Just to toss in a few thoughts I have specifically about OGA, TRV10, etc.
OGA is an architecture that is comprised of pieces that themselves are under GPL license. Should any one of those pieces be incorporated into another CHIP, I would want the design of that CHIP to be covered by GPL. This applies to OGA as a whole. In my opinion, putting OGA and another design onto the same physical piece of silicon is not mere aggregation. Someone might argue that putting it together with a RAID controller IS mere aggregation, but I'm not going to worry about that just yet. OGA can, itself, span multiple pieces of silicon. For instance, on OGD1, the PCI controller is split off. This physical separation does not, to me, constitute a semantic separation. OGA is still one design, just as an application is one design, even if different components of it are distributed over multiple computers. On the other hand, this does not spread to things that are not part of the design, like DVI transmitter, RAM chips, and the host computer. For one thing, we can get those chips from multiple suppliers. How crutial to the whole product they are is arguable, but I do not consider them to be part of the design. If a TRV10 chip were placed on a board with other components that are not defined as part of OGA, they should not be affected by the GPL. That is mere aggregation. The OGC1 PCB is a design that is copyrightable. But that copyright does not spread to the components on it. If someone were to fabricate OGC1 or OGD1 or whatever PCB and release any mods they made, that would be legal, as long as they conform to the license. This is irrespective of what they put on the board. If they copy TRV10, that's okay too, as long as the licensing is respected. _______________________________________________ Open-graphics mailing list [email protected] http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-graphics List service provided by Duskglow Consulting, LLC (www.duskglow.com)
