Promise SATA driver GPL'd

Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Erik Andersen]

Some folk I've done some consulting work for bought a zillion
Promise SATA cards.  They were able to convince Promise to
release their SATA driver, which was formerly available only as 
a binary only kernel module, under the terms of the GPL.

So <drum-roll, trumpets> here it is: the Promise SATA driver for
the PDC20318, PDC20375, PDC20378, and PDC20618.  This driver is
released as-is.  It is useful for the

	Promise SATA150 TX4
	Promise SATA150 TX2plus
	Promise SATA 378
	Promise Ultra 618

cards.  As a temporary download location, the GPL'd driver can be
obtained from http://www.busybox.net/pdc-ultra-1.00.0.10.tgz

Have fun!  And many thanks to Promise for contributing the driver
for their cards!

 -Erik

--
Erik B. Andersen             http://codepoet-consulting.com/
--This message was written using 73% post-consumer electrons--

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Jeff Garzik]

On Tue, Jul 22, 2003 at 12:45:33PM -0600, Erik Andersen wrote:
> Some folk I've done some consulting work for bought a zillion
> Promise SATA cards.  They were able to convince Promise to
> release their SATA driver, which was formerly available only as 
> a binary only kernel module, under the terms of the GPL.

That's definitely nice of the vendor.

FWIW it does not include any RAID format support.

> cards.  As a temporary download location, the GPL'd driver can be
> obtained from http://www.busybox.net/pdc-ultra-1.00.0.10.tgz

Bart, Alan, and I have been looking at this.  It uses the ancient CAM
model, that we don't really want to merge directly in the kernel.  It's
very close to the libata model, from the user perspective, so life is 
good.

	Jeff

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Erik Andersen]

On Tue Jul 22, 2003 at 02:54:43PM -0400, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> Bart, Alan, and I have been looking at this.  It uses the ancient CAM
> model, that we don't really want to merge directly in the kernel.  It's
> very close to the libata model, from the user perspective, so life is 
> good.

I was reading over your libata driver yesterday.  Certainly a lot
cleaner than the cam stuff IMHO.  Given the info made available
via the Promise driver, I expect that I could get an initial
libata host adaptor driver hacked together in short order.  After
all, the Intel one is just 400 lines.  So unless you (or anyone
else) have already started or would prefer to do the honors,
I'll try to hack something together this evening,

 -Erik

--
Erik B. Andersen             http://codepoet-consulting.com/
--This message was written using 73% post-consumer electrons--

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Samuel Flory]

Erik Andersen wrote:

>On Tue Jul 22, 2003 at 02:54:43PM -0400, Jeff Garzik wrote:
>  
>
>>Bart, Alan, and I have been looking at this.  It uses the ancient CAM
>>model, that we don't really want to merge directly in the kernel.  It's
>>very close to the libata model, from the user perspective, so life is 
>>good.
>>    
>>
>
>I was reading over your libata driver yesterday.  Certainly a lot
>cleaner than the cam stuff IMHO.  Given the info made available
>via the Promise driver, I expect that I could get an initial
>libata host adaptor driver hacked together in short order.  After
>all, the Intel one is just 400 lines.  So unless you (or anyone
>else) have already started or would prefer to do the honors,
>I'll try to hack something together this evening,
>
>  
>

  I'd be more than happy to test a driver.  I'm sure I've got several 
pci cards plus a few intel 32, and amd-64 motherboards with promise sata 
on board.


-- 
Once you have their hardware. Never give it back.
(The First Rule of Hardware Acquisition)
Sam Flory  <sflory@rackable.com>

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Jeff Garzik]

On Tue, Jul 22, 2003 at 01:07:05PM -0600, Erik Andersen wrote:
> On Tue Jul 22, 2003 at 02:54:43PM -0400, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> > Bart, Alan, and I have been looking at this.  It uses the ancient CAM
> > model, that we don't really want to merge directly in the kernel.  It's
> > very close to the libata model, from the user perspective, so life is 
> > good.
> 
> I was reading over your libata driver yesterday.  Certainly a lot
> cleaner than the cam stuff IMHO.  Given the info made available
> via the Promise driver, I expect that I could get an initial
> libata host adaptor driver hacked together in short order.  After
> all, the Intel one is just 400 lines.  So unless you (or anyone
> else) have already started or would prefer to do the honors,
> I'll try to hack something together this evening,

Shoot, that would be great ;-)

For the future, libata will need a tad bit more queueing than is
currently supported.  But there is enough support in libata right now to
handle basic Promise support.

On a legal note, I would prefer that completely new drivers (i.e. no
copied code from other sources) be licensing in the same way as
libata.c.  Maintainer's preference in the end, of course, but I would
like to strongly encourage following libata.c's example ;-)

I have a TX2 board, too, so I can test your stuff as well.

	Jeff

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Erik Andersen]

On Tue Jul 22, 2003 at 04:56:29PM -0400, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> > I was reading over your libata driver yesterday.  Certainly a lot
> > cleaner than the cam stuff IMHO.  Given the info made available
> > via the Promise driver, I expect that I could get an initial
> > libata host adaptor driver hacked together in short order.  After
> > all, the Intel one is just 400 lines.  So unless you (or anyone
> > else) have already started or would prefer to do the honors,
> > I'll try to hack something together this evening,
> 
> Shoot, that would be great ;-)

K, I'll give it a try.

> On a legal note, I would prefer that completely new drivers (i.e. no
> copied code from other sources) be licensing in the same way as
> libata.c.  Maintainer's preference in the end, of course, but I would
> like to strongly encourage following libata.c's example ;-)

By that I assume you mean osl-1.1 like libata.c, rather than GPL
like ata_piix.c....  I expect I may be copying bits and pieces
from the Promise driver though.  Certainly I'd like to use as
much of their header files as seems practical.  So it may very
well need to stay GPL'd.  But I'll see what I can do.

> I have a TX2 board, too, so I can test your stuff as well.

Cool.  I have a TX2 as well.  Hope I don't fry it... :)

 -Erik

--
Erik B. Andersen             http://codepoet-consulting.com/
--This message was written using 73% post-consumer electrons--

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Jeff Garzik]

On Tue, Jul 22, 2003 at 03:39:26PM -0600, Erik Andersen wrote:
> By that I assume you mean osl-1.1 like libata.c, rather than GPL
> like ata_piix.c....

Yep :)


> I expect I may be copying bits and pieces
> from the Promise driver though.  Certainly I'd like to use as
> much of their header files as seems practical.  So it may very
> well need to stay GPL'd.  But I'll see what I can do.

Thanks.  If you are so motivated, I tend to think it can work without
the Promise headers.  For example, there is a distinct naming scheme in
libata, and also intentional use of enums rather than macros as
constants.

However, that said, you're doing the work, so I'll let you make the call :)

	Jeff

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Nick Urbanik]

Dear Erik and Jeff,

Did you make any progress here or were you discouraged by the resulting
flamewar?

Does this work in 2.4.x?  I have a Tyan Trinity i875P S5101 which I want to
use the parallel IDE ports on.  They are connected to a PDC20378.  Any
patches that you think would be reliable?  Or should I take the opportunity
to return this to the vendor and buy an Intel S845WD1-E instead?

