From: Michael Helmling <supermihi@web.de>
To: David Brownell <david-b@pacbell.net>
Subject: Re: [linux-usb-devel] New, yet unsupported USB-Ethernet adaptor
Date: Wed, 3 May 2006 07:06:53 +0200
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Cc: linux-usb-devel@lists.sourceforge.net, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
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On Wednesday 03 May 2006 00:09, David Brownell wrote:
> On Tuesday 02 May 2006 11:02 am, Michael Helmling wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >=20
> > I bought an USB-Ethernet adaptor from delock (www.delock.de) and found =
it=20
was=20
> > not supported by linux from the vendor. So I played a little with lsusb=
=20
and=20
> > found it uses a MCS7830 chip from MosChip semiconductor (moschip.com). =
On=20
> > their homepage I found a driver but it only was a precompiled Fedora4=20
module.=20
> > So I wrote them an email and they sent me the whole source code for the=
=20
> > module...
> >
> > Would be nice to see this supported in further kernel releases.
> > The sourcecode can be found at ftp://supermihi.myftp.org
>=20
> Was it you who removed the copyrights from the "usbnet" driver and
> changed the author assertion to one "M Subrahmanya Srihdar" ??
> I'm guessing the latter; the www.moschip.com site implies that
> its engineering HW is in India.

No, I did not change the code in any way, it is exactly the version they=20
mailed me. But I don't really understand what you are saying about the usbn=
et=20
module. They gave me the sourcecode for a yet not available kernel module=20
"mcs7830", not usbnet. Or did they just modify usbnet? I don't know enough=
=20
about such things to distinguish from both.=20
>=20
> Either way, blatant plagiarism and theft of copyright is unlikely
> to get into upstream kernels.

I personally have the feeling that they didn't do this by purpose. They wer=
e=20
very willing to help me with the driver and don't seem to understand much o=
f=20
kernel development. Anyway, if this IS a copyright violation, they should=20
really change it quickly.
>=20
> Likewise, that is NOT the way to integrate with the "usbnet" driver
> framework.  See how it's done by the "asix.c" driver module.
>=20
Sorry this isn't useful for me, I'm not a developer, more than ever no kern=
el=20
developer. ;)
>=20
> In fact, I'm very tempted to ask them to withdraw their distribution,
> since they have clearly violated pretty basic terms of the GPL.=20
Maybe you should do this, since I don't know much about the details of GPL =
and=20
my english is really bad. *g*
> How=20
> long have they been doing that?  How much money have they made by
> this theft?


>=20
> That stuff is correctible ... but until they correct their problems,
> I'm not inclined to let them continue distributing stolen software.
>=20
This is comprehensible. But, nevertheless this is the possibility of=20
supporting another hardware device in linux, and we shouldn't forsake it.


=2D Michael

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