Re: LinuxTV ported to Windows
Hello, We have ported linuxtv's cx23885+CAM en50221+Diseq to Windows OS (Vista, XP, win7 tested). Results available under GPL and can be checkout from git repository: https://github.com/netup/netup-dvb-s2-ci-dual Binary builds (ready to install) available in build directory. Currently NetUP Dual DVB-S2 CI card supported ( http://www.netup.tv/en-EN/dual_dvb-s2-ci_card.php ). Driver based on Microsoft BDA standard, but some features (DiSEqC, CI) supported by custom API, for more details see netup_bda_api.h file. Any comments, suggestions are welcome. -- Abylai Ospanaos...@netup.ru NetUP Inc. Yes indeed, it is a pity but it seems this work is in violation of the GPL. -- This General Public License does not permit incorporating your program into proprietary programs. If your program is a subroutine library, you may consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary applications with the library. If this is what you want to do, use the GNU Library General Public License instead of this License. -- [http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-not-lgpl.html] [http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html] -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line unsubscribe linux-media in the body of a message to majord...@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Re: LinuxTV ported to Windows
On Fri, Dec 2, 2011 at 7:35 AM, Issa Gorissen flo...@usa.net wrote: Hello, We have ported linuxtv's cx23885+CAM en50221+Diseq to Windows OS (Vista, XP, win7 tested). Results available under GPL and can be checkout from git repository: https://github.com/netup/netup-dvb-s2-ci-dual Binary builds (ready to install) available in build directory. Currently NetUP Dual DVB-S2 CI card supported ( http://www.netup.tv/en-EN/dual_dvb-s2-ci_card.php ). Driver based on Microsoft BDA standard, but some features (DiSEqC, CI) supported by custom API, for more details see netup_bda_api.h file. Any comments, suggestions are welcome. -- Abylai Ospanaos...@netup.ru NetUP Inc. Yes indeed, it is a pity but it seems this work is in violation of the GPL. The GPL has specific provisions for system libraries, which would IMO, constitute the kernel AFAIU. So it would not violate the GPL. -- This General Public License does not permit incorporating your program into proprietary programs. If your program is a subroutine library, you may consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary applications with the library. If this is what you want to do, use the GNU Library General Public License instead of this License. -- [http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-not-lgpl.html] [http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html] -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line unsubscribe linux-media in the body of a message to majord...@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html -- Felipe Magno de Almeida -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line unsubscribe linux-media in the body of a message to majord...@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Re: LinuxTV ported to Windows
Hello, A GPL troll, as the Vicious Nokia Employee [that got] VLC Removed from Apple App Store I cannot resist... Le mercredi 30 novembre 2011 19:23:26 Devin Heitmueller, vous avez écrit : Am I the only one who thinks this is a legally ambigious grey area? Seems like this could be a violation of the GPL as the driver code in question links against a proprietary kernel. If you have any doubt, I would suggest you ask the SFLC. They tend to give valuable insights into that sort of problems. It might be intricate and/or not what you want to hear from them though (Been there done that). I don't want to start a flame war, but I don't see how this is legal. And you could definitely question whether it goes against the intentions of the original authors to see their GPL driver code being used in non-free operating systems. As long as the distributed binaries do not include any GPL-incompatible code (presumably from Microsoft), there should be no GPL contamination problem. So it boils down to whether the driver binary has non-GPL code in it. I don't see how the license of the Windows code is relevant, so long as NetUp is not distributing the Windows OS alongside the driver (or vice versa). And while I do not know the Windows DDK license, I doubt it cares much about the driver license, so long as Microsoft does not need to distribute nor certify the driver. There may however be problems with the toolchain. The driver binary must be recompilable with just the GPL'd source code and anything that is normally distributed with the operating system. VisualStudio is not distributed with Windows. In fact, it is sold as a separate product, except for restrictive freeware versions. So unless this driver can be compiled with a GPL-compatible toolchain (and the toolchain is provided by NetUp), it might not be possible to distribute binary copies of the driver. Then again, I am not a laywer. Someone that cares, please ask SFLC or friends. -- Rémi Denis-Courmont http://www.remlab.net/ http://fi.linkedin.com/in/remidenis -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line unsubscribe linux-media in the body of a message to majord...@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Re: LinuxTV ported to Windows