Erik Andersen wrote:

> On Tue Jul 22, 2003 at 04:56:29PM -0400, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> > > I was reading over your libata driver yesterday.  Certainly a lot
> > > cleaner than the cam stuff IMHO.  Given the info made available
> > > via the Promise driver, I expect that I could get an initial
> > > libata host adaptor driver hacked together in short order.  After
> > > all, the Intel one is just 400 lines.  So unless you (or anyone
> > > else) have already started or would prefer to do the honors,
> > > I'll try to hack something together this evening,
> >
> > Shoot, that would be great ;-)
>
> K, I'll give it a try.
>
> > On a legal note, I would prefer that completely new drivers (i.e. no
> > copied code from other sources) be licensing in the same way as
> > libata.c.  Maintainer's preference in the end, of course, but I would
> > like to strongly encourage following libata.c's example ;-)
>
> By that I assume you mean osl-1.1 like libata.c, rather than GPL
> like ata_piix.c....  I expect I may be copying bits and pieces
> from the Promise driver though.  Certainly I'd like to use as
> much of their header files as seems practical.  So it may very
> well need to stay GPL'd.  But I'll see what I can do.
>
> > I have a TX2 board, too, so I can test your stuff as well.
>
> Cool.  I have a TX2 as well.  Hope I don't fry it... :)

--
Nick Urbanik   RHCE                               nicku(at)vtc.edu.hk
Dept. of Information & Communications Technology
Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education (Tsing Yi)
Tel:   (852) 2436 8576, (852) 2436 8713          Fax: (852) 2436 8526
PGP: 53 B6 6D 73 52 EE 1F EE EC F8 21 98 45 1C 23 7B     ID: 7529555D
GPG: 7FFA CDC7 5A77 0558 DC7A 790A 16DF EC5B BB9D 2C24   ID: BB9D2C24

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Jeff Garzik]

Nick Urbanik wrote:
> Dear Erik and Jeff,
> 
> Did you make any progress here or were you discouraged by the resulting
> flamewar?

hehe... flamewars rarely discourage me :)


> Does this work in 2.4.x?  I have a Tyan Trinity i875P S5101 which I want to
> use the parallel IDE ports on.  They are connected to a PDC20378.  Any
> patches that you think would be reliable?  Or should I take the opportunity
> to return this to the vendor and buy an Intel S845WD1-E instead?

Well, the GPL'd Promise driver that was posted will work.

For the future, I'm currently whipping the libata internals into shape 
so that Promise may be supported.  Promise hardware supports native 
command queueing, a lot like many SCSI adapters.

	Jeff

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Matthias Andree]

On Tue, 26 Aug 2003, Jeff Garzik wrote:

> For the future, I'm currently whipping the libata internals into shape 
> so that Promise may be supported.  Promise hardware supports native 
> command queueing, a lot like many SCSI adapters.

Is that true even for the older stuff such as a PDC20265?

It appears that FreeBSD 4-STABLE blacklists some older (before-TX2)
Promise chips because they apparently lock up when used with tagged
command queueing. I haven't yet looked at the ATAng driver merged into
FreeBSD 5-CURRENT.

FreeBSD 4-STABLE blacklist code in function ad_tagsupported():
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/src/sys/dev/ata/ata-disk.c?rev=1.60.2.24&content-type=text/x-cvsweb-markup&only_with_tag=RELENG_4

FreeBSD 5-CURRENT:
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/src/sys/dev/ata/

-- 
Matthias Andree

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Jeff Garzik]

Matthias Andree wrote:
> On Tue, 26 Aug 2003, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> 
> 
>>For the future, I'm currently whipping the libata internals into shape 
>>so that Promise may be supported.  Promise hardware supports native 
>>command queueing, a lot like many SCSI adapters.
> 
> 
> Is that true even for the older stuff such as a PDC20265?

PATA stuff will continue to be supported via drivers/ide, I'm only 
shooting for the newer SATA stuff.


> It appears that FreeBSD 4-STABLE blacklists some older (before-TX2)
> Promise chips because they apparently lock up when used with tagged
> command queueing. I haven't yet looked at the ATAng driver merged into
> FreeBSD 5-CURRENT.


ATA tagged command queueing is a bunch of crap.  :)  I'm not sure 
whether I want to implement it or not.

I was referring to _native_ command queueing.  ATA TCQ is something 
different.  ATA TCQ does not allow multiple outstanding scatter/gather 
tables to be sent to the host controller.   Native command queuing does.

	Jeff

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Jeff Garzik]

On Tue, Jul 22, 2003 at 01:07:05PM -0600, Erik Andersen wrote:
> libata host adaptor driver hacked together in short order.  After
> all, the Intel one is just 400 lines.  So unless you (or anyone
> else) have already started or would prefer to do the honors,
> I'll try to hack something together this evening,

Just another note, don't be afraid to turn "outb-heavy" functions into
hook, that get reimplemented in a Promise-specific manner.
ata_pci_init_one will also likely need a bit of work for Promise.

	Jeff

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Mark Watts]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1


> On Tue Jul 22, 2003 at 02:54:43PM -0400, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> > Bart, Alan, and I have been looking at this.  It uses the ancient CAM
> > model, that we don't really want to merge directly in the kernel.  It's
> > very close to the libata model, from the user perspective, so life is
> > good.
>
> I was reading over your libata driver yesterday.  Certainly a lot
> cleaner than the cam stuff IMHO.  Given the info made available
> via the Promise driver, I expect that I could get an initial
> libata host adaptor driver hacked together in short order.  After
> all, the Intel one is just 400 lines.  So unless you (or anyone
> else) have already started or would prefer to do the honors,
> I'll try to hack something together this evening,
>
>  -Erik


Oooh Oooh!!!!

I have an onboard Promise SATA chip - the 30276 (its on an MSI KT4A Ultra 
board), which gives me two SATA and one PATA ports (only use 2 at a time)...

If you want someone to test...  I can slap a PATA drive onto the PATA port, 
but I've been holding off getting any SATA drives until I can use them under 
linux, although I'm running out of drive space so this is quite timely... :)

Cheers,

Mark

- -- 
Mark Watts
Senior Systems Engineer
QinetiQ TIM
St Andrews Road, Malvern
GPG Public Key ID: 455420ED

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Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Andre Hedrick]

It is a HUGE POS!

The obfustication (sp) level is so high you wonder why.
It may be GPL, but only goes to prove a few points that everyone lost on
me in the past.

OEM drivers in ATA suck!  Their CAM blows goat.

Look at the crap in the stack when Marcelo was suckered into taking a
"Promise Patch".

I have already cut all ties with Promise so here is the deal.
I no longer have to count the number of fingers on my hand between hand
shakes.  IE no extras and not shortages.

I wish you well in your adventures in pain.


Andre Hedrick
LAD Storage Consulting Group

On Tue, 22 Jul 2003, Erik Andersen wrote:

> Some folk I've done some consulting work for bought a zillion
> Promise SATA cards.  They were able to convince Promise to
> release their SATA driver, which was formerly available only as 
> a binary only kernel module, under the terms of the GPL.
> 
> So <drum-roll, trumpets> here it is: the Promise SATA driver for
> the PDC20318, PDC20375, PDC20378, and PDC20618.  This driver is
> released as-is.  It is useful for the
> 
> 	Promise SATA150 TX4
> 	Promise SATA150 TX2plus
> 	Promise SATA 378
> 	Promise Ultra 618
> 
> cards.  As a temporary download location, the GPL'd driver can be
> obtained from http://www.busybox.net/pdc-ultra-1.00.0.10.tgz
> 
> Have fun!  And many thanks to Promise for contributing the driver
> for their cards!
> 
>  -Erik
> 
> --
> Erik B. Andersen             http://codepoet-consulting.com/
> --This message was written using 73% post-consumer electrons--
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/
> 

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Shawn]

Holy piss Andre, you've got to be one of the funnier kernel guys...

