GPL RTG driver information available

[Heiroglyph]

What was "legal" status of P96 drivers in Amithlon/AmigaOSXL?

Lol, who knows.

If someone told me they stole the CDs I wouldn't be surprised.

[Heiroglyph]

Thomas,

If you (or anyone else) have valid contact info for someone who would have authority, please feel free to send my email address to them, or send their address to me.

I'm willing to work with them, but they've simply dropped off the face of the Earth.

I hope that I've made it clear that I'm a reasonable person and won't simply scream at them and spam them, I'm just trying to help the community as a whole.

I'll PM you my contact information just in case.

Thanks

[Heiroglyph]

We are well outside US jurisdiction here.

Yeah about that... I'm deep in the heart of Texas where patent trolls drag their victims for the easy kill.

I did manage to contact someone who can help clarify the issue.

Fingers crossed that I get a reply so this issue can be put to rest.

[Heiroglyph]

Using GPL forces all programs using the library to also be GPL that is the reason why a GPL library can't be included in AROS but a LGPL one can.

I think this is an odd case because of the clause I stated earlier that allows you to link to system libraries that are not GPL.

Example 1:
GPL app on windows. It has to link to the typical Win32 dll's to do anything useful. That's allowed because of this clause.

Example 2:
GPL app on NetBSD.
It has to link to the BSD licensed NetBSD code.
It also has to link to the XFree86 or MIT licensed X server to display the UI.

Example 3:
GPL kernel video driver on Linux.
It is loaded by the XFree86 or MIT licensed X server.

These are very relevant to the split between AOS, P96 and my driver.

What I wanted to prevent was any user linking to a closed library to hide the inner workings of the driver.

Doing that would essentially make the driver closed source and future users could not fix it, understand the hardware or learn from how it was written.

Edit: The other benefit of GPL is that you can take huge chunks of code from existing, well tested Linux drivers without license issues.

[Heiroglyph]

@Heiroglyph

The "system libraries" provision in GPL is not symmetrical. You can have a GPL application use non-GPL-compatible system library, but you cannot have a GPL plugin into a non-GPL-compatible system library (driver is essentially a plugin).

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#GPLPluginsInNF

The linked text says that you add an exception to GPL license to allow using your GPL plugin with non-GPL-compatible program. This is allowed of course as long as you are the author of the code. This will not work if you take GPL code from Linux, because you are not the author and you cannot alter the original GPL license of Linux codes.

Cases 1) and 2) work because of system library provision. Case 3) works because Linux kernel uses a modified version of GPL where it states that doing a system call to kernel is not considered derived work:

NOTE! This copyright does *not* cover user programs that use kernel
 services by normal system calls - this is merely considered normal use
 of the kernel, and does *not* fall under the heading of "derived work".
 Also note that the GPL below is copyrighted by the Free Software
 Foundation, but the instance of code that it refers to (the linux
 kernel) is copyrighted by me and others who actually wrote it.

If you decide to you GPL for the driver, you will be in essence violating your own license. GPL was designed to spread GPL and it was done so by people who know what they were doing. I doubt you will find holes in it. As I'm not really into forcing people into certain mind set, I prefer licenses that guarantee that extensions to my code base need to be made available, but usage of my code base does not. At the end of the day, it does not pay for a developer to maintain a fork of my codes and continuously integrate his changes with my latest version, so it makes total sense for him to contribute his changes to my code base.

The more I learn, the less I know and care about licensing. As litigious as this "community" is, you unfortunately have to.

All I want is for the community to have some semblance of control over their own hardware once what little money is left dries up without a certain company yet again taking the work of another and charging for it without paying them.

Everyone just keeps paying them because there are no other options. This might help someone compete and help the community.

What do you suggest I license this as if I can get permission or rewrite it?

[Heiroglyph]

It seems you still dont get it:

He is offering Cybergraphics. With Cybergraphics in hand we can ditch Picasso96 into oblivion along with all its associated drama and greedy vultures.

It's definitely a step in the best direction, assuming it's legitimate, because Aros has a very similar API.

The downside is trying to run CGX on most PCI boards because the closed source drivers are all for P96.

You can't use those on CGX, right? I've only used CGX once or twice over the years, so I'm not that familiar.

In addition, Elbox drivers do more than just graphics so that they can set up their DMA bounce buffers and who knows how that black box works.

[Heiroglyph]

I'm removing the repository later today.

I've been convinced that attempting to work with any of the current license holders is more trouble than it is worth. The only sane option is to replace the problematic apis with new ones that the community controls.

If anyone is interested in helping, see my other thread or contact me directly.

[Heiroglyph]

http://www.a1k.org/forum/showthread.php?t=48710
It is prepared for other chip-drivers.

My problem is getting hands on a Voodoo ...

http://www.a1k.org/forum/showpost.php?p=808109&postcount=173
http://www.a1k.org/forum/showthread.php?p=941638

br
André

I'm interested in what you're doing, but the Google translation isn't very good.

It looks like you're doing something similar to what I was doing for my OpenPCI example driver.

Care to give me a brief overview in English?

I've only got a single Voodoo3 now, I sold my other one a few years ago.

[Heiroglyph]

I've cancelled this project now, too many legal questions.

I've move to another project which uses the Aros RTG which is similar to CGX. So no, I'm not unless they did.

[Heiroglyph]

i think we may have to wait a little. there was a hefty discussion on a1k, which result may be that the community will be offered to open source p96 for a certain price, even if i consider this unlikely anymore. if p96 will be handed over to another party or company it might really occur necessary. especially for the rtg solution vendors to reach for some oprn solution themselves, which most conveniently could be based on aros as it seems.

As long as we get something figured out, I'm fine with it.

Hopefully it's open source so that when the money runs out we aren't stuck again.