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 12/02/2011 12:03 PM, Rémi Denis-Courmont wrote: Hello, A GPL troll, as the Vicious Nokia Employee [that got] VLC Removed from Apple App Store I cannot resist... Le mercredi 30 novembre 2011 19:23:26 Devin Heitmueller, vous avez écrit : Am I the only one who thinks this is a legally ambigious grey area? Seems like this could be a violation of the GPL as the driver code in question links against a proprietary kernel. If you have any doubt, I would suggest you ask the SFLC. They tend to give valuable insights into that sort of problems. It might be intricate and/or not what you want to hear from them though (Been there done that). I don't want to start a flame war, but I don't see how this is legal. And you could definitely question whether it goes against the intentions of the original authors to see their GPL driver code being used in non-free operating systems. As long as the distributed binaries do not include any GPL-incompatible code (presumably from Microsoft), there should be no GPL contamination problem. So it boils down to whether the driver binary has non-GPL code in it. I don't see how the license of the Windows code is relevant, so long as NetUp is not distributing the Windows OS alongside the driver (or vice versa). And while I do not know the Windows DDK license, I doubt it cares much about the driver license, so long as Microsoft does not need to distribute nor certify the driver. I'm not sure about the Windows DDK license either, but I can tell you that at least some of their licenses specifically forbid you to use their libraries or source code in GPL-style programs. I downloaded an iso of the Windows Driver Kit version 7.1.0, and what I found in the Windows Development Kit license is this (concerning redistributed code from the WDK) iii. Distribution Restrictions. You may not alter any copyright, trademark or patent notice in the Distributable Code; use Microsoft’s trademarks in your programs’ names or in a way that suggests your programs come from or are endorsed by Microsoft; distribute Distributable Code to run on a platform other than the Windows platform; include Distributable Code in malicious, deceptive or unlawful programs; or modify or distribute the source code of any Distributable Code so that any part of it becomes subject to an Excluded License. An Excluded License is one that requires, as a condition of use, modification or distribution, that the code be disclosed or distributed in source code form; or others have the right to modify it. Which would tell me that you can't redistribute their code in any product licensed under the GPL. So, if NetUP used any of the redistributable code from the development kit in their port, it would violate Microsoft's licensing. And any code that NetUP used cannot be backported to Linux. (The **'s are my emphasis of what I believe are the relevant portions of the license) There may however be problems with the toolchain. The driver binary must be recompilable with just the GPL'd source code and anything that is normally distributed with the operating system. VisualStudio is not distributed with Windows. In fact, it is sold as a separate product, except for restrictive freeware versions. So unless this driver can be compiled with a GPL-compatible toolchain (and the toolchain is provided by NetUp), it might not be possible to distribute binary copies of the driver. Then again, I am not a laywer. Someone that cares, please ask SFLC or friends. I agree about contacting the SFLC. Also the copyright holder (Steven Toth) weighed in about his concerns. So at the end of the day, this is between him and the developers (NetUP, Abylay, etc). GPL questions/potential issues aside, I can see some benefit from this. Just in the idea that if the port works fairly decently, and with the proper advertising, it might get the name Linux into the average user's field of view (so to speak). Of course if the port is crap, or if you have to pay for the product (or pay for a spyware/adware free version), then it might have the opposite effect. This is just my 2 cents worth, as an end-user mainly. Have a great day:) Patrick. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAk7ZTLcACgkQMp6rvjb3CARnqwCgy6MqGTObMugv1S0v5gOTf/xx f+sAn3hkImJvOCVMJlKcnV/b+VfI4wZL =UJN4 -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line unsubscribe linux-media in the body of a message to majord...@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Re: LinuxTV ported to Windows
