>> Øyvind mentioned the idea of wrapping the JTAG API in TCP/IP. Aside >> from performance implications I think this would require some >> significant development efforts with little immediate benefits. Even >> worse, it would encourage other JTAG interface vendors to implement >> their JTAG interface layer as a binary only driver that talks to the >> OpenOCD via TCP/IP layer, too. > >I am opposed to this as well, for the same reasons. This is why I did >not suggest it until someone else suggested it. I want to see libusb >and libfdti fixed, and I do not want to open the door to more binary >drivers. If I were to implement the TCP/IP interface without pay, I >would release it under the GPL to prevent this situation from ever >occurring. At this point, I am tempted to implement it simply in order >to close this back door to binary drivers.
Zach, This sounds very contraproductive to me. You have been doing a lot of great work but if the maintainers of OpenOCD are not open for solutions that just work in a real world you'll find that people (JTAG dongle manufacturors for starters) will start to fork OpenOCD in seperate projects which results in various versions. That would be a waste of your efforts. I really fail to see the real world problem when mixing open and closed source parts. If you contribute to an open source project you know someone will make money with the software you wrote but didn't get paid for. So be it. Perhaps the best way is to link against the closed source driver until there is an open source alternative that works just as well. Closed source drivers are going to be a problem anyhow since getting a 64 bit Windows driver signed is not free. It is also becoming easier to write software that runs on both Linux and Windows. Therefore it is very likely that more open source projects will run into similar problems. So 'closing the door' may actually backfire in worse ways than you can imagine now. Maybe the GPL license has expired. Many bigger projects are published under other licenses like BSD, Mozilla, etc or even have dual licensing like MySQL. GPL 3 has seen a lot of debate before being finalized. Those are the real signs on the wall! Nico Coesel
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