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Offline HeiroglyphTopic starter

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Re: GPL RTG driver information available
« Reply #44 on: May 17, 2016, 08:52:59 PM »
Please guys, refrain from personal insults, this has been a decent discussion I think.

So lets examine the one case I remember and if anyone has more info on the outcome, chime in.

Elbox created a driver by reverse engineering and/or a alleged pirated DDK.
P96 (I can't remember the company name) told them to pay up or stop.
Elbox said no.
?????
You can still buy Elbox Mediators and software.

What became of that?

Here is a link to one of Elbox's public replies: http://anna.amigazeux.org/comments2.php?view=0974382064&category=news&start=101&103

And here is a reply from Tobias Abt of P96 (interestingly complete with a shout-out to Thomas): https://web.archive.org/web/20040704075635/http://www.vgr.com/mediator/pic96-press.txt
 

Offline wawrzon

Re: GPL RTG driver information available
« Reply #45 on: May 17, 2016, 09:00:42 PM »
Quote from: Linde;808675
... but at this point all the indications that the development of the Picasso 96 UAE code are in breach of some other contract are rumors and hearsay. It must be easier to get in touch with the proprietor of the official development kit and Brian King to resolve this, right?.


exactly.

Quote

Also, Hieroglyph,

If your code is indeed based on the GPL licensed (Win/)UAE source code, you can't simply re-license it under LGPL without express permission from its contributor(s). I don't know what you think is particularly impractical about the GPL for Amiga, anyway. All you need to do is make sure that the source of any application based on it is available to anyone with a copy of the software.


good remark. however i think he got exactly that kind of "sloopy allowance" to publish the material he got under the terms he sees fit, as goes the "sloopy" attitude we are discussing here. i know from considerations that gpl in contrary to lgpl is not wery well suitable to include sources in aros repositories, other systems may have other considerations, but in this case the suggestion may have come from jason.
 

Offline wawrzon

Re: GPL RTG driver information available
« Reply #46 on: May 17, 2016, 09:03:21 PM »
Quote from: Heiroglyph;808677
Please guys, refrain from personal insults

hope there is no insults on my part, wasnt intended, i hold all the parties in highest respect!
 

Offline HeiroglyphTopic starter

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Re: GPL RTG driver information available
« Reply #47 on: May 17, 2016, 09:03:57 PM »
Quote from: Linde;808675
Also, Hieroglyph,

If your code is indeed based on the GPL licensed (Win/)UAE source code, you can't simply re-license it under LGPL without express permission from its contributor(s). I don't know what you think is particularly impractical about the GPL for Amiga, anyway. All you need to do is make sure that the source of any application based on it is available to anyone with a copy of the software.

That's true, I was just contemplating that at lunch.

It was originally GPL, so no problem, then Jason brought up how problematic dynamic linking is with a GPL library and it made a lot of sense so I chose to err on the side of safety.

I will rewrite some of it and contact Toni to see if there is a problem.

My C structs are created by looking at his PSSO_ offsets and their sizes to infer the type (he exclusively uses offsets to make it easier in the emulator) and also looking at how he used them, so although not clean-room, it's not copy paste.

If you notice, the places where we do share stucts are not quite the same either. His have additional data for the emulator to use that are not needed by a native driver.

A lot of the comments and separators are leftovers from converting the PSSO_ definitions to structs as I went.

Many of the defines for values are copy pastes, but given the intent of my code I'd hope he would cut some slack on those. I could retype them with new names if needed, but that seems pedantic considering Jason's very similar MIT licensed one that I'm sure Toni is aware of.

The notes.txt comments are lifted almost verbatim from his cpp file and I wrote the stubs myself. That could still be GPL if needed, it's just documentation.

Edit: Actually based on this new info I found (below), I'm not sure Jason was correct.

Both versions of the GPL have an exception to their copyleft, commonly called the system library exception. If the GPL-incompatible libraries you want to use meet the criteria for a system library, then you don't have to do anything special to use them; the requirement to distribute source code for the whole program does not include those libraries, even if you distribute a linked executable containing them.

The criteria for what counts as a "system library" vary between different versions of the GPL. GPLv3 explicitly defines "System Libraries" in section 1, to exclude it from the definition of "Corresponding Source." GPLv2 says the following, near the end of section 3:

However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the executable.