Hi Andreas, On Wednesday 30 November 2011 20:58:40 Andreas Oberritter wrote: On 30.11.2011 20:33, Devin Heitmueller wrote: On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 1:02 PM, Andreas Oberritter wrote: Am I the only one who thinks this is a legally ambigious grey area? Seems like this could be a violation of the GPL as the driver code in question links against a proprietary kernel. Devin, please! Are you implying that the windows kernel becomes a derived work of the driver, or that it's generally impossible to publish windows drivers under the terms of the GPL? The simple answer is that I don't know. I'm not a lawyer (and as far as I know, neither are you). Nor have I researched the topic to significant lengths. That said though, whether it was the intention of either copyright holder it's entirely possible that the two software licenses are simply incompatible. For example, while both the Apache group and the FSF never really intended to prevent each others' software from being linked against each other, the net effect is still that you cannot redistribute such software together since the Apache license is incompatible with the GPL. Neither is Abylay distributing Windows together with this driver, nor is this driver a library Windows links against, i.e. Windows is able to run with this driver removed. But the driver can't run with Windows. The important point to remember when discussing licenses is that the GPL license mostly affects distribution of binaries. Distribution of the source code isn't an issue in this case, as the code is clearly being redistributed under the terms of the license. Binaries, however, are a different story. The resulting Windows driver binary is linked to GPL-incompatible code (namely the Windows kernel). I'm not, as most people here, a lawyer, but this can of situation always triggers an alarm in my brain. It might not be allowed by the GPL license, hence the comment about a *possible* GPL violation. The binary might also violate Microsoft terms of use. I haven't studied the Windows DDK license, but I wouldn't be surprised if it forbade linking GPL code to the Windows kernel one way or the other. I won't be personally upset if someone violates the Windows DDK license, but it's worth a warning as well. I don't want to start a flame war, but I don't see how this is legal. And you could definitely question whether it goes against the intentions of the original authors to see their GPL driver code being used in non-free operating systems. The GPL doesn't cover such intentions. This isn't necessarily true. Anybody who has written a library and released it under the GPL instead of the LGPL has made a conscious decision that the library is only to be used by software that is GPL compatible. By their actions they have inherently forbidden it's use by non-free software. You could certainly make the same argument about a driver -- that they authors intent was to ensure that it only be linked against other free software. That's something completely different than being used in non-free operating systems and not necessarily comparable to a driver, which implements a well-defined interface. It doesn't matter much if the interface is well-defined or not. What matters is the GPL license on one side, and the related Windows licenses on the other side. Distributing a Windows binary driver made of GPL code needs to comply with licenses on both sides. Whether the original author intent was to forbid usage of the code in a proprietary operating system isn't really relevant from a legal point of view. Sure, it would be nice to take the original author opinion into consideration, but there's at best (or at worst, depending on the point of view) only a moral need to do so. When Google uses my kernel code in Android, with a proprietary (yet open) userspace that in my opinion hurts Linux, I'm not the happiest person in the world, but I live with it without complaining (OK, that's not completely true, I complain about Android creating a lot of new kernel APIs without any cooperation with the Linux community, but that's another story). The point I'm trying to make: Someone made a presumably nice open source port to a new platform and the first thing you're doing is to play the GPL-has-been-violated-card, even though you're admitting that you don't know whether any right is being violated or not. Please don't do that. It's not very encouraging to someone who just announced free software. Thanks for pointing this out. I would have reacted similarly to Devin, not to discourage Abylay from working on this interesting project, but to warn him that there might be legal issues (I think we would all prefer early notifications from the community than late notifications from unfriendly lawyers :-)). You understanding this as an attack shows that we need to be more careful in the way we word our messages on
Re: LinuxTV ported to Windows
The point I'm trying to make: Someone made a presumably nice open source port to a new platform and the first thing you're doing is to play the GPL-has-been-violated-card, even though you're admitting that you don't know whether any right is being violated or not. Please don't do that. It's not very encouraging to someone who just announced free software. Thanks for pointing this out. I would have reacted similarly to Devin, not to discourage Abylay from working on this interesting project, but to warn him that there might be legal issues (I think we would all prefer early notifications from the community than late notifications from unfriendly lawyers :-)). You understanding this as an attack shows that we need to be more careful in the way we word our messages on license-related issues. I've been silent as I wanted to see how the thread evolved. This is a response in general to the group - not any individual. Speaking as the maintainer and copyright owner I can say that it would have been nice if someone had contacted me privately re the matter, before hand. Not to assert any legal right, not for any approval, simply as a courtesy and a perhaps a small 'Thank You'. NetUp could have happily had my personal blessing on their project. My first concern is that this only benefits NetUp on Windows, no other company benefits on windows - as they all already have legal access to the Conexant source reference driver. The Windows GPL driver could/will evolve much faster than the Linux driver and that will suit NetUp commercially and nobody else. Time will not be taken to backport changes into the Linux driver and that's bad for the Linux community. (Or, for commercial reasons, the backports will take longer than expected) My second concern is that NetUp have made it very simply for the hundreds of no-name third party far-east companies (with zero legitimate access to the Conexant windows source reference driver), to take the windows driver, close source it, not distribute their changes and compete against the few legitimate TVTuner companies left in the world. If/when the one or two remaining TVTuner companies die because their bread and butter Windows sales are being eroded to zero - how does this help this community? It doesn't, it only helps NetUp. I embrace open source, I welcome new developers, debate and growth I just think if you are going to get my 18 year old daughter pregnant then it's courtesy to knock on my door and introduce yourself first - regardless of my opinion or your legal rights. -- Steven Toth - Kernel Labs http://www.kernellabs.com -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line unsubscribe linux-media in the body of a message to majord...@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Re: LinuxTV ported to Windows
Hello Laurent, On 01.12.2011 20:42, Laurent Pinchart wrote: Hi Andreas, On Wednesday 30 November 2011 20:58:40 Andreas Oberritter wrote: On 30.11.2011 20:33, Devin Heitmueller wrote: On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 1:02 PM, Andreas Oberritter wrote: Am I the only one who thinks this is a legally ambigious grey area? Seems like this could be a violation of the GPL as the driver code in question links against a proprietary kernel. Devin, please! Are you implying that the windows kernel becomes a derived work of the driver, or that it's generally impossible to publish windows drivers under the terms of the GPL? The simple answer is that I don't know. I'm not a lawyer (and as far as I know, neither are you). Nor have I researched the topic to significant lengths. That said though, whether it was the intention of either copyright holder it's entirely possible that the two software licenses are simply incompatible. For example, while both the Apache group and the FSF never really intended to prevent each others' software from being linked against each other, the net effect is still that you cannot redistribute such software together since the Apache license is incompatible with the GPL. Neither is Abylay distributing Windows together with this driver, nor is this driver a library Windows links against, i.e. Windows is able to run with this driver removed. But the driver can't run with Windows. I guess you meant can't run without Windows. It's probably safe to assume that, but it's not relevant, unless you're questioning whether Windows' licensing terms allow running free software or not. The important point to remember when discussing licenses is that the GPL license mostly affects distribution of binaries. Distribution of the source code isn't an issue in this case, as the code is clearly being redistributed under the terms of the license. Binaries, however, are a different story. The resulting Windows driver binary is linked to GPL-incompatible code (namely the Windows kernel). I'm not, as most people here, a lawyer, but this can of situation always triggers an alarm in my brain. It might not be allowed by the GPL license, hence the comment about a *possible* GPL violation. Do you also think it would violate the GPL to distribute binaries of GPL'ed programs linked to android's libc or msvcrt, for example, because they both have GPL incompatible licenses? The binary might also violate Microsoft terms of use. I haven't studied the Windows DDK license, but I wouldn't be surprised if it forbade linking GPL code to the Windows kernel one way or the other. I won't be personally upset if someone violates the Windows DDK license, but it's worth a warning as well. I'm used to SDK licenses that don't affect the license of the code developed using it. Furthermore, only Abylay knows which rights his copy of the DDK grants, so any public discussion about it is moot. I don't want to start a flame war, but I don't see how this is legal. And you could definitely question whether it goes against the intentions of the original authors to see their GPL driver code being used in non-free operating systems. The GPL doesn't cover such intentions. This isn't necessarily true. Anybody who has written a library and released it under the GPL instead of the LGPL has made a conscious decision that the library is