From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: John Haller Subject: Re: New driver questions: Attansic L1 gigabit NIC Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2006 13:44:43 -0500 Message-ID: <44E3679B.4030603@lucent.com> References: <44DFBFBE.1070201@bellsouth.net> <20060815143457.5fde176b@dxpl.pdx.osdl.net> <44E25767.6010208@bellsouth.net> <20060816110501.0d7502a8@localhost.localdomain> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Jay Cliburn , netdev@vger.kernel.org Return-path: Received: from ihemail3.lucent.com ([135.245.0.37]:37629 "EHLO ihemail3.lucent.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1750756AbWHPSox (ORCPT ); Wed, 16 Aug 2006 14:44:53 -0400 To: Stephen Hemminger In-Reply-To: <20060816110501.0d7502a8@localhost.localdomain> Sender: netdev-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: netdev.vger.kernel.org Stephen Hemminger wrote: > On Tue, 15 Aug 2006 18:23:19 -0500 > Jay Cliburn wrote: > >> Stephen Hemminger wrote: >>> On Sun, 13 Aug 2006 19:11:42 -0500 >>> Jay Cliburn wrote: >> ...snip... >>>> I've read the LKML FAQ regarding new driver submissions, but it implies >>>> that the submitter be willing to maintain the driver, which I'm not >>>> qualified to do. I haven't contacted Attansic to request a change to >>>> the above support statement, because my past attempts to contact vendors >>>> on matters of this tenor have been greeted with silence. >>> I would recommend the module author to see if they would GPL it. >> Thank you for your reply. I've contacted the author as you suggest. >> > > IANAL but because they used GPL code in the driver, one could argue > that they created a derived work covered by GPL already. But I learned in > preschool it is always better to ask than take. Not exactly. What they wrote is covered by their copyright, and there is no permission to use it in any way other than how they licensed it. Use of GPL code in their driver would allow the author of the GPL code to sue them for violating the license agreement, which would likely result in the code being released under GPL. IANAL either, but to paraphrase another preschool saying, two wrongs (copyright violations) don't make a right (legally licensed).