[PATCH] b43/b43legacy - Credit Broadcom with enabling the development of the drivers

[Peter Stuge]

Ehud Gavron wrote:
>>> It is not up to us to "...deal with regulatory considerations..."
>>
>> No, you see, that's wrong because no one else was,
> 
> That
..
> makes no sense if I try to figure out what you intended.

I agree with you both.

Developers are good at development and in an ideal world that's what
we should focus on. Unfortunately our world is not always ideal, so a
project such as Linux can get honest (if young) interest from vendors
when developers not only do development but do it with vendors'
problems in mind.

It's certainly not "up to us" - but I think we benefit from stepping
up and solving the problem.

Being a technical guy you could say that I'm not a fan of artificial
limitations, and clearly writing code to *support* such limitations
will add some overhead. But on the other hand I have to play the
cards I've been dealt if I want to stay in the game, as do vendors,
and I think it is nice that Linux solves the (legal) problem for now.
I certainly agree that it is a kludge fix and in the wrong place.
Unfortunately fixing the law where it is broken takes a long time. :\

The root of problem is the law, but by enabling those who need (or
want) to comply with (old, broken) regulation we can get them more
involved in Linux and that gets us technical, political and business
advantages over other projects that may have been considered
alternatives. In the short term it can be bumpy to get a new vendor
involved but in the long term I, like Luis, think that it is a win.

By applying our development skills to *how* they can comply we can
also make sure that we only make compromises where required, and
maybe we can even offer something for brand new technology
developments. Finally, to play nice with the relevant authorities I
think the choice to enable self-policing (if you will) by default
makes sense. Of course it must be easy to change for those who want
to or need to, and I believe that it is.


> It's time for you to go to bed.

It sure looked like Luis was in a hurry when he wrote the email. It
wasn't the best english I've seen and neither is mine. I guess that
he felt that it was important to reply, to try to clarify his point
and his reasoning, so that you would have a better chance of seeing
the issue also from his point of view.


//Peter
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