Jun 2006 06:35:37 -0400 To: Alan Cox In-Reply-To: <1149503215.30554.6.camel@localhost.localdomain> Sender: netdev-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: netdev.vger.kernel.org On Mon, 2006-06-05 at 11:26 +0100, Alan Cox wrote: > Ar Llu, 2006-06-05 am 10:45 +0200, ysgrifennodd Arjan van de Ven: > > It's just that a cleanroom approach is a sure way to prove > > you didn't copy. That's all. > > Which is an extremely important detail especially if you have been > reverse engineering another driver for the same or similar OS where it > is likely that people will retain knowledge and copy rather than > re-implement things. oh don't get me wrong, it's important to not copy from the original. (even if that original did copy from linux ;) > We've had "fun" with this before and the pwc camera driver. I don't want > to see a repeat of that. yet at the same time, the cleanroom approach is not the ONLY way to do it right. And making following that exact approach a strict requirement is just silly. And it would mean we'd need to remove quite a few drivers from the tree if you follow that logic. And to be fair the pwc camera driver was just a guy with a personality problem rather than any real legal standing. Again doing things right is important. But I would say that if you do the rev-engineering in Europe, just being careful and avoiding copying should be enough (well and certifying that you were in fact careful and didn't do any copying).