On Tue, 2003-07-22 at 20:59, Andre Hedrick wrote:
> It is a HUGE POS!
> 
> The obfustication (sp) level is so high you wonder why.
> It may be GPL, but only goes to prove a few points that everyone lost on
> me in the past.
> 
> OEM drivers in ATA suck!  Their CAM blows goat.
> 
> Look at the crap in the stack when Marcelo was suckered into taking a
> "Promise Patch".
> 
> I have already cut all ties with Promise so here is the deal.
> I no longer have to count the number of fingers on my hand between hand
> shakes.  IE no extras and not shortages.
> 
> I wish you well in your adventures in pain.
> 
> 
> Andre Hedrick
> LAD Storage Consulting Group
> 
> On Tue, 22 Jul 2003, Erik Andersen wrote:
> 
> > Some folk I've done some consulting work for bought a zillion
> > Promise SATA cards.  They were able to convince Promise to
> > release their SATA driver, which was formerly available only as 
> > a binary only kernel module, under the terms of the GPL.
> > 
> > So <drum-roll, trumpets> here it is: the Promise SATA driver for
> > the PDC20318, PDC20375, PDC20378, and PDC20618.  This driver is
> > released as-is.  It is useful for the
> > 
> > 	Promise SATA150 TX4
> > 	Promise SATA150 TX2plus
> > 	Promise SATA 378
> > 	Promise Ultra 618
> > 
> > cards.  As a temporary download location, the GPL'd driver can be
> > obtained from http://www.busybox.net/pdc-ultra-1.00.0.10.tgz
> > 
> > Have fun!  And many thanks to Promise for contributing the driver
> > for their cards!
> > 
> >  -Erik
> > 
> > --
> > Erik B. Andersen             http://codepoet-consulting.com/
> > --This message was written using 73% post-consumer electrons--
> > -
> > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
> > the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> > More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> > Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/
> > 
> 
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Alan Cox]

On Mer, 2003-07-23 at 02:59, Andre Hedrick wrote:
> I have already cut all ties with Promise so here is the deal.
> I no longer have to count the number of fingers on my hand between hand
> shakes.  IE no extras and not shortages.

Thats ok - now they are doing GPL drivers themselves they don't need
you any more.

Promise did a SCSI CAM driver because their hardware can queue commands
without TCQ - which drivers/ide can't cope with. Otherwise I'd just have
used the same type of changes the FreeBSD people did for 2037x.

Its also interesting because it has a hardware XOR engine.

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Andre Hedrick]

Alan,

It is also more interesting that it has sensitive touch spots where they
state there is no problem and no errata.  So I am glad to see you have
stepped up to replace me, and don't be surprized when you hard lock the
card and the system because the feature does not exist.

This is the stuff nobody talks about and the value I added and created,
good luck in finding the folks who deploy various asics and are willing to
discuss in confidence solutions against the variations.

Cheers,

Andre Hedrick
LAD Storage Consulting Group

On 23 Jul 2003, Alan Cox wrote:

> On Mer, 2003-07-23 at 02:59, Andre Hedrick wrote:
> > I have already cut all ties with Promise so here is the deal.
> > I no longer have to count the number of fingers on my hand between hand
> > shakes.  IE no extras and not shortages.
> 
> Thats ok - now they are doing GPL drivers themselves they don't need
> you any more.
> 
> Promise did a SCSI CAM driver because their hardware can queue commands
> without TCQ - which drivers/ide can't cope with. Otherwise I'd just have
> used the same type of changes the FreeBSD people did for 2037x.
> 
> Its also interesting because it has a hardware XOR engine.
> 

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Matthias Andree]

On Wed, 23 Jul 2003, Andre Hedrick wrote:

> This is the stuff nobody talks about and the value I added and created,
> good luck in finding the folks who deploy various asics and are willing to
> discuss in confidence solutions against the variations.

You mean stuff like FreeBSD blacklisting Promise chips before TX2 for
TCQ because it just locks up?

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Vojtech Pavlik]

On Wed, Jul 23, 2003 at 11:32:11AM +0100, Alan Cox wrote:
> On Mer, 2003-07-23 at 02:59, Andre Hedrick wrote:
> > I have already cut all ties with Promise so here is the deal.
> > I no longer have to count the number of fingers on my hand between hand
> > shakes.  IE no extras and not shortages.
> 
> Thats ok - now they are doing GPL drivers themselves they don't need
> you any more.
> 
> Promise did a SCSI CAM driver because their hardware can queue commands
> without TCQ - which drivers/ide can't cope with. Otherwise I'd just have
> used the same type of changes the FreeBSD people did for 2037x.
> 
> Its also interesting because it has a hardware XOR engine.

I don't think it does. The Promise SATA150 SX4 is the one that has the
XOR engine (and the PDC20621 chip) and that one is not supported by the
driver.

-- 
Vojtech Pavlik
SuSE Labs, SuSE CR

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Jeff Garzik]

On Wed, Aug 13, 2003 at 03:34:37PM +0200, Vojtech Pavlik wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 23, 2003 at 11:32:11AM +0100, Alan Cox wrote:
> > On Mer, 2003-07-23 at 02:59, Andre Hedrick wrote:
> > > I have already cut all ties with Promise so here is the deal.
> > > I no longer have to count the number of fingers on my hand between hand
> > > shakes.  IE no extras and not shortages.
> > 
> > Thats ok - now they are doing GPL drivers themselves they don't need
> > you any more.
> > 
> > Promise did a SCSI CAM driver because their hardware can queue commands
> > without TCQ - which drivers/ide can't cope with. Otherwise I'd just have
> > used the same type of changes the FreeBSD people did for 2037x.
> > 
> > Its also interesting because it has a hardware XOR engine.
> 
> I don't think it does. The Promise SATA150 SX4 is the one that has the
> XOR engine (and the PDC20621 chip) and that one is not supported by the
> driver.

hmm, the method of delivering ATA and XOR packets on Promise hardware
are very, very similar.  And pdc-ultra driver seems to have code to
deliver XOR packets...

	Jeff

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Andre Hedrick]

Jeff,

Can you drop me on this thread?
To quote Alan Cox, "... don't need you any more."

However when you do need me you (JG) know where to find me.
Anywho, how are those DMA-Timeouts lately?

