Le vendredi 14 janvier 2005 � 20:48 +0100, Benoit PAPILLAULT a �crit : > SuperDindon a �crit : > cannot remove it anymore! Now, some companies are enforcing their > intellectual property right just to get some money... even if you do not have much to give them, well, just imagine you've got to find a lawyer then make the trip to America... (like it happened to Guillermito for a different case)
> So, like baud123 said, i think it is the right time to join our effort > to make a polite request to Thomson (holder of the IP rights) to change > their license. yep, I can't see why they would say no, let them explain. > At least, it should be made redistributable so your package can be hum not really sufficient, permission to distribute and/or modify without source code (if they don't want to give it) is the least to obtain : this way the firmware can be reverse-engineered for interoperability sake ;-) which is still legal in France AFAIK (IANAL) > legal. The best would be some DFSG-compliant license to have the driver > in main distributions (including GNU/Debian). But that would mean that > Thomson has to release the source code as well which is a decision > beyong a simple license change. not having source code is clearly not satisfying to debug / enhance but that may be Thomson's choice :-( In our case, recently ADI has added functionalities to the firmware : without documentation (specifications and user doc) and without the source code we have to play guess/errors/correct/other errors game :-( Fortunately, we have some feedback both from ADI/Sagem but they have not decided (yet) to give us documentation currently internal to ADI, for us to understand how to make it work correctly. > So far, I'm not a lawyer myself, but at least I can ask and try to get > in touch with Thomson to discuss that issue. Ideas on the process? http://dev.eagle-usb.org/wakka.php?wiki=DeveloppementGPL This is a negociation, so it's better to prepare to argue : registering to debian-legal ML helps understand the intricacies, re-reading the GPL too... Prepare what you want to obtain and be precise with problems currently encountered that would be solved automagically if they were to accept to go GPL. Our wiki is opened to anyone who wants to contribute, just register with ParametresUtilisateur link so that we can follow who adds what (select a WikiName and sorry for all the french). For example, use : http://dev.eagle-usb.org/wakka.php?wiki=DevelopmentSpeedtouchGPL I reused what FlashCode did with Aful http://www.aful.org/faqs/FAQConstructeurs.en.html and provided some background : http://dev.eagle-usb.org/wakka.php?wiki=BackGroundGPL You'll have to identify a contact at Thomson (check his/her position and ask his/her opinion about GPL), then if that's the right person, convince him/her ;-) First answer may (will) be no. We have to understand the reasons why, in order to continue, hence a blank no is not suficent... Involving technical / marketing then legal is necessary (in that order, it's easier). If you have cooperative and efficient contacts at APRIL or AFUL or anyone knowing FSF position, they may be of help. We chose to have our discussions with ADI publicly (took time to convince them...) so that it can benefit us all. Have a look at http://wiki.eagle-usb.org/wakka.php?wiki=FollowUpADI (I may have forgotten some threads, check our archive too and add what's missing). The minimum to obtain is a private ML that will be published afterwards (for example after 3 months) where people contributing are identified. I hope it will work. @++ Ben'. aka baud123 Liste de diffusion modem ALCATEL SpeedTouch USB Pour se d�sinscrire : mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
