Re: Developing non-commercial drivers ?

* Fredrik Markström <fredrik.markstrom@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hi,

I'm working for as a consultant for a large hardware company porting
Linux to their new cpu-architecture and everything is pretty much
up and running. Now they want us to develop a closed-source (to
protect their IP) ethernet driver for their proprietary Ethernet MAC.

Much of this already had been answered, but just to summarize:

* technically, binary drivers are a very bad idea - just look at
the utterly broken nv crap.
* IMHO, as soon as you include some kernel-internal headers, you've
got an derived work, thus violating GPL (IANAL!)
* binary-only drivers DON NOT protect IP, just delay the process
of revealing a little bit.
* try to find out whether the customer *really* has some valueble
IP to protect or if it's just it's default oppionion
* *if* the customer still wants an binary-only driver, you check
whether the logic to hide can be moved to userland (let the userland
part talk to the in-kernel driver via 9P)
* let your customer know that binary-only drivers tend to heavily
damage a company's reputation in the OSS world, *BAD* for marketing.


just my 0.02,-


cu
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