only to be used by software that is GPL compatible. By their actions they have inherently forbidden it's use by non-free software. You could certainly make the same argument about a driver -- that they authors intent was to ensure that it only be linked against other free software. That's something completely different than being used in non-free operating systems and not necessarily comparable to a driver, which implements a well-defined interface. It doesn't matter much if the interface is well-defined or not. What matters is the GPL license on one side, and the related Windows licenses on the other side. Distributing a Windows binary driver made of GPL code needs to comply with licenses on both sides. Whether the original author intent was to forbid usage of the code in a proprietary operating system isn't really relevant from a legal point of view. Sure, it would be nice to take the original author opinion into consideration, but there's at best (or at worst, depending on the point of view) only a moral need to do so. When Google uses my kernel code in Android, with a proprietary (yet open) userspace that in my opinion hurts Linux, I'm not the happiest person in the world, but I live with it without complaining (OK, that's not completely true, I complain about Android creating a lot of new kernel APIs without any cooperation with the Linux community, but that's another story). I'd go a step further and say that there's no moral need at all to do anything not covered by the license. One cannot publish code under
Re: LinuxTV ported to Windows
Hello Steven, On 01.12.2011 22:18, Steven Toth wrote: The point I'm trying to make: Someone made a presumably nice open source port to a new platform and the first thing you're doing is to play the GPL-has-been-violated-card, even though you're admitting that you don't know whether any right is being violated or not. Please don't do that. It's not very encouraging to someone who just announced free software. Thanks for pointing this out. I would have reacted similarly to Devin, not to discourage Abylay from working on this interesting project, but to warn him that there might be legal issues (I think we would all prefer early notifications from the community than late notifications from unfriendly lawyers :-)). You understanding this as an attack shows that we need to be more careful in the way we word our messages on license-related issues. I've been silent as I wanted to see how the thread evolved. This is a response in general to the group - not any individual. Speaking as the maintainer and copyright owner I can say that it would have been nice if someone had contacted me privately re the matter, before hand. Not to assert any legal right, not for any approval, simply as a courtesy and a perhaps a small 'Thank You'. NetUp could have happily had my personal blessing on their project. you could have said thank you for porting the driver as well: The port enlarges the user base, is likely to uncover bugs and you might even receive fixes to those bugs for free (unless the ranting goes on). My first concern is that this only benefits NetUp on Windows, no other company benefits on windows - as they all already have legal access to the Conexant source reference driver. Are you implying that a) it's not the users who benefit most? b) other companies won't be able to use this driver? c) NetUp doesn't have legal access to the reference driver? The Windows GPL driver could/will evolve much faster than the Linux driver and that will suit NetUp commercially and nobody else. Time will not be taken to backport changes into the Linux driver and that's bad for the Linux community. (Or, for commercial reasons, the backports will take longer than expected) Why don't you do the backports yourself? You want NetUp to do the work for you? The code is published in a Git repository. You can easily track any changes. My second concern is that NetUp have made it very simply for the hundreds of no-name third party far-east companies (with zero legitimate access to the Conexant windows source reference driver), to take the windows driver, close source it, not distribute their changes and compete against the few legitimate TVTuner companies left in the world. If/when the one or two remaining TVTuner companies die because their bread and butter Windows sales are being eroded to zero - how does this help this community? It doesn't, it only helps NetUp. Any company doing that could use any existing binary driver as well. Besides that, I'm sure it's no problem for them to get access to any reference driver they want. I embrace open source, I welcome new developers, debate and growth I just think if you are going to get my 18 year old daughter pregnant then it's courtesy to knock on my door and introduce yourself first - regardless of my opinion or your legal rights. A very compelling analogy. Regards, Andreas -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line unsubscribe linux-media in the body of a message to majord...@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Re: LinuxTV ported to Windows
