Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1030280AbVLFWUj (ORCPT ); Tue, 6 Dec 2005 17:20:39 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1030281AbVLFWUj (ORCPT ); Tue, 6 Dec 2005 17:20:39 -0500 Received: from [67.137.28.188] ([67.137.28.188]:21438 "EHLO master.soleranetworks.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1030280AbVLFWU3 (ORCPT ); Tue, 6 Dec 2005 17:20:29 -0500 Message-ID: <4395FA92.8030502@wolfmountaingroup.com> Date: Tue, 06 Dec 2005 13:54:42 -0700 From: "Jeff V. Merkey" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040510 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Jeff Garzik Cc: Lee Revell , Brian Gerst , Arjan van de Ven , "M." , Andrea Arcangeli , William Lee Irwin III , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Alan Cox Subject: Re: Reverse engineering (was Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario) References: <1133779953.9356.9.camel@laptopd505.fenrus.org> <20051205121851.GC2838@holomorphy.com> <20051206011844.GO28539@opteron.random> <43944F42.2070207@didntduck.org> <20051206030828.GA823@opteron.random> <1133869465.4836.11.camel@laptopd505.fenrus.org> <4394ECA7.80808@didntduck.org> <4395E2F4.7000308@pobox.com> <1133897867.29084.14.camel@mindpipe> <4395E962.2060309@pobox.com> <1133898911.29084.25.camel@mindpipe> <43960774.1000202@pobox.com> In-Reply-To: <43960774.1000202@pobox.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2520 Lines: 76 Jeff Garzik wrote: > Lee Revell wrote: > >> On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 14:41 -0500, Jeff Garzik wrote: >> >>> Lee Revell wrote: >>> >>>> On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 14:13 -0500, Jeff Garzik wrote: >>>> >>>>> Let's hope the rev-eng people do it the right way, by having one >>>>> team write a document, and a totally separate team write the >>>>> driver from >>>>> that document. >>>> >>> >>>> Isn't it also legal for a single person or team to capture all IO >>>> to/from the device with a bus analyzer or kernel debugger and write a >>>> driver from that, as long as you don't disassemble the original >>>> driver? >>> >>> >>> It's still legally shaky. The "Chinese wall" approach I described >>> above is beyond reproach, and that's where Linux needs to be. >> >> >> >> I know you are not a lawyer but do you have a pointer or two? As long >> as we are REing for interoperability I've never read anything to >> indicate the approach I described could be a problem even in the US. > > > The _potential_ for problems is very high: > > 1) [ref Alan's email] copying programming sequences > > 2) Lack of Chinese wall requires TRUST and EVIDENCE that you did the > rev-eng without "source code that fell off the back of a truck" [i.e. > illegally obtained] or "docs that fell off the back of a truck." > > 3) Lack of Chinese wall increases the likelihood that a SCOX or other > entity could use that as a legal weapon against Linux. Guys, get real. SCO is out of money and just took 10 million in float capital to keep the doors open. They are after IBM, not Linux. WAKE UP!!! Jeff > > In Linux, I really have no way of knowing how questionable a driver > submission is, if it did not arrive from the Chinese wall approach, or > a known hacker with a valid path to hardware docs/engineers/code. > Past experience shows that Mr. Unknown Hacker is likely to take legal > shortcuts when writing the driver. > > If I accept code of highly questionable origin, then I put Linux in > jeopardy. > > Jeff > > > - > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe > linux-kernel" in > the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org > More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html > Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/ > - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/