Cheers,

--a

On Wed, 13 Aug 2003, Jeff Garzik wrote:

> On Wed, Aug 13, 2003 at 03:34:37PM +0200, Vojtech Pavlik wrote:
> > On Wed, Jul 23, 2003 at 11:32:11AM +0100, Alan Cox wrote:
> > > On Mer, 2003-07-23 at 02:59, Andre Hedrick wrote:
> > > > I have already cut all ties with Promise so here is the deal.
> > > > I no longer have to count the number of fingers on my hand between hand
> > > > shakes.  IE no extras and not shortages.
> > > 
> > > Thats ok - now they are doing GPL drivers themselves they don't need
> > > you any more.
> > > 
> > > Promise did a SCSI CAM driver because their hardware can queue commands
> > > without TCQ - which drivers/ide can't cope with. Otherwise I'd just have
> > > used the same type of changes the FreeBSD people did for 2037x.
> > > 
> > > Its also interesting because it has a hardware XOR engine.
> > 
> > I don't think it does. The Promise SATA150 SX4 is the one that has the
> > XOR engine (and the PDC20621 chip) and that one is not supported by the
> > driver.
> 
> hmm, the method of delivering ATA and XOR packets on Promise hardware
> are very, very similar.  And pdc-ultra driver seems to have code to
> deliver XOR packets...
> 
> 	Jeff
> 
> 
> 

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Milan Roubal]

Hi Erik,
great job!! I can report succes, my card
Promise SATA 150 TX2plus is now
working, tested with Seagate ST312002
and Western Digital WD1200JD
Tested with SuSE 8.1 SMP kernel
Thanx for good work
    Milan Roubal

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Erik Andersen" <andersen@codepoet.org>
To: "linux-kernel" <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2003 8:45 PM
Subject: Promise SATA driver GPL'd


> Some folk I've done some consulting work for bought a zillion
> Promise SATA cards.  They were able to convince Promise to
> release their SATA driver, which was formerly available only as
> a binary only kernel module, under the terms of the GPL.
>
> So <drum-roll, trumpets> here it is: the Promise SATA driver for
> the PDC20318, PDC20375, PDC20378, and PDC20618.  This driver is
> released as-is.  It is useful for the
>
> Promise SATA150 TX4
> Promise SATA150 TX2plus
> Promise SATA 378
> Promise Ultra 618
>
> cards.  As a temporary download location, the GPL'd driver can be
> obtained from http://www.busybox.net/pdc-ultra-1.00.0.10.tgz
>
> Have fun!  And many thanks to Promise for contributing the driver
> for their cards!
>
>  -Erik
>
> --
> Erik B. Andersen             http://codepoet-consulting.com/
> --This message was written using 73% post-consumer electrons--
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
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Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Adam J. Richter]

>> = Jeff Garzik
>  = Erik Andersen

>> On a legal note, I would prefer that completely new drivers (i.e. no
>> copied code from other sources) be licensing in the same way as
>> libata.c.  Maintainer's preference in the end, of course, but I would
>> like to strongly encourage following libata.c's example ;-)
>
>By that I assume you mean osl-1.1 like libata.c, rather than GPL
>like ata_piix.c....  [...]

	Just to clarify, the changes in
ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/jgarzik/patchkits/2.6/2.6.0-test1-libata1.patch.gz
appear to be covered by terms that amount of "your choice of osl-1.1
OR GPL-2."  It is the permission to use the code under the terms
of the GPL (or some other GPL compatible permissions) that allow
code to be linked into a program that contains GPL'ed code, like
the Linux kernel, assuming the Free Software Foundation's statements
that osl-1.1 is GPL-incompatible are correct
(http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html).  So, please remember
to keep "or GPLv2" provision or something similar to keep your
contribution GPL compatible.

	I'm glad to see more serial ATA support now that SATA
drives are becoming common, and I'm also looking forward to
giving libata a whirl.  Thank you both for your contributions.

Adam J. Richter     __     ______________   575 Oroville Road
adam@yggdrasil.com     \ /                  Miplitas, California 95035
+1 408 309-6081         | g g d r a s i l   United States of America
                         "Free Software For The Rest Of Us."

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Andre Hedrick]

To bad people do not see the lameness of GPL and the superior quality of
OSL.  The former forces the author to assign copyright to FSF to gain
legal services or write the check out of their own pocket.  The latter
provides a means to allow the author to feed the sharks and protect the
interest of the OSC.

GPL == Author pays legal costs regardless.
OSL == Provisions for legals to be recovered.

This is one of the reasons I quit publish GPL because the costs I have to
defend my works in the past are going to be heavy, and I am tired of
having stuff stolen.

So switching to OSL for the kernel as a whole is a no brainer.
Leaving it as GPL is a way to promote thieft.

Simple facts, and do not give a rip about arguements against OSL in favor
of GPL because they all are lose when it comes down to the issue of
defending the interest of the "author" and the OSC (open source community)

A vote for continuing GPL in the kernel is a promote and enable the
thieves on the world.  Narrow vision of a utopian stupidity without a
means to kick arse to defend the broader issues is ...

Adam I like you, and your politics and ideas of GPL suck. :-)

Cheers

Andre Hedrick
LAD Storage Consulting Group

On Tue, 22 Jul 2003, Adam J. Richter wrote:

> >> = Jeff Garzik
> >  = Erik Andersen
> 
> >> On a legal note, I would prefer that completely new drivers (i.e. no
> >> copied code from other sources) be licensing in the same way as
> >> libata.c.  Maintainer's preference in the end, of course, but I would
> >> like to strongly encourage following libata.c's example ;-)
> >
> >By that I assume you mean osl-1.1 like libata.c, rather than GPL
> >like ata_piix.c....  [...]
> 
> 	Just to clarify, the changes in
> ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/jgarzik/patchkits/2.6/2.6.0-test1-libata1.patch.gz
> appear to be covered by terms that amount of "your choice of osl-1.1
> OR GPL-2."  It is the permission to use the code under the terms
> of the GPL (or some other GPL compatible permissions) that allow
> code to be linked into a program that contains GPL'ed code, like
> the Linux kernel, assuming the Free Software Foundation's statements
> that osl-1.1 is GPL-incompatible are correct
> (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html).  So, please remember
> to keep "or GPLv2" provision or something similar to keep your
> contribution GPL compatible.
> 
> 	I'm glad to see more serial ATA support now that SATA
> drives are becoming common, and I'm also looking forward to
> giving libata a whirl.  Thank you both for your contributions.
> 
> Adam J. Richter     __     ______________   575 Oroville Road
> adam@yggdrasil.com     \ /                  Miplitas, California 95035
> +1 408 309-6081         | g g d r a s i l   United States of America
>                          "Free Software For The Rest Of Us."
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/
> 

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Adrian Bunk]

On Tue, Jul 22, 2003 at 10:28:26PM -0700, Andre Hedrick wrote:
>...
> A vote for continuing GPL in the kernel is a promote and enable the
> thieves on the world.  Narrow vision of a utopian stupidity without a
> means to kick arse to defend the broader issues is ...
>...

For the FSF it's easy to change the copyright in their software since 
they have copyright assignments for all software contributed.

There are _many_ people that have a copyright on parts of the Linux
kernel (the exact number might be different in different countries due
to different copyright laws). To change the copyright to anything other
than GPL v2 is practically impossible (even if a new version of the GPL
might fix the deficits you mentioned).

> Cheers
> 
> Andre Hedrick

cu
Adrian

-- 

       "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
        of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
       "Only a promise," Lao Er said.
                                       Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Matthias Andree]

On Wed, 23 Jul 2003, Adrian Bunk wrote:

> There are _many_ people that have a copyright on parts of the Linux
> kernel (the exact number might be different in different countries due
> to different copyright laws). To change the copyright to anything other
> than GPL v2 is practically impossible (even if a new version of the GPL
> might fix the deficits you mentioned).

