On Feb 25, 2012, at 10:46 AM, erpo41@gmail.com wrote:
What you've reported doesn't really provide enough information for us to opine (even with 'non-legal advice' opinions). You say the Windows application is distinct from the driver, but is that distinction maintained in the copyright notices? Etc. The Command.h file -- was it built/provided by the driver manufacturer, or did the author of the Windows driver/software use LGPL code? Etc. But it may not matter. Recall that (at least in the U.S., where arguably the biggest threat of litigation exists), copyright does not extend to functional elements; Lotus v. Borland, 516 U.S. 233 (1996). To the extent code is required to interoperate with the hardware, you can reuse/derive from it safely. (You might also want to familiarize yourself with the "Abstraction / Filtration / Comparison" test from Computer Associates v. Altai 982 F.2d 693 (6th Cir. 2003): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstraction-Filtration-Comparison_test ). In short, I personally would not take a clean-room approach to that code. I'd look at it, learn from it, and write my own Linux driver, personally. Anything specific to the hardware I'd copy more or less verbatim. Anything else, if there's really only the one way of doing it, it's not copyright protected; if there's more than one way, I'd be creative. :) This is not legal advice; if you want that, contact me directly (and pay me =)). |