Re: Re: [forum] Re: Announcement: Modification to the base XFree86(TM) license.

On Fri, 30 Jan 2004, Sven Luther wrote:

> On Fri, Jan 30, 2004 at 08:25:40PM +0100, Egbert Eich wrote:
> > Sven Luther writes:
> >  > 
> >  > Maybe a decision on both parts on this would be ok ? XFree86 could make
> >  > sure the licence of the driver code would not conflict with the GPL,
> >  > keeping the old one for example, and the fbdev driver authors would
> >  > dual-licence the code, both GPL and the old xfree86 licence would do
> >  > just fine. Benjamin, what do you think about this ?
> >  > 
> >  > BTW, CCing this to the linux-fbdev mailing list.
> >  > 
> > 
> > Yes, a personal agreement between driver developers would also work.
> > However they tend to change and other people will make contributions
> > who all would have to agree also. 
> > I don't know if a general dual license agreement in the kernel 
> > file header would be possible. Also it could get removed once 
> > the author changes. Just like the license in the XFree86 driver 
> > could be amended. 
> 
> I guess already some drivers have such a dual licencing.
> 
> > Doing this now for existing fbdev driver would involve to ask
> > anyone who has contributed little more than a typo fix.
> 
> Yeah, that would be rather problematic, but anyway, most of the things
> move from the XFree86 code to fbdev code, and most often, it is not code
> that is copied, but the register information and such. It is always
> easier to get specs if you are working for XFree86 than if you plan to
> do some kernel driver work.
> 

   You can take an XFree86 driver, regardless of what the copyright
says, and completely rewrite it as an fbdev driver (which is what
I believe usually happens) and this is not a violation of the
XFree86 copyright or even of the GPL.  Copyright doesn't apply to 
ideas or algorithms in a work.  It's not a patent.  It only applies
to the reproduction of the code.


			Mark.



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