Community Update

Michael Shiloh michael at openmoko.org
Wed Oct 31 22:45:51 CET 2007



Shawn Rutledge wrote:
> On 10/31/07, Michael Shiloh <michael at openmoko.org> wrote:
>> The first legal issue was to allow for the distribution of the driver in
>> binary-only form. That was resolved.
>>
>> The next issue was technical, and resulted from the switch from OABI to
>> EABI. That issue has a number of workarounds (wrapper, chroot), but
>> unfortunately all these technical solutions raise another set of legal
>> issues.
> 
> That seems utterly ridiculous to me.  A binary is a binary.  If you
> have source and recompile it and release it as a new binary, what's
> the difference to the chip company?  It's not exposing any more of
> their IP that they are so worried about, is it?
> 
> And in the chroot case even less so.  They gave you permission to
> distribute the existing binary, right?  What's the difference, in what
> kind of packaging you ensconce it?  Is it illegal to package it in a
> zip file too?
> 
> To make it compatible with the new ABI, do you have to ask the chip
> company for the new binary, or do you actually have source?
> 
> If that can't be resolved we could still downgrade to an old OpenMoko
> image with the old ABI and use the old gllin.  So why can't they give
> us the existing gllin binary, so we can at least have a go at it in
> one way or another?
> 
> And are they really so litigious and so antagonistic that they will go
> after FIC for distributing what is necessary to make their chip, of
> which FIC already bought a few thousand at least, actually do
> something?  That's quite a business, selling chips which are expected
> to sit idle for their entire lives.


I don't know - but I'll ask.


> I don't mean to shoot the messenger BTW... thanks for responding to this issue.


No problem!

Michael




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