Re: Inprocomm and their module

On Friday 13 January 2006 13:38, Harald Welte wrote:
> > > ok, at least those .o files need to be available.
> >
> > Hopefully these will give more information about the driver being a
> > derivative work.
>
> I would hope to, but I think there is usually little practical chance,
> sorry.

It should at least be easier than just looking at the blob I have now.

>
> > > In any way, there is the exception for interoperability.  There you
> > > first need to ask the vendor for sufficient documentation - and when
> > > they don't give it to you in some specified period of time, you're
> > > allowed to do re-engineering for interoperability purpose.
> >
> > I'd ask, but I'm not sure where I should direct my queries. My laptop
> > vendor answered with a link to linux-laptops.com, and when I sent back a
> > reply saying that I wanted information about the hardware or any
> > information about who has the docs, they never answered. I didn't expect
> > them to have the docs, but at least that they gave me a pointer about who
> > own the IP now.
>
> Send a written letter, preferrably via registered mail, in which you
> explicitly refer to the EU interoperability regulations, and that you
> "in accordance with section FOO of EU directive BAR" request technical
> information (specifying which information, give examples) and that you
> expect a reply within X weeks.  If not, you will (again in accordance
> with section BAZ of EU directive XYZ) start reverse engineering in order
> to create interoperable software.
>
> If then afterwards they ever want to make legal claims against your
> re-engineering, you can refer to that letter, and that they clearly had
> the chance to give out docs, but choose not to.

Right, I've found out the company that bought InProcomm is MediaTek (
http://www.mtk.com.tw), but they don't have any information about it on their 
page. They mention the acquisition of Pixtel on their press page, but nothing 
about InProcomm.

I'll send them an e-mail asking if they have info. This particular chip was 
apparently subcontracted from InProcomm by Linksys, which is why lspci says 
the device is a Linksys INPROCOMM IPN2220. Maybe they also got the docs. I 
don't think it's very likely, since the driver code is copyright InProcomm, 
so they probably just got the finished pack.

I've also just found out that InProcomm's PCI ID (17FE) is now owned by 
Linksys.

>
> It would be good to create such a template letter, have it reviewed by
> some lawyers (I can take care of that) and publish it on the internet
> (maybe on the upcoming www.gpl-devices.org site) so others can just use
> that template in the future.

That'd be useful, I'm not fluent in legalese ;)

   cmn
-- 
Carlos Martín       http://www.cmartin.tk

"Erdbeben? Sicherlich etwas, das mit Erdberen zu tun hat." -- me, paraphrased