If I don't distribute the OS or use third-party libraries that are non-GPL
and
I don't distribute P96

I think GPL might accomplish exactly what I wanted, preventing closed source derivatives of the work.

LGPL leaves the loophole of putting all the working parts into a separate, closed library.
« Last Edit: May 17, 2016, 09:52:21 PM by Heiroglyph »
 

Offline wawrzon

Re: GPL RTG driver information available
« Reply #48 on: May 17, 2016, 09:22:34 PM »
Quote from: Heiroglyph;808677
Here is a link to one of Elbox's public replies: http://anna.amigazeux.org/comments2....&start=101&103

And here is a reply from Tobias Abt of P96 (interestingly complete with a shout-out to Thomas): https://web.archive.org/web/20040704...ic96-press.txt


both of these are to an extent worth each other. of course elbox a bit more. since they have started this, didnt they? their customers (me among others) did not pay a dime for p96 system, nor have i seen a hint to do so in delivered mediator docs. i had to simply rename a binary, for what i recall, which devil take me, if its not whats been called a hack?

either of them call others on consequences with the software to be delivered. has there been any? not to my rememberance. but then p96 has been a ready package, with no promises made.

so.. whats the lesson we learn of it? do whatever you like with the obsloete code and binaries, gain some flack and continue with it bothered  bit by woken up hounds.
 

Offline kolla

Re: GPL RTG driver information available
« Reply #49 on: May 17, 2016, 09:29:46 PM »
A 16 year standstill of empty threats and no "official" development whatsoever. Something that has changed is that paying for shareware got a heck lot easier and we users for most part has gotten wealthier.
B5D6A1D019D5D45BCC56F4782AC220D8B3E2A6CC
---
A3000/060CSPPC+CVPPC/128MB + 256MB BigRAM/Deneb USB
A4000/CS060/Mediator4000Di/Voodoo5/128MB
A1200/Blz1260/IndyAGA/192MB
A1200/Blz1260/64MB
A1200/Blz1230III/32MB
A1200/ACA1221
A600/V600v2/Subway USB
A600/Apollo630/32MB
A600/A6095
CD32/SX32/32MB/Plipbox
CD32/TF328
A500/V500v2
A500/MTec520
CDTV
MiSTer, MiST, FleaFPGAs and original Minimig
Peg1, SAM440 and Mac minis with MorphOS
 

Offline wawrzon

Re: GPL RTG driver information available
« Reply #50 on: May 17, 2016, 09:36:07 PM »
Quote from: Heiroglyph;808680
I will rewrite some of it and contact Toni to see if there is a problem.


great to see you are in good contact with both main m68k maintainers out there. however i recall there is quite a cautiousness about a headers or code that may be questionable on part of aros team, should it be contributed. it needs to be well proven and documented;)
 

Offline wawrzon

Re: GPL RTG driver information available
« Reply #51 on: May 17, 2016, 09:37:52 PM »
Quote from: Heiroglyph;808680
LGPL leaves the loophole of putting all the working parts into a separate, closed library.


thats what i meant ;) thx.
 

Offline HeiroglyphTopic starter

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Re: GPL RTG driver information available
« Reply #52 on: May 17, 2016, 10:02:55 PM »
Quote from: wawrzon;808687
great to see you are in good contact with both main m68k maintainers out there. however i recall there is quite a cautiousness about a headers or code that may be questionable on part of aros team, should it be contributed. it needs to be well proven and documented;)


Only because they are easy to get along with.

They're more than welcome to anything I have that they want and think is safe to use. I'll even relicense the parts they want if I have the authority to do so.

Hopefully I can get past the license issue, get my Mediator box up and running yet again and get some code up there.

Every time I open the case the thing breaks.
 

Offline wawrzon

Re: GPL RTG driver information available
« Reply #53 on: May 17, 2016, 10:06:25 PM »
Quote from: Heiroglyph;808691
Only because they are easy to get along with.

They're more than welcome to anything I have that they want and think is safe to use. I'll even relicense the parts they want if I have the authority to do so.

Hopefully I can get past the license issue, get my Mediator box up and running yet again and get some code up there.

Every time I open the case the thing breaks.


strange. my mediator and all my hardware seems very solid then. i have done so many swapping, testing stuff, hot at times, that it should be all scrap already..
 