How about the "or, at your option, any later version" clause in the GPL?

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Wichert Akkerman]

Previously Matthias Andree wrote:
> How about the "or, at your option, any later version" clause in the GPL?

Does everyone use that clause? I certainly don't.

Wichert.

-- 
Wichert Akkerman <wichert@wiggy.net>      It is simple to make things.
http://www.wiggy.net/                     It is hard to make things simple.

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Alan Cox]

On Mer, 2003-07-23 at 11:21, Wichert Akkerman wrote:
> Previously Matthias Andree wrote:
> > How about the "or, at your option, any later version" clause in the GPL?
> 
> Does everyone use that clause? I certainly don't.

It is a good idea to do so because otherwise any version can be used,
including the GPLv1 which is far weaker in some areas.

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Wichert Akkerman]

Previously Alan Cox wrote:
> It is a good idea to do so because otherwise any version can be used,
> including the GPLv1 which is far weaker in some areas.

I restrict it to version 2, since I have no idea what any version 2+N
will be.

Wichert.

-- 
Wichert Akkerman <wichert@wiggy.net>    It is simple to make things.
http://www.wiggy.net/                   It is hard to make things simple.

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Adrian Bunk]

On Wed, Jul 23, 2003 at 12:12:28PM +0200, Matthias Andree wrote:
> On Wed, 23 Jul 2003, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> 
> > There are _many_ people that have a copyright on parts of the Linux
> > kernel (the exact number might be different in different countries due
> > to different copyright laws). To change the copyright to anything other
> > than GPL v2 is practically impossible (even if a new version of the GPL
> > might fix the deficits you mentioned).
> 
> How about the "or, at your option, any later version" clause in the GPL?

This clause is not part of the GPL, it's only a suggestion on how to
copyright your code.

COPYING in the kernel sources includes an explict statement.

cu
Adrian

-- 

       "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
        of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
       "Only a promise," Lao Er said.
                                       Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Alan Cox]

On Mer, 2003-07-23 at 10:08, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> There are _many_ people that have a copyright on parts of the Linux
> kernel (the exact number might be different in different countries due
> to different copyright laws). To change the copyright to anything other
> than GPL v2 is practically impossible (even if a new version of the GPL
> might fix the deficits you mentioned).

v2 or later. The GPL only permits "any version" or "n or later".

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Adrian Bunk]

On Wed, Jul 23, 2003 at 11:29:10AM +0100, Alan Cox wrote:
> On Mer, 2003-07-23 at 10:08, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> > There are _many_ people that have a copyright on parts of the Linux
> > kernel (the exact number might be different in different countries due
> > to different copyright laws). To change the copyright to anything other
> > than GPL v2 is practically impossible (even if a new version of the GPL
> > might fix the deficits you mentioned).
> 
> v2 or later. The GPL only permits "any version" or "n or later".

Section 9 of the GPL says:

<--  snip  -->

The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions of
the General Public License from time to time.  Such new versions will be
similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to
address new problems or concerns.

Each version is given a distinguishing version number.  If the Program
specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any
later version", you have the option of following the terms and
conditions either of that version or of any later version published by
the Free Software Foundation.  If the Program does not specify a version
number of this License, you may choose any version ever published by the
Free Software Foundation.

<--  snip  -->

This implicitely says that if the version of the GPL is specified it's 
fixed.

AFAIR in 2.2 times Linus added the explicit version statement present in
COPYING.

cu
Adrian

-- 

       "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
        of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
       "Only a promise," Lao Er said.
                                       Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Alan Cox]

On Mer, 2003-07-23 at 11:51, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> > v2 or later. The GPL only permits "any version" or "n or later".

> This implicitely says that if the version of the GPL is specified it's 
> fixed.

It says you may use "this or any later version" or you may not specify.
It doesn't permit you to specify "this version alone". See the no
additional restrictions clause

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Adrian Bunk]

On Wed, Jul 23, 2003 at 12:43:52PM +0100, Alan Cox wrote:
> On Mer, 2003-07-23 at 11:51, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> > > v2 or later. The GPL only permits "any version" or "n or later".
> 
> > This implicitely says that if the version of the GPL is specified it's 
> > fixed.
> 
> It says you may use "this or any later version" or you may not specify.
> It doesn't permit you to specify "this version alone". See the no
> additional restrictions clause

"If the Program specifies a version number of this License which applies
to it and "any later version", you have the option of following the
terms and conditions either of that version or of any later version
published by the Free Software Foundation."

IANAL and I'm not a native English speaker.

>From my understanding, this implicitely says that if the Program 
specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and no 
"any later version", the version is fixed.

cu
Adrian

-- 

       "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
        of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
       "Only a promise," Lao Er said.
                                       Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Martin Diehl]

On 23 Jul 2003, Alan Cox wrote:

> On Mer, 2003-07-23 at 11:51, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> > > v2 or later. The GPL only permits "any version" or "n or later".
> 
> > This implicitely says that if the version of the GPL is specified it's 
> > fixed.
> 
> It says you may use "this or any later version" or you may not specify.
> It doesn't permit you to specify "this version alone". See the no
> additional restrictions clause

Sorry, IANAL of course, but IMHO this can't be true:

If the copyright holder puts a note on his code saying it is released 
under version 2 of the GPL then clearly neither the "or any later" nor the 
"not specified" cases apply. And I really fail to see how one could 
argue this were an additional restriction compared to GPL v2 literally!

Btw, you aren't saying linux-kernel would *not* come with a valid GPL, 
according to linux/COPYING, are you?

Martin

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Alan Cox]

On Mer, 2003-07-23 at 13:32, Martin Diehl wrote:
> If the copyright holder puts a note on his code saying it is released 
> under version 2 of the GPL then clearly neither the "or any later" nor the 
> "not specified" cases apply. And I really fail to see how one could 
> argue this were an additional restriction compared to GPL v2 literally!

If the copyright holder is not permitted to make such a restriction and
use the existing code then yes.

> Btw, you aren't saying linux-kernel would *not* come with a valid GPL, 
> according to linux/COPYING, are you?

The kernel is under GPL. I'm not sure what Linus scribblings make change
if anything. I understand why Linus did it "I dont want the FSF doing 
something silly" and also why the FSF did it "so we can fix the license".

Ultimately it makes little difference, Linus is perfectly entitled to
refuse to add anything that doesn't allow GPLv2 use to his kernel tree.

GPLv2 only effectively means your code becomes non-free if a flaw is
found in that GPL revision, and nobody can fix it for 70 years so its
an awkward trade off

I suspect this is getting offtopic 8)

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Andre Hedrick]

Alan,

The simple flaw is present and pointed out in my inital statement.

GPL provides no means to enable the author/copyright holder to defend and
recover legal fees occurred during discovery and litigation.

What I find odd in you politics which stinks, is you and redhat are
pumping OSL into new features which are not generally submitted to the
standard base.  I do not care, but it does look funny.

Interesting points how the issues of holding the kernel to GPLv2 may
actually be a restriction to invalidate the actually license.  This tends
to make it possible for more arguements against the author when pursuing
violations.

Just a nickel to stir the pot.

