Re: ia64 port
I think the license is basically pretty good, but clause 5 is a
showstopper. Given Intel's track record on trying to prevent disclosure
of advanced features of their CPUs, such as the infamous "Appendix H" mess
with the Pentium, anyone who agreed to this sort of a confidentiality
clause might be effectively prohibited from working on any Open Source
software which might have some relationship to the confidential areas.
Of course, since you -- by definition -- do not find out the scope of the
confidential material until after you sign the license agreement, you have
no way of knowing what range of Open Source projects you might be
prohibited from working on in the future. A reasonable inference would be
that the Linux kernel, video software, multimedia software, and possibly
mathematical computation software could all touch on one or more areas
which are relevant to the confidential materials.
If someone did agree to this clause and then contributed to an Open Source
project with relevance to the confidential materials, then it seems likely
that the Open Source project would be potentially poisoned by the breach,
and in theory others who innocently acquire knowledge of the confidential
materials without knowing of their confidential nature could also be
contaminated to the point where they would be unable to continue with the
project in any meaningful way.
In general, I think it would be inconsistent with Debian's stated purpose
and policy to undertake any action which relies upon information which is
explicitly stated to be confidential, and that it is the essence of the
Open Source concept to rely only upon openly documented public interfaces
to hardware or upon those interfaces which can be forced into the public
domain through reverse engineering. Put more simply, if Intel wants Open
Source operating systems and software to run on their CPU, then they are
going to have to document how their CPU works. If the only advantage to
getting this confidential information is early access to the hardware,
since they are eventually going to be selling their chips to the public,
then it is not worth it.
-- Mike
On 2000-05-26 at 09:15 +0200, Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote:
> And there is a legal problem first. What do people on debian-legal think of the agreement you have to sign:
>
> OPEN-SOURCE CLICKWRAP IPLA
* * *
> 5. The Intel Software provided in binary form contains confidential information of Intel regarding technical
> aspects of the Itanium processor. You must use the same degree of care to protect this confidential
> information of Intel that you use to protect your own confidential information, but no less than a reasonable
> degree of care. You must restrict access to the Intel Software provided in binary form to your employees who
> have executed written agreements with you obligating them to protect confidential information as required
> under this paragraph. The obligations of this paragraph do not apply to any information that is or becomes
> published by Intel without restriction, or otherwise becomes rightfully available to the public other than by
> breach of confidentiality obligation to Intel.
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