Offline kolla

Re: GPL RTG driver information available
« Reply #54 on: May 17, 2016, 10:51:30 PM »
What was "legal" status of P96 drivers in Amithlon/AmigaOSXL?
B5D6A1D019D5D45BCC56F4782AC220D8B3E2A6CC
---
A3000/060CSPPC+CVPPC/128MB + 256MB BigRAM/Deneb USB
A4000/CS060/Mediator4000Di/Voodoo5/128MB
A1200/Blz1260/IndyAGA/192MB
A1200/Blz1260/64MB
A1200/Blz1230III/32MB
A1200/ACA1221
A600/V600v2/Subway USB
A600/Apollo630/32MB
A600/A6095
CD32/SX32/32MB/Plipbox
CD32/TF328
A500/V500v2
A500/MTec520
CDTV
MiSTer, MiST, FleaFPGAs and original Minimig
Peg1, SAM440 and Mac minis with MorphOS
 

Offline HeiroglyphTopic starter

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Re: GPL RTG driver information available
« Reply #55 on: May 17, 2016, 10:57:05 PM »
Quote from: kolla;808696
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.
 

Offline HeiroglyphTopic starter

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Re: GPL RTG driver information available
« Reply #56 on: May 18, 2016, 01:16:33 AM »
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
 

Offline grond

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Re: GPL RTG driver information available
« Reply #57 on: May 18, 2016, 09:46:15 PM »
Quote from: Thomas Richter;808564
Problem is: This doesn't change a thing concerning the requirement to license the P96 API. You're confusing the copyright on the code with the legal constraint to license the API for new drivers.


Bull%&$#?@!%&$#?@!%&$#?@!%&$#?@!. You can't protect an API. What kind of intellectual property right should that be? Copyright, patent, utility model, trademark? None apply. Don't start your stuff about morals again.

Writing picasso drivers without license and DDK is perfectly legal and another thousand comments of yours stating the opposite won't change the facts.
 

Offline Linde

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Re: GPL RTG driver information available
« Reply #58 on: May 18, 2016, 11:13:44 PM »
Quote from: grond;808738
Bull%&$#?@!%&$#?@!%&$#?@!%&$#?@!. You can't protect an API. What kind of intellectual property right should that be? Copyright, patent, utility model, trademark? None apply. Don't start your stuff about morals again.

Writing picasso drivers without license and DDK is perfectly legal and another thousand comments of yours stating the opposite won't change the facts.


In some jurisdictions, the organization of a set of information may actually be copyright protected. It depends on the complexity of organization and how much of a work the organization really constitutes. My understanding is that this is the basis of the much-spoken-of Oracle vs. Google case, where Google has used publicly available API information to implement their own compatible API.

Of course, the Java API is a much more intricate organization and structuring than the P96 API is. In the end, all these things are "grey areas" which is why it's taken so long for Oracle vs. Google to be resolved.

There is also the possible issue of a breach of contract, which is why "clean room" engineering is a popular way of going about the reimplementation of an API or protocol. Though, corporations with many lawyers will probably put a clause even in end-user licenses prohibiting the use of the software for reverse engineering. This may be an issue where EULAs are applicable.

Even then, if it is concluded that there is an infringement, such infringement may be covered by "fair use" -- copyright infringement and breach of contract is OK given some circumstances, often for security research and for the sake of producing interoperable non-competing software.
 

Offline kolla

Re: GPL RTG driver information available
« Reply #59 from previous page: May 18, 2016, 11:22:21 PM »
We are well outside US jurisdiction here.
B5D6A1D019D5D45BCC56F4782AC220D8B3E2A6CC
---
A3000/060CSPPC+CVPPC/128MB + 256MB BigRAM/Deneb USB
A4000/CS060/Mediator4000Di/Voodoo5/128MB
A1200/Blz1260/IndyAGA/192MB
A1200/Blz1260/64MB
A1200/Blz1230III/32MB
A1200/ACA1221
A600/V600v2/Subway USB
A600/Apollo630/32MB
A600/A6095
CD32/SX32/32MB/Plipbox
CD32/TF328
A500/V500v2
A500/MTec520
CDTV
MiSTer, MiST, FleaFPGAs and original Minimig
Peg1, SAM440 and Mac minis with MorphOS