On Sat, Apr 09, 2005 at 12:44:00PM -0500, John Hasler wrote:
> Peter 'p2' De Schrijver writes:
> > Or do you think it would be ok if the same people read the existing
> > non-free sources and reimplement its functionality in a new free
> > firmware?
>
> As long as they don't copy any protected code you'll be fine.
That's the problem, I'm afraid. It's not unlikely that you'll have this
'great idea' which in reality is something you remember from reading the
original source, but not remembering that this is the case. I.e., your
memory playing tricks on you.
This won't happen if the people reading the source and those writing the
new stuff are different people. This is also what the Compaq people did
when they rewrote the IBM BIOS...
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