Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 07:55:10 -1000 From: Clifton Royston <cliftonr@lava.net> To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Ricoh PCI to SD device? Message-ID: <20060112175509.GB26547@lava.net> In-Reply-To: <20060112120031.D568A16A41F@hub.freebsd.org> References: <20060112120031.D568A16A41F@hub.freebsd.org>
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On Thu, Jan 12, 2006 at 12:00:31PM +0000, freebsd-hackers-request@freebsd.org wrote:
> Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2006 10:32:16 -0800
> From: "Darren Pilgrim" <darren.pilgrim@bitfreak.org>
> Subject: RE: Ricoh PCI to SD device?
> To: "'M. Warner Losh'" <imp@bsdimp.com>
> Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org
>
> From: M. Warner Losh [mailto:imp@bsdimp.com]
...
> > Are you sure they provide technical documentation sufficent to write
> > the driver? The last time I asked, I got a nice document that said
> > that it implemented the sds standard sd host interface, but didn't
> > document what that was. TI and winbond chips datasheets are the same
> > way. Prove me wrong. I'd love it :-)
>
> The SD protocols aren't open standards. Ricoh can't legally include
> information about the protocols in their documentation. Without working
> implementation of the SDA's standards, FreeBSD is stuck. I don't blame the
> funding behind FreeBSD development for not ponying up the dosh; I think such
> fees are extortion made legal by intellectual property laws.
>
> But hey, it's the business. It's not like we're trying to make a good, free
> product everyone can use, right?
IANAL, but it sounds like there are more serious issues than the money.
If that NDA says some fairly typical things, and if the FreeBSD
organization (or any individual developer) poneys up the money for the
standard and signs the associated NDA, then either that developer or
the FreeBSD group as a whole might then be permanently barred from
writing open source code to implement the protocol, as a working
implementation could disclose protocol information covered as a secret
by the NDA.
I'm sure that's *not* what you want to see.
-- Clifton
--
Clifton Royston -- cliftonr@iandicomputing.com / cliftonr@lava.net
President - I and I Computing * http://www.iandicomputing.com/
Custom programming, network design, systems and network consulting services
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