Speaking as the maintainer and copyright owner I can say that it would have been nice if someone had contacted me privately re the matter, before hand. Not to assert any legal right, not for any approval, simply as a courtesy and a perhaps a small 'Thank You'. NetUp could have happily had my personal blessing on their project. you could have said thank you for porting the driver as well: The port enlarges the user base, is likely to uncover bugs and you might even receive fixes to those bugs for free (unless the ranting goes on). I care not for a windows port, it's of no interest to me. I'm sure NetUp Windows customers will find it useful. My first concern is that this only benefits NetUp on Windows, no other company benefits on windows - as they all already have legal access to the Conexant source reference driver. Are you implying that a) it's not the users who benefit most? b) other companies won't be able to use this driver? c) NetUp doesn't have legal access to the reference driver? I was simply stating my opinion, it not a list of points I wish to debate with you or anyone else. Please don't take this comment personally. You are welcome to your own opinion and draw your own conclusions on how I feel about the matter. The Windows GPL driver could/will evolve much faster than the Linux driver and that will suit NetUp commercially and nobody else. Time will not be taken to backport changes into the Linux driver and that's bad for the Linux community. (Or, for commercial reasons, the backports will take longer than expected) Why don't you do the backports yourself? You want NetUp to do the work for you? The code is published in a Git repository. You can easily track any changes. Yes, I could, thanks to github. My second concern is that NetUp have made it very simply for the hundreds of no-name third party far-east companies (with zero legitimate access to the Conexant windows source reference driver), to take the windows driver, close source it, not distribute their changes and compete against the few legitimate TVTuner companies left in the world. If/when the one or two remaining TVTuner companies die because their bread and butter Windows sales are being eroded to zero - how does this help this community? It doesn't, it only helps NetUp. Any company doing that could use any existing binary driver as well. Besides that, I'm sure it's no problem for them to get access to any reference driver they want. I think I respectfully disagree with you. I embrace open source, I welcome new developers, debate and growth I just think if you are going to get my 18 year old daughter pregnant then it's courtesy to knock on my door and introduce yourself first - regardless of my opinion or your legal rights. A very compelling analogy. Best wishes, - Steve -- Steven Toth - Kernel Labs http://www.kernellabs.com -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line unsubscribe linux-media in the body of a message to majord...@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Re: LinuxTV ported to Windows
2011/11/30 Abylay Ospan aos...@netup.ru: Hello, We have ported linuxtv's cx23885+CAM en50221+Diseq to Windows OS (Vista, XP, win7 tested). Results available under GPL and can be checkout from git repository: https://github.com/netup/netup-dvb-s2-ci-dual Binary builds (ready to install) available in build directory. Currently NetUP Dual DVB-S2 CI card supported ( http://www.netup.tv/en-EN/dual_dvb-s2-ci_card.php ). Driver based on Microsoft BDA standard, but some features (DiSEqC, CI) supported by custom API, for more details see netup_bda_api.h file. Any comments, suggestions are welcome. -- Abylai Ospanaos...@netup.ru NetUP Inc. Am I the only one who thinks this is a legally ambigious grey area? Seems like this could be a violation of the GPL as the driver code in question links against a proprietary kernel. I don't want to start a flame war, but I don't see how this is legal. And you could definitely question whether it goes against the intentions of the original authors to see their GPL driver code being used in non-free operating systems. Devin -- Devin J. Heitmueller - Kernel Labs http://www.kernellabs.com -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line unsubscribe linux-media in the body of a message to majord...@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Re: LinuxTV ported to Windows
On 30.11.2011 18:23, Devin Heitmueller wrote: 2011/11/30 Abylay Ospan aos...@netup.ru: Hello, We have ported linuxtv's cx23885+CAM en50221+Diseq to Windows OS (Vista, XP, win7 tested). Results available under GPL and can be checkout from git repository: https://github.com/netup/netup-dvb-s2-ci-dual That's nice to hear, Abylay! Binary builds (ready to install) available in build directory. Currently NetUP Dual DVB-S2 CI card supported ( http://www.netup.tv/en-EN/dual_dvb-s2-ci_card.php ). Driver based on Microsoft BDA standard, but some features (DiSEqC, CI) supported by custom API, for more details see netup_bda_api.h file. Any comments, suggestions are welcome. -- Abylai Ospanaos...@netup.ru NetUP Inc. Am I the only one who thinks this is a legally ambigious grey area? Seems like this could be a violation of the GPL as the driver code in question links against a proprietary kernel. Devin, please! Are you implying that the windows kernel becomes a derived work of the driver, or that it's generally impossible to publish windows drivers under the terms of the GPL? I don't want to start a flame war, but I don't see how this is legal. And you could definitely question whether it goes against the intentions of the original authors to see their GPL driver code being used in non-free operating systems. The GPL doesn't cover such intentions. Regards, Andreas P.S.: The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software--to make sure the software is free for all its users. -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line unsubscribe linux-media in the body of a message to majord...@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Re: LinuxTV ported to Windows