Andre Hedrick
LAD Storage Consulting Group

On 23 Jul 2003, Alan Cox wrote:

> On Mer, 2003-07-23 at 13:32, Martin Diehl wrote:
> > If the copyright holder puts a note on his code saying it is released 
> > under version 2 of the GPL then clearly neither the "or any later" nor the 
> > "not specified" cases apply. And I really fail to see how one could 
> > argue this were an additional restriction compared to GPL v2 literally!
> 
> If the copyright holder is not permitted to make such a restriction and
> use the existing code then yes.
> 
> > Btw, you aren't saying linux-kernel would *not* come with a valid GPL, 
> > according to linux/COPYING, are you?
> 
> The kernel is under GPL. I'm not sure what Linus scribblings make change
> if anything. I understand why Linus did it "I dont want the FSF doing 
> something silly" and also why the FSF did it "so we can fix the license".
> 
> Ultimately it makes little difference, Linus is perfectly entitled to
> refuse to add anything that doesn't allow GPLv2 use to his kernel tree.
> 
> GPLv2 only effectively means your code becomes non-free if a flaw is
> found in that GPL revision, and nobody can fix it for 70 years so its
> an awkward trade off
> 
> I suspect this is getting offtopic 8)
> 

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Alan Cox]

On Mer, 2003-07-23 at 20:08, Andre Hedrick wrote:
> GPL provides no means to enable the author/copyright holder to defend and
> recover legal fees occurred during discovery and litigation.

I don't think anyone says the GPL is a perfect license

> What I find odd in you politics which stinks, is you and redhat are
> pumping OSL into new features which are not generally submitted to the
> standard base.  I do not care, but it does look funny.

Red Hat is using OSL for various new projects based on the fact that
lawyers and legal scholars think that the OSL is the better license to
be using and that it achieves desired goals for free software. The
kernel however is GPL and its kind of hard to change that. Certainly Red
Hat can't do that. 

OSL wasn't around when the kernel began or my guess is Linus would have
gone that way to avoid political baggage.

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Andre Hedrick]

So to truly understand your statements, it is a possible position of
RedHat to use and promote OSL over GPL?  If this is the case, where you
have an creedence in previous statements about GPL?  What it comes down to
is make the changes in module.h to make OSL products an code functional
with GPL and to hell with FSF.

There ablitity to freely impose restriction of compatablity is a
restriction in itself.  Thus can have the effect if invalidating all the
licenses issued to date as it relates to the kernel.  In effect making the
RTU/TOS non existant.

This does seem to raise the concern and a call for possible action to
adopt the superior license which protects and promotes the ideas if the
OSC and not the sole interest of FSF.

Thanks for the easy win point in the debate.

Clearly OSL has been deemed by RH as the license preferred to promote,
"achieves desired goals for free software" clause below.

The migration is simple, all it takes is enough key people to convert
their license for RTU to OSL and have a determine ruling from
OpenSource.org that GPL is compatible to operate in an OSL environment but
does not receive the benefits of OSL legal status and protection to the
author.

Cheers,

Andre Hedrick
LAD Storage Consulting Group

On 23 Jul 2003, Alan Cox wrote:

> On Mer, 2003-07-23 at 20:08, Andre Hedrick wrote:
> > GPL provides no means to enable the author/copyright holder to defend and
> > recover legal fees occurred during discovery and litigation.
> 
> I don't think anyone says the GPL is a perfect license
> 
> > What I find odd in you politics which stinks, is you and redhat are
> > pumping OSL into new features which are not generally submitted to the
> > standard base.  I do not care, but it does look funny.
> 
> Red Hat is using OSL for various new projects based on the fact that
> lawyers and legal scholars think that the OSL is the better license to
> be using and that it achieves desired goals for free software. The
> kernel however is GPL and its kind of hard to change that. Certainly Red
> Hat can't do that. 
> 
> OSL wasn't around when the kernel began or my guess is Linus would have
> gone that way to avoid political baggage.
> 
> 

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Andre Hedrick]

Alan,

Last time I checked, if there is a bug, you submit a report, and it is
fixed or a solution to fix it is reviewed/accepted.

BUGREPORT: GPLv2 is broken and leaves the kernel in a near unprotected
state where authors/copyright holders must bare the cost to defend their
works.

FIX: Migration to OSL 1.1 with language to address compatiblity issues
with GPLvN operating in an OSL enviroment.

ACTION: Using the credits list as a principle test for initial contract
for disclosing terms of migration.

Come on, don't be a stick in the mud.  This is Linux, the definition of
doing it better and faster.

Cheers,

Andre Hedrick
LAD Storage Consulting Group

On 23 Jul 2003, Alan Cox wrote:

> On Mer, 2003-07-23 at 20:08, Andre Hedrick wrote:
> > GPL provides no means to enable the author/copyright holder to defend and
> > recover legal fees occurred during discovery and litigation.
> 
> I don't think anyone says the GPL is a perfect license
> 
> > What I find odd in you politics which stinks, is you and redhat are
> > pumping OSL into new features which are not generally submitted to the
> > standard base.  I do not care, but it does look funny.
> 
> Red Hat is using OSL for various new projects based on the fact that
> lawyers and legal scholars think that the OSL is the better license to
> be using and that it achieves desired goals for free software. The
> kernel however is GPL and its kind of hard to change that. Certainly Red
> Hat can't do that. 
> 
> OSL wasn't around when the kernel began or my guess is Linus would have
> gone that way to avoid political baggage.
> 
> 
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/
> 

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Roman Zippel]

Hi,

On Wed, 23 Jul 2003, Andre Hedrick wrote:

> GPL provides no means to enable the author/copyright holder to defend and
> recover legal fees occurred during discovery and litigation.

What you're forgetting is that the goal of the GPL is to promote freedom 
not prosecution. You don't do this via litigations, this way you only 
alienate everyone, but you don't win support for free software.
The free software movement is a social movement not a legal movement. In 
court you only reach short term effects, but if people vote with their 
wallet you can achieve a lot more profound results.

bye, Roman

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Andre Hedrick]

Roman,

Freedom comes from keeping all of it free.
Litigation is a means to prevent the blanket theift of today.
You cleary do not get it.

How do you plan to stop people from making changes to the kernel,
packaging a binary kernel and selling it?

Clearly these people do not give a crap about the lame license you
believe.  So who will defend the recovery of the content for the OSC?
Your answer is the author.
My answer is the author may not be able to afford.

But it is all about freedom, what freaking MORON stopped the freedom with
GPL_ONLY?

Again you have never had your work stolen and needed to recover it for the
OSC.  Any of your poor bastards want to fund my legal attack to take a few
companies to court for GPL violations?

I did not think so.


Andre Hedrick
LAD Storage Consulting Group

On Wed, 23 Jul 2003, Roman Zippel wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> On Wed, 23 Jul 2003, Andre Hedrick wrote:
> 
> > GPL provides no means to enable the author/copyright holder to defend and
> > recover legal fees occurred during discovery and litigation.
> 
> What you're forgetting is that the goal of the GPL is to promote freedom 
> not prosecution. You don't do this via litigations, this way you only 
> alienate everyone, but you don't win support for free software.
> The free software movement is a social movement not a legal movement. In 
> court you only reach short term effects, but if people vote with their 
> wallet you can achieve a lot more profound results.
> 
> bye, Roman
> 

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Roman Zippel]

Hi,

On Wed, 23 Jul 2003, Andre Hedrick wrote:

> Freedom comes from keeping all of it free.
> Litigation is a means to prevent the blanket theift of today.
> You cleary do not get it.

