Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 09:17:31 -0500
From: "John W. Linville" <linville@tuxdriver.com>
To: Holger Schurig <hs4233@mail.mn-solutions.de>
Cc: linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: madwifi is not fully open source
Message-ID: <20080212141731.GB3051@tuxdriver.com> (sfid-20080212_150138_838738_DCD1EC4B)
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On Tue, Feb 12, 2008 at 10:13:47AM +0100, Holger Schurig wrote:

> 4. write the driver for Windows in the usual, close source
>    form, "leak" or give docs to some Linux developers and
>    let they write the driver for the device. FCC can't object,
>    you didn't wrote the driver :-)

"FCC can't object"...this is only true to a point.  Sure, AFAIK the
FCC can do nothing to discipline the software developer in question.
However, the FCC retains broad discretionary authority over the
hardware manufacturer.  So if a driver appeared that enabled "bad
things" to happen with certain hardware, regulators might revoke
that device's certification.  This would be very expensive for a
manufacturer and is the root of all wireless vendor non-cooperation.

FWIW, my opinion is that this should be resolvable from a business
perspective.  The existence of an open source driver should represent
a quantifiable financial risk -- a risk that is already present
in some form anyway due to the existence of people with reverse
engineering skills.  Any decent business is good at managing risk,
and any number of (re-)insurance firms exist to handle the finances
involved with that.  It seems to me that a business should be able to
insure against potential losses at a rate that is more than offset by
the gains of being strong in the burgeoning Linux market.  Of course,
if I were a brilliant business man...well, YMMV... :-)

John
-- 
John W. Linville
linville@tuxdriver.com