Hi, I'm BCCing Sagem & ADI - as I've not (yet) been authorized to publish their internal e-mail - and sending this mail on our public ML for status report. From now on, I think that discussions are to be made public, for the sake of end-users as they are our first contributors ; ADI / Sagem make your choice ;-) and use "reply to all" (you can open a free mail account if you're only afraid of spam : it remains limited on our ML thanks to gna.org which hides mails on archives publicly available at https://mail.gna.org/public/eagleusb-dev/ ).
As you can see at https://sourceforge.net/project/stats/index.php?report=last_30&group_id=81588 the downloads are slightly increasing following the announce of eagle-usb-2.0.0 release the 7th November : we reached rank 670 at sourceforge instead of 1200+ before, with more than 200 downloads on the 13th Nov 2004, for approximately 150 downloads before the 7th. The new driver has been download 864 times between 7th and 13th november on sourceforge and the french article at http://www.eagle-usb.org/article.php3?id_article=46 currently has been seen 2440 times (more than 300 unique users a day). Ok, I'm fond of stats, though at 76,25% they are proved false (we have other download areas and there's a page in english). On the forum, only two new questions arise, out of standard ones : - Fedora core 3 : kernel-source is not needed any more (good news) - OPTN1 : for Free dégroupé the download is divided by 10 (appr.) so we have identified one more CMV file (2 in France) I've seen that CVS remained frozen last week (or nearly...) so here are the next steps that ensure we move forward and do not have too much extra work : - we have to update source-files wherever needed (action : Tux, Sl33p3r, mcoolive, me), to reflect that the driver is *indeed GPL* as already stated before (we should have done this before), we currently miss sourcecode only for firmware & DSP code - take into account CMVs for each ISP (instead of country) : we'll suppose that FR04 ("Free dégroupé") uses a new CMV file CMVepFR04.txt (same as CMVepFR.txt without OPTN1 to avoid having download rate divided by 10...) as long as we have no explanation of the reason why... I wish I could obtain all answers to the questions available at http://dev.eagle-usb.org/wakka.php?wiki=DevEagleUsbIII we have some answers, but our proposal of managing CMVs depending on ISP rather that country-only did not get any answer ? It makes me doubt, at times, that we all work for the same goal : it should simply work for the end user. A first "common version" with ADI/Sagem can show it and we will manage remaining bugs with our user support forum at http://forum.eagle-usb.org and/or with new versions (2.0.1 may be followed by 2.0.2 if needed or subtantial update made). - all changes required for debian / Mandrake / gentoo packages can be done - all changes correctly identified for FHS are welcome (we should be compliant soon), thanks mcoolive for modifications already implemented ;-) - eagleconfig should take into account an API to change parameter files (nearly done, documentation needed for implementation in Mandrakelinux/Drakconnect for example... or debconf to avoid duplicating configuration for ISP...). I think I'll have a database based on adsl_const.pm to generate necessary code (for eu_config_bash, eagle-usb-utils.config, ...) which will avoid manual update. For ADI : well, now it's time to have a *real* look to what we identified as "longer term requirements". One month has gone by, I hope you've organized to address the remaining issues : - of course, we promote a GPL license that would ease our common work http://dev.eagle-usb.org/wakka.php?wiki=HowToGPL - we made our requirements clear from the start : http://dev.eagle-usb.org/wakka.php?wiki=RequirementsEagleUsbGPL and hope you can agree with most of them as stated with our introduction http://dev.eagle-usb.org/wakka.php?wiki=DeveloppementGPL (any question welcome) - Sagem and ADI will be able to distribute the driver freely on their website, stating that GPL is respected, giving the source code (and taking it to your advantage, that's the role of your public-relations service ;-) ). Our main priority is documentation for the driver (if already freely available, otherwise your support is really a plus for all of us - all the more, if it is publicly available - there are not that many questions). ADI's choice is the license, GPL being the easiest for all of us : that requires letting the sourcecode free for remaining firmware/DSP code : your core business at ADI being to produce chipsets, I still do not see any objection to releasing the sourcecode ? Do your manager(s) agree ? Please, identify your business choice that can satisfy the end-user : if you have any question, we can contact your managers and business managers to explain the benefits from GPL for the end-user and clarify our requirements. - we do enjoy getting information you provide us, to take into account new chipsets and make them work (which we did, thanks to Sagem and ADI). Now we have to release a common version for the end-user's benefit. For the forthcoming version, I wish Analog and Sagem could benefit from a GPL-release annouce on all media we have access to. Involve your PR in it if needed, so that we can come to an agreement on a win/win basis. We can prepare this properly so that it benefits us all. The planned timing could be as follows (proposals welcome) : - ASAP : ADI agrees with GPL-licensing officially (we may need a written agreement) - now : tests with latest DSP code provided + CMVs enable (to avoid regressions) - 1st December : official complete release as GPL by ADI, Sagem and us - 15th december : distribution on CD for ISP (I let you make your remarks to get a stable version to respect this deadline). - 25th december : Christmas as always ;-) - 1st January 2005 : let's begin a new collaboration on clear grounds for the end-users' benefit, respecting your business choice at ADI and Sagem. Looking forward to hearing from ADI publicly and user comments, you're welcome (no troll please ;-) ). @++ Ben'. aka baud123
