Alan Cox wrote: >> "Of course", because in many parts of the world, a device who's manufacturer >> fails to take reasonable steps to prevent it from being used outside >> regulatory limits is illegal. Providing source code not only is a failure >> to take those reasonable steps, but is quite the opposite. It may even be >> viewed as encouraging users to use it inappropriately. >> > > To my knowledge there is no caselaw on this for software,
In Australia, devices require approval from a regulatory body. Such approval is withheld if appropriate safeguards are not applied. > nor is it > clearly so simple - many vendors do provide source, many vendors provide > windows drivers where any end user can click to specify their country and > can lie trivially. Many users retrofit US firmware to non US devices and > its trivial to do. Its a hard problem Yes it is; but what is simple, is to understand that lack of such safeguards, even though they are imperfect, does result in refusal to approve. > Some (particularly US) companies choose to take a conservative view based > Also, particularly Australia and New Zealand. I can't imagine France or Germany would be different. Where is it different? > on their pessimistic reading of the intent of the US regulator plus the > ability of the regulator to do a lot of damage to their business. > > The notion they are illegal is a real unknown and the market seems split > on views of this. > That is what I was saying: To require that only GPL-licenced USB drivers may be used with Linux puts Linux at a disadvantage in the market. The embedded market is simply huge. Microsoft would _love_ Linux to fail there, because that's what's necessary for Wince to win. -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
