I have already received some information on this, but is anyone else on
this list working with drivers released under the GPL (or any other open
source license)?
James
This is exactly what I’ve been doing for around year, but how on Earth may it be possibly of help to your Windows-based project???
Anton Bassov
>
This is exactly what I’ve been doing for around year, but how on Earth
may
it be possibly of help to your Windows-based project???
I’m not sure I understand your question… the best interpretation I can
come up with is that you think that the GPL is only for non-Windows
projects, but I’ve read lots of your posts and I’m sure that that is not
what you think…
The drivers I have written for Windows for running under Xen are
licensed under the GPL. At some point I would like to get them certified
via the WHQL process, but I have received numerous comments that the GPL
is not compatible with some aspect of the WHQL process. I can’t quite
imagine how though… and every time I have dug further, it turns out
that most of the information I have received is more opinion than fact
and that nobody has actually received any explicit answer from Microsoft
(the opinion being that if asked, Microsoft would err on the side of
‘no’ in preference to having to pay their lawyers to check things out).
Large companies can have an irrational fear of the perceived ‘viral’
aspect of the GPL…
Additionally, the wording of the SVVP apparently makes explicit
reference to not being compatible with an open source license (I haven’t
read it to find out yet, that is further down the track).
James
There are certainly BSD license open source projects that have been WHQL
certified. Some vendor could take the source under the BSD license and get
it certified. The Infiniband driver/protocol stack is like this, and in the
past has passed WHQL certification. Microsoft is a contributor to the
current Infiniband stack, and contributes under the BSD license. This
contributed code also can’t just magically be converted to the GPL license.
I believe there is wording in the WDK license that would make a GPL source
base problematic. Somebody brought this issue up on THIS list some months
back, and Microsoft legal was hopefully going to look into it. The
background was somebody could not use the WDK to build a GPL’ed driver (WDK
license restrictions), so they were asking how to build a driver with the
GNU tools.
The opinions expressed by myself and others was the GNU tools were not
useful for building Windows drivers, from a technical standpoint.
Aren’t there commercial companies productizing Xen? I assume the folks are
Oracle (Wayne and others) who are asking Xen PV questions here can get their
legal people to look at the WDK license.
Jan
I have already received some information on this, but is
anyone else on this list working with drivers released under
the GPL (or any other open source license)?
>
There are certainly BSD license open source projects that have been
WHQL
certified. Some vendor could take the source under the BSD license and
get
it certified. The Infiniband driver/protocol stack is like this, and
in
the past has passed WHQL certification. Microsoft is a contributor to
the
current Infiniband stack, and contributes under the BSD license. This
contributed code also can’t just magically be converted to the GPL
license.I believe there is wording in the WDK license that would make a GPL
source
base problematic. Somebody brought this issue up on THIS list some
months
back, and Microsoft legal was hopefully going to look into it. The
background was somebody could not use the WDK to build a GPL’ed driver
(WDK license restrictions), so they were asking how to build a driver
with
the GNU tools.
I’ll look through the archives. Hopefully the word ‘GPL’ appears
infrequently enough here that I should be able to find it easily…
The opinions expressed by myself and others was the GNU tools were not
useful for building Windows drivers, from a technical standpoint.
Attempts have been made to make drivers compile using the mingw (gcc
derived I think) compiler, and I think with some success. Given that the
Microsoft tools are already freely available I don’t see that using a
non-Microsoft toolkit adds any value, unless it is the only way of
getting around licensing problems.
James
> > Somebody brought this issue up on THIS list some months
> back, and Microsoft legal was hopefully going to look into it. The
> background was somebody could not use the WDK to build a GPL’ed
> driver (WDK license restrictions), so they were asking how to
> build a driver with the GNU tools.I’ll look through the archives. Hopefully the word ‘GPL’ appears
infrequently enough here that I should be able to find it easily…
I checked… surprisingly, it’s not that rare.
I think I found the thread you are referring to -
https://www.osronline.com/showThread.CFM?link=135475 - a Jennifer
Stepler from Microsoft was the one who said she was going to query their
legal team about the situation of WDK drivers released under the GPL
license. I cannot find a followup response, and her email address is
obfuscated (xxxxx@microsoft.com) so I can’t email her directly (I wasn’t
subscribed to this list when that thread was around). If someone could
forward this email to her and cc me it would be appreciated 
The only reference to an explicit incompatibility between the WDK and
the GPL is a discussion about the EULA which said that the samples
could not be redistributed in source form. I have certainly looked at
the samples but was careful not to cut and paste or directly derive any
code from them.
James
Over just the past couple of years I’ve heard EVERYthing… from that you can’t use the WDK, to you can’t use the samples, to you can’t use the tools, to “it doesn’t matter” you can use whatever you want.
I seriously suspect much of this falls into the realm of “many people have vested interests, but nobody REALLY knows. Further, nobody wants to litigate the question to get a definitive answer, lest that definitive answer be contrary to their vested interests.” Hence the question remains unresolved. There are a surprisingly large number of items regarding software IP that fall into this category.
Nobody on this list is a qualified technology IP lawyer. And if they were, you wouldn’t be their client (at this point). So, my advice is to ignore anything you hear/read on this topic on this list, and get a highly qualified (and nauseatingly expensive) specialist to give you custom legal advice. Then follow or ignore that advice as you wish.