Litigation is not the only way, that's what you don't understand.

bye, Roman

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Andre Hedrick]

I forgot ... Hey ESR johnny get your guns we are going hunting to enforce
GPL cause litigation is not practical.

Bye,

Andre Hedrick
LAD Storage Consulting Group

On Thu, 24 Jul 2003, Roman Zippel wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> On Wed, 23 Jul 2003, Andre Hedrick wrote:
> 
> > Freedom comes from keeping all of it free.
> > Litigation is a means to prevent the blanket theift of today.
> > You cleary do not get it.
> 
> Litigation is not the only way, that's what you don't understand.
> 
> bye, Roman
> 

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Roman Zippel]

Hi,

On Wed, 23 Jul 2003, Andre Hedrick wrote:

> I forgot ... Hey ESR johnny get your guns we are going hunting to enforce
> GPL cause litigation is not practical.

As this is getting offtopic, I only strongly advise you to read up about 
social movements. (Yes, you can even find them in the american history.)

bye, Roman

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Andre Hedrick]

Roman:

I strongly believe you do not care about the OSC.
You have no desire to defend it.
You have ideas of utopia (sp) and gemme another hit off the bong.

I agree this thread is going no where and that nobody wants to ever
enforce the rule to insure the ideas remain.  So GPL violations for all,
no one will enforce or stop grand theift.

Lets all hold hands and sing and have good thoughts because thinking will
result in karma, and that will solve it all.

Bawhahaha!

Andre Hedrick
LAD Storage Consulting Group

On Thu, 24 Jul 2003, Roman Zippel wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> On Wed, 23 Jul 2003, Andre Hedrick wrote:
> 
> > I forgot ... Hey ESR johnny get your guns we are going hunting to enforce
> > GPL cause litigation is not practical.
> 
> As this is getting offtopic, I only strongly advise you to read up about 
> social movements. (Yes, you can even find them in the american history.)
> 
> bye, Roman
> 
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/
> 

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Roman Zippel]

Hi,

On Wed, 23 Jul 2003, Andre Hedrick wrote:

> You have ideas of utopia (sp) and gemme another hit off the bong.
> [..]
> Lets all hold hands and sing and have good thoughts because thinking will
> result in karma, and that will solve it all.

If this is the only thing you can come up with, when you think about 
social movements, I really feel sorry for you. :(

bye, Roman

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Andre Hedrick]

Don't "FEEL" cause I do not give a damn about what people "FEEL".
Don't "SHARE", cause it is usually followed by "FEELINGS".

I do have an interest in what people "think", and can use for logical
discussion.

The moment anyone goes to "because I feel" or "just because I", they can
no longer think.

If you want to "SHARE" something, how about a "doughnut", but keep your
feelings to yourself and express thoughts.  Thoughts on how to protect and
defend the ideas of the OSC are good.  Your compasion subjected "on" me
refusing to yield to your "feel good" crap, don't need it.  Return to
Sender.

Later

Andre Hedrick
LAD Storage Consulting Group

On Thu, 24 Jul 2003, Roman Zippel wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> On Wed, 23 Jul 2003, Andre Hedrick wrote:
> 
> > You have ideas of utopia (sp) and gemme another hit off the bong.
> > [..]
> > Lets all hold hands and sing and have good thoughts because thinking will
> > result in karma, and that will solve it all.
> 
> If this is the only thing you can come up with, when you think about 
> social movements, I really feel sorry for you. :(
> 
> bye, Roman
> 
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/
> 

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[dacin]

Andre Hedrick wrote:

>Don't "FEEL" cause I do not give a damn about what people "FEEL".
>Don't "SHARE", cause it is usually followed by "FEELINGS".
>
>I do have an interest in what people "think", and can use for logical
>discussion.
>
>The moment anyone goes to "because I feel" or "just because I", they can
>no longer think.
>
 And this is a thought in itself, umm would like to know, is there 
anything that can be expressed
 consciousely/un-consciousley without being a thought first. Guess my 
thought telling me that I am
 guessing that I am thinking about my thoughts driven by this thread for 
now :-)

>If you want to "SHARE" something, how about a "doughnut", but keep your
>feelings to yourself and express thoughts.  Thoughts on how to protect and
>defend the ideas of the OSC are good.  Your compasion subjected "on" me
>refusing to yield to your "feel good" crap, don't need it.  Return to
>Sender.
>
>  
>
 Hmm share or *satisfication* of the animal ego inside a breed known as 
human, who also act clumsy most
 of the times.


dacodecz
====================================================================================
watching the unseen.

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Andre Hedrick]

Just call me "John Galt"!

Thanks for the riddle it was grand!

Andre Hedrick
LAD Storage Consulting Group

On Thu, 24 Jul 2003, dacin wrote:

> Andre Hedrick wrote:
> 
> >Don't "FEEL" cause I do not give a damn about what people "FEEL".
> >Don't "SHARE", cause it is usually followed by "FEELINGS".
> >
> >I do have an interest in what people "think", and can use for logical
> >discussion.
> >
> >The moment anyone goes to "because I feel" or "just because I", they can
> >no longer think.
> >
>  And this is a thought in itself, umm would like to know, is there 
> anything that can be expressed
>  consciousely/un-consciousley without being a thought first. Guess my 
> thought telling me that I am
>  guessing that I am thinking about my thoughts driven by this thread for 
> now :-)
> 
> >If you want to "SHARE" something, how about a "doughnut", but keep your
> >feelings to yourself and express thoughts.  Thoughts on how to protect and
> >defend the ideas of the OSC are good.  Your compasion subjected "on" me
> >refusing to yield to your "feel good" crap, don't need it.  Return to
> >Sender.
> >
> >  
> >
>  Hmm share or *satisfication* of the animal ego inside a breed known as 
> human, who also act clumsy most
>  of the times.
> 
> 
> dacodecz
> ====================================================================================
> watching the unseen.
> 
> 
> 
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
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> 

RE: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[David Schwartz]

> Freedom comes from keeping all of it free.

	All code released publically is free. The more code you release, the more
freedom.

	You seem to think that how much freedom you have is based upon what
percentage of code is free as opposed to how much free code there is. Nobody
can reduce the amount of free code, so nobody can reduce your freedom.

	No matter how much code I write for which I don't give you the source, the
amount of code for which you do have the source is not reduced. The more
free code there is, the freer you are. The only thing that threatens your
freedom is if someone makes free code unfree. How do they do that?

	If I add something and don't make it free, that doesn't reduce your
freedom. It only fails to increase it.

> Litigation is a means to prevent the blanket theift of today.
> You cleary do not get it.

	The only thing a person can steal is what they themselves added. So no
theft takes any of your freedom away. You are still free, no matter how many
things that I produce I fail to give you.

> How do you plan to stop people from making changes to the kernel,
> packaging a binary kernel and selling it?

	Would I be any better off if they didn't make the changes in the first
place? How can someone not giving me access to something they produced make
me any less free than if those things didn't exist at all?

	Nobody can take your freedom away just by denying you something that they
produced.