Nice! How is the CI implementation? Can both CI's be used by both tuners? Or is one CI bound to one tuner? Walter On Wed, 30 Nov 2011 19:39:34 +0300, Abylay Ospan aos...@netup.ru wrote: Hello, We have ported linuxtv's cx23885+CAM en50221+Diseq to Windows OS (Vista, XP, win7 tested). Results available under GPL and can be checkout from git repository: https://github.com/netup/netup-dvb-s2-ci-dual Binary builds (ready to install) available in build directory. Currently NetUP Dual DVB-S2 CI card supported ( http://www.netup.tv/en-EN/dual_dvb-s2-ci_card.php ). Driver based on Microsoft BDA standard, but some features (DiSEqC, CI) supported by custom API, for more details see netup_bda_api.h file. Any comments, suggestions are welcome. -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line unsubscribe linux-media in the body of a message to majord...@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Re: LinuxTV ported to Windows
On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 1:02 PM, Andreas Oberritter o...@linuxtv.org wrote: Am I the only one who thinks this is a legally ambigious grey area? Seems like this could be a violation of the GPL as the driver code in question links against a proprietary kernel. Devin, please! Are you implying that the windows kernel becomes a derived work of the driver, or that it's generally impossible to publish windows drivers under the terms of the GPL? The simple answer is that I don't know. I'm not a lawyer (and as far as I know, neither are you). Nor have I researched the topic to significant lengths. That said though, whether it was the intention of either copyright holder it's entirely possible that the two software licenses are simply incompatible. For example, while both the Apache group and the FSF never really intended to prevent each others' software from being linked against each other, the net effect is still that you cannot redistribute such software together since the Apache license is incompatible with the GPL. I don't want to start a flame war, but I don't see how this is legal. And you could definitely question whether it goes against the intentions of the original authors to see their GPL driver code being used in non-free operating systems. The GPL doesn't cover such intentions. This isn't necessarily true. Anybody who has written a library and released it under the GPL instead of the LGPL has made a conscious decision that the library is only to be used by software that is GPL compatible. By their actions they have inherently forbidden it's use by non-free software. You could certainly make the same argument about a driver -- that they authors intent was to ensure that it only be linked against other free software. All this said, I don't really have a position one way or the other (I'm not a copyright holder on the drivers in question). But this issue doesn't seem as obvious as you would make it sound. Devin -- Devin J. Heitmueller - Kernel Labs http://www.kernellabs.com -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line unsubscribe linux-media in the body of a message to majord...@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Re: LinuxTV ported to Windows
On 30.11.2011 20:33, Devin Heitmueller wrote: On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 1:02 PM, Andreas Oberritter o...@linuxtv.org wrote: Am I the only one who thinks this is a legally ambigious grey area? Seems like this could be a violation of the GPL as the driver code in question links against a proprietary kernel. Devin, please! Are you implying that the windows kernel becomes a derived work of the driver, or that it's generally impossible to publish windows drivers under the terms of the GPL? The simple answer is that I don't know. I'm not a lawyer (and as far as I know, neither are you). Nor have I researched the topic to significant lengths. That said though, whether it was the intention of either copyright holder it's entirely possible that the two software licenses are simply incompatible. For example, while both the Apache group and the FSF never really intended to prevent each others' software from being linked against each other, the net effect is still that you cannot redistribute such software together since the Apache license is incompatible with the GPL. Neither is Abylay distributing Windows together with this driver, nor is this driver a library Windows links against, i.e. Windows is able to run with this driver removed. I don't want to start a flame war, but I don't see how this is legal. And you could definitely