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From: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org>
Message-Id: <199601022150.OAA12725@phaeton.artisoft.com>
Subject: Re: Is anyone working on a QuickCam driver/app?
To: truesdel@nas.nasa.gov
Date: Tue, 2 Jan 1996 14:50:23 -0700 (MST)
Cc: jkh@time.cdrom.com, frank@exit.com, hackers@freebsd.org
In-Reply-To: <17021.820271591@nas.nasa.gov> from "Dave Truesdell" at Dec 29, 95 01:13:11 pm
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[ ... QuickCam ... ]

> I received e-mail from them on the 21st of December, saying that they have
> decided that they really will release the protocols if you sign a 
> non-disclosure/non-compete agreement with them.  They claim that they are
> documenting the protocols and that they would be available the second week of
> January.  However, I'll believe it when I see it.  They claimed they would
> release the protocols under NDA's before, but from everything I've seen, they
> never really prepared to do so.

NDA means that you can't release the source code.

NDA means there's really no point in providing a third party driver,
since you can't give it to anyone except as a binary, so you get to
spend the rest of your life playing "maintenance programmer" as you
track OS changes.

This is why the Adaptec drivers aren't distributed as binaries derived
from HIM layer sources acquired under NDA.


					Terry Lambert
					terry@lambert.org
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.