Peter
OSR
>
Over just the past couple of years I’ve heard EVERYthing… from that
you
can’t use the WDK, to you can’t use the samples, to you can’t use the
tools, to “it doesn’t matter” you can use whatever you want.I seriously suspect much of this falls into the realm of “many people
have
vested interests, but nobody REALLY knows. Further, nobody wants to
litigate the question to get a definitive answer, lest that definitive
answer be contrary to their vested interests.” Hence the question
remains
unresolved. There are a surprisingly large number of items regarding
software IP that fall into this category.Nobody on this list is a qualified technology IP lawyer. And if they
were,
you wouldn’t be their client (at this point). So, my advice is to
ignore
anything you hear/read on this topic on this list, and get a highly
qualified (and nauseatingly expensive) specialist to give you custom
legal
advice. Then follow or ignore that advice as you wish.
Or alternatively, I can just go along as I am now, and wait for someone
(eg Microsoft) to make a noise to the contrary. I’ve read the EULA for
the WDK and there is nothing in there that I can see that could apply
against the use of the GPL as a project license, so I think the
objection would have to be pretty specific.
I read Slashdot, so I’m used to hearing a lot of legal opinions from
people who are not lawyers
Thanks for the input.
James
> the best interpretation I can come up with is that you think that the GPL is only for non-Windows projects, >but I’ve read lots of your posts and I’m sure that that is not what you think…
I just looked at it purely from the technical standpoint, i.e. how the build environment would react to the type of your license. For example, if you use GNU tools, you may have trouble with linking against GPL-compatible exports (at least under Linux kernel) if you build your module under a license that is not compatible with GPL. However, if you are building Windows driver, the only build environment that is appropriate for building your project is WDK, and, AFAIK, it does not really care about your license type…
Anton Bassov
>
> the best interpretation I can come up with is that you think that
the
GPL is only for non-Windows projects, >but I’ve read lots of your
posts
and I’m sure that that is not what you think…I just looked at it purely from the technical standpoint, i.e. how the
build environment would react to the type of your license. For
example, if
you use GNU tools, you may have trouble with linking against GPL-
compatible exports (at least under Linux kernel) if you build your
module
under a license that is not compatible with GPL. However, if you are
building Windows driver, the only build environment that is
appropriate
for building your project is WDK, and, AFAIK, it does not really care
about your license type…
Yes. I understand what you meant now.
Does the WHQL process (which consists of technical as well as
non-technical aspects as I understand it) care though? If I submit my
drivers to the WHQL team will they raise any objects? I can’t see any
reasons why they would, but I thought it might be worth an ask.
James
It would probably be best just to ask them directly, IMO.
- S
-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com [mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com] On Behalf Of James Harper
Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2009 12:35 AM
To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
Subject: RE: [ntdev] GPL vs WHQL
> the best interpretation I can come up with is that you think that
the
GPL is only for non-Windows projects, >but I’ve read lots of your
posts
and I’m sure that that is not what you think…I just looked at it purely from the technical standpoint, i.e. how the
build environment would react to the type of your license. For
example, if
you use GNU tools, you may have trouble with linking against GPL-
compatible exports (at least under Linux kernel) if you build your
module
under a license that is not compatible with GPL. However, if you are
building Windows driver, the only build environment that is
appropriate
for building your project is WDK, and, AFAIK, it does not really care
about your license type…
Yes. I understand what you meant now.
Does the WHQL process (which consists of technical as well as
non-technical aspects as I understand it) care though? If I submit my
drivers to the WHQL team will they raise any objects? I can’t see any
reasons why they would, but I thought it might be worth an ask.
James
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> So, my advice is to ignore anything you hear/read on this topic on this list, and get a highly
qualified (and nauseatingly expensive) specialist to give you custom legal advice.
Well, if you want to do something like that, be prepared to be relieved of six-digit amount for being told something like “I don’t see any problem here in so far, but if the one arises don’t hesitate to contact me again so we will sort it out” (the second part of the sentence implies paying yet another six-digit bill)…
Anton Bassov
> If I submit my drivers to the WHQL team will they raise any objects?
Why don’t you want just to try it and see how it all works??? After all, unlike seeking a legal advice, it does not seem to be that costly, does it…
Anton Bassov
James Harper wrote:
I have already received some information on this, but is anyone else on
this list working with drivers released under the GPL (or any other open
source license)?
Are you familiar with http://btwincap.sourceforge.net/ ?
–
Tim Roberts, xxxxx@probo.com
Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.
Probably not 6 digits… not even from the (extraordinarily excellent and outrageously expensive) IP lawyers that OSR uses. But probably FIVE digits.
If it keeps you out of trouble, it could be the best 5 digits of money that you ever spent.
Peter
OSR
> Probably not 6 digits… not even from the (extraordinarily excellent and outrageously expensive)
IP lawyers that OSR uses. But probably FIVE digits.
Well, as I can see, on this particular occasion I am just a factor of 10 off, which is not that bad by my standards - IIRC, just a week ago I was 1024 times(!!!) off, and I was 1024 times off in a technical question (namely, concerning the cache size)…
Anton Bassov