9 Jun
2006
9 Jun
'06
5:15 p.m.
On Fri, 2006-06-09 at 20:55 +0200, Alberto Botti wrote:
Il giorno mer, 07/06/2006 alle 11.49 -0400, Lee Revell
ha scritto:
"Works with ALSA" is not exactly the same as a binary ALSA driver.
"Binary-only drivers cannot be based on any ALSA source code. They must
be written from scratch. Binary-only drivers that contain ALSA code are
infringing on copyright laws."
IOW, a binary only ALSA driver can implement the ALSA API, but it cannot
use the ALSA kernel middle layer at all.
AFAICT this means that you could implement a ALSA compatibility wrapper
around a binary blob as long as that blob was not developed for use on
Linux. But developing a binary driver for use on Linux is clearly a
derived work of the kernel and thus illegal.
Lee
On Wed, 2006-06-07 at 04:50 -0500, Jan Depner
wrote:
Why do you assume this? There are plenty of
closed-source
applications and drivers running on top of Linux.
Closed source applications are perfectly OK. A closed source ALSA
driver violates the GPL. From the ALSA soundcard support page
(http://www.alsa-project.org/call.php):
"There is nothing to stop any company from developing a binary only
driver that works with ALSA. But there are several issues and
requirements we want to make clear to anybody attempting to do this."