Re: Bug#383481: Must source code be easy to understand to fall under DFSG?
Hi Sven
On Tue, Oct 31, 2006 at 07:32:02PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote:
...CUT...
> > Will all reverse engineered drivers with hardcoded values be considered
> > as closed source? Must you always release everything that you know
> > when you release somehting as open source?
> > Must we release the instructions on how to paint an image, how to
> > move the arm while painting if we release an image as open source?
> >
> > I think this is worth considering. Personally I think this bug can
> > be closed.
>
> But your thinking are giving us an excellent way out. We could simply take all
> those binary blobs that are in the kernel, and try to take a guess about the
> instruction set which they are designed for, and disasemble them, and provide
> the dissasembled version under the GPL, as well as a instructions to
> re-assemble them into the actual binary blob.
>
> If we were to achieve that, i would be more than happy to consider these blobs
> and their corresponding reverse-engineered asm codes as actual source.
>
> One may argue that in this case, the actual documentation of the registers
> may be more of a source for such binary blobs, but it would in any case be no
> worse than any other reverse-engineering effort out there.
I fully agree that this kind of work would be a good thing. Such
improvements would most problably be a benifit for the open source
community and maybe would give us better functionality in the end.
The question is if it is a violation or not to release as is.
The other good (or bad?) thing is that we would need cross-compilers
for most major instruction-sets as reassembling probably mean compiling
for a different architecture.
Regards,
// Ola
> Friendly,
>
> Sven Luther
>
--
--- Ola Lundqvist systemkonsult --- M Sc in IT Engineering ----
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