	DS

RE: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Andre Hedrick]

David,

I needed the laugh, thanks.

Your one point about free becoming unfree is on task.
You should have been more brief, but I enjoyed it.

Andre Hedrick
LAD Storage Consulting Group

On Wed, 23 Jul 2003, David Schwartz wrote:

> 
> > Freedom comes from keeping all of it free.
> 
> 	All code released publically is free. The more code you release, the more
> freedom.
> 
> 	You seem to think that how much freedom you have is based upon what
> percentage of code is free as opposed to how much free code there is. Nobody
> can reduce the amount of free code, so nobody can reduce your freedom.
> 
> 	No matter how much code I write for which I don't give you the source, the
> amount of code for which you do have the source is not reduced. The more
> free code there is, the freer you are. The only thing that threatens your
> freedom is if someone makes free code unfree. How do they do that?
> 
> 	If I add something and don't make it free, that doesn't reduce your
> freedom. It only fails to increase it.
> 
> > Litigation is a means to prevent the blanket theift of today.
> > You cleary do not get it.
> 
> 	The only thing a person can steal is what they themselves added. So no
> theft takes any of your freedom away. You are still free, no matter how many
> things that I produce I fail to give you.
> 
> > How do you plan to stop people from making changes to the kernel,
> > packaging a binary kernel and selling it?
> 
> 	Would I be any better off if they didn't make the changes in the first
> place? How can someone not giving me access to something they produced make
> me any less free than if those things didn't exist at all?
> 
> 	Nobody can take your freedom away just by denying you something that they
> produced.
> 
> 	DS
> 
> 
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
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> Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/
> 

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Jesse Pollard]

On Wednesday 23 July 2003 19:21, David Schwartz wrote:
>
> 	No matter how much code I write for which I don't give you the source, the
> amount of code for which you do have the source is not reduced. The more
> free code there is, the freer you are. The only thing that threatens your
> freedom is if someone makes free code unfree. How do they do that?

By claiming they wrote it first, supplying enough lawyers and court fees to 
put you out of existance.

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Richard B. Johnson]

On Thu, 24 Jul 2003, Jesse Pollard wrote:

> On Wednesday 23 July 2003 19:21, David Schwartz wrote:
> >
> > 	No matter how much code I write for which I don't give you the source, the
> > amount of code for which you do have the source is not reduced. The more
> > free code there is, the freer you are. The only thing that threatens your
> > freedom is if someone makes free code unfree. How do they do that?
>
> By claiming they wrote it first, supplying enough lawyers and court fees to
> put you out of existance.
>

Or by just stealing it and selling it like "Flight Simulator" (1). Simple.
If you have enough lawyers on your staff, you can steal anything. Nobody
can touch you.

(1) Flight Simulator was first written under CP/M for a VT-50 terminal
my me. The source code as published by the PROGRAM EXCHANGE, my BBS
System. When PCs became commonplace, I converted it to run on a PC
and learned Intel x86 assembly in the process. The newer version(s)
were published on the PROGRAM EXCHANGE BBS that I ran for about 20
years. Then when "Turbo Pascal" became available, it was adapted to
interface with graphics and a Hercules graphics card. This work was
done by myself and others. In the process, I learned Pascal. Eventually
PCs had screen cards that did low-resolution graphics. Further refinements
were made for graphics on these. Several of my PROGRAM EXCHANGE
contributors wrote loadable area graphics and maps.

When Microsoft released their first version of "Flight Simulator" they
didn't even bother to change the name. Also, they apparently thought
that putting it on self-booting disks would make it difficult to
see what they copied. My flight dynamics kernel, that ran off the
timer-tick, was copied verbatim. This is the basic state-machine
that makes the software "fly". It had the dynamics of a Cessna 172,
complete with the spiral instability, and the long-mode oscillations.
It was difficult to fly because it flew like a real airplane, i.e.,
you reduce the power and the nose drops and the airplane accelerates.

This is not intuitive. Who would think (but a real pilot) that reducing
the power setting would make the speed increase?  Eventually Microsoft
"fixed" the flight dynamics, probably by writing their own. This made
the program a mere toy that anybody could fly.

So, they took a real simulator, with real flight dynamics and converted
it to a toy. In the process, they made millions of dollars. Sounds like
a good deal to me. All you need is lawyers.

Cheers,
Dick Johnson
Penguin : Linux version 2.4.20 on an i686 machine (797.90 BogoMips).
            Note 96.31% of all statistics are fiction.

RE: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[David Schwartz]

> On Wednesday 23 July 2003 19:21, David Schwartz wrote:

> > 	No matter how much code I write for which I don't give you
> > the source, the
> > amount of code for which you do have the source is not reduced. The more
> > free code there is, the freer you are. The only thing that
> > threatens your
> > freedom is if someone makes free code unfree. How do they do that?

> By claiming they wrote it first, supplying enough lawyers and
> court fees to
> put you out of existance.

	Of course, that is certainly true. Someone can attempt, through the legal
process, to stop you from using software you yourself wrote. Although I
doubt any company would ever be that evil. ;)

	That is, by the way, one advantage of taking a printout of your code and
mailing it to yourself in a sealed envelope or seeking a registered
copyright. It at least provides proof that you had the code on the date you
wrote it.

	There is one other benefit to a registered copyright on software that a
lawyer recently mentioned to me. Suppose you're a company and have employees
who write software. You really can't be 100% sure that the software they
provide to you isn't stolen from someplace (and you sure as heck can't be
sure someone can't claim it is).

	By seeking a registered copyright, you can argue that the registration
provides constructive notice to anyone else that you are claiming copyright
on that software. This *may* start the 3 year statue of limitations from the
date or registration rather than the date they found out you had software
they think is theirs.

	DS

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Andre Hedrick]

Roman,

Lets apply your wallet issue.

Business who use the products to solve a pain of theirs do not give a
thought to the legality of the software inside the box.  The builders of
the box offer some legal comforts to their customers.

So the fact these companies exist and exploit GPL and steal from the OSC,
this is okay.  Social ideas to promote lawlessness and allowing violations
to continue unchallenged is why companies do it.

So lets cheer Roman for the wisdom of letting it all be free and everyone
can take from the pie and never give back.

Later,

Andre Hedrick
LAD Storage Consulting Group

On Wed, 23 Jul 2003, Roman Zippel wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> On Wed, 23 Jul 2003, Andre Hedrick wrote:
> 
> > GPL provides no means to enable the author/copyright holder to defend and
> > recover legal fees occurred during discovery and litigation.
> 
> What you're forgetting is that the goal of the GPL is to promote freedom 
> not prosecution. You don't do this via litigations, this way you only 
> alienate everyone, but you don't win support for free software.
> The free software movement is a social movement not a legal movement. In 
> court you only reach short term effects, but if people vote with their 
> wallet you can achieve a lot more profound results.
> 
> bye, Roman
> 
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
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> 

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Larry McVoy]

On Wed, Jul 23, 2003 at 03:32:31PM -0700, Andre Hedrick wrote:
> So lets cheer Roman for the wisdom of letting it all be free and everyone
> can take from the pie and never give back.

Roman forgets that he doesn't speak for everyone, he makes statements like
"the GPL is all about ..." as if he was elected the leader of the free
software world and everyone agrees with him.  