question whether it goes against the intentions of the original authors to see their GPL driver code being used in non-free operating systems. The GPL doesn't cover such intentions. This isn't necessarily true. Anybody who has written a library and released it under the GPL instead of the LGPL has made a conscious decision that the library is only to be used by software that is GPL compatible. By their actions they have inherently forbidden it's use by non-free software. You could certainly make the same argument about a driver -- that they authors intent was to ensure that it only be linked against other free software. That's something completely different than being used in non-free operating systems and not necessarily comparable to a driver, which implements a well-defined interface. The point I'm trying to make: Someone made a presumably nice open source port to a new platform and the first thing you're doing is to play the GPL-has-been-violated-card, even though you're admitting that you don't know whether any right is being violated or not. Please don't do that. It's not very encouraging to someone who just announced free software. Regards, Andreas -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line unsubscribe linux-media in the body of a message to majord...@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Re: LinuxTV ported to Windows
On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 2:58 PM, Andreas Oberritter o...@linuxtv.org wrote: The point I'm trying to make: Someone made a presumably nice open source port to a new platform and the first thing you're doing is to play the GPL-has-been-violated-card, even though you're admitting that you don't know whether any right is being violated or not. Please don't do that. It's not very encouraging to someone who just announced free software. To be clear, at no point did I say the GPL has been violated. I am *asking* if others think this represents a GPL violation since at first glance it appears that this software very well might. I don't really have a problem with GPL drivers running on Windows. But if I were the original author of one of the drivers Abylay has ported, I might think differently. Devin -- Devin J. Heitmueller - Kernel Labs http://www.kernellabs.com -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line unsubscribe linux-media in the body of a message to majord...@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Re: LinuxTV ported to Windows
Hi Walter, On 30.11.2011 21:46, Walter Van Eetvelt wrote: Nice! How is the CI implementation? it's ok. Working fine under windows including MMI. Professional CAM's (with multi-PID descramble) are tested. Can both CI's be used by both tuners? Or is one CI bound to one tuner? First CI slot assigned to first tuner/demod and second CI slot assigned for second tuner/demod by hardware. You can't share CI slots between tuners. Walter On Wed, 30 Nov 2011 19:39:34 +0300, Abylay Ospanaos...@netup.ru wrote: Hello, We have ported linuxtv's cx23885+CAM en50221+Diseq to Windows OS (Vista, XP, win7 tested). Results available under GPL and can be checkout from git repository: https://github.com/netup/netup-dvb-s2-ci-dual Binary builds (ready to install) available in build directory. Currently NetUP Dual DVB-S2 CI card supported ( http://www.netup.tv/en-EN/dual_dvb-s2-ci_card.php ). Driver based on Microsoft BDA standard, but some features (DiSEqC, CI) supported by custom API, for more details see netup_bda_api.h file. Any comments, suggestions are welcome. -- Abylai Ospanaos...@netup.ru NetUP Inc. -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line unsubscribe linux-media in the body of a message to majord...@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Re: LinuxTV ported to Windows
Hi Devin, Thanks for this idea. Need to investigate. Currently we've made porting and released the results without any license violations in mind ... On 30.11.2011 20:23, Devin Heitmueller wrote: 2011/11/30 Abylay Ospanaos...@netup.ru: Hello, We have ported linuxtv's cx23885+CAM en50221+Diseq to Windows OS (Vista, XP, win7 tested). Results available under GPL and can be checkout from git repository: https://github.com/netup/netup-dvb-s2-ci-dual Binary builds (ready to install) available in build directory. Currently NetUP Dual DVB-S2 CI card supported ( http://www.netup.tv/en-EN/dual_dvb-s2-ci_card.php ). Driver based on Microsoft BDA standard, but some features (DiSEqC, CI) supported by custom API, for more details see netup_bda_api.h file. Any comments, suggestions are welcome. -- Abylai Ospanaos...@netup.ru NetUP Inc. Am I the only one who thinks this is a legally ambigious grey area? Seems like this could be a violation of the GPL as the driver code in question links against a proprietary kernel. I don't want to start a flame war, but I don't see how this is legal. And you could definitely question whether it goes against the intentions of the original authors to see their GPL driver code being used in non-free operating systems. Devin -- Abylai Ospanaos...@netup.ru NetUP Inc. -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line unsubscribe linux-media in the body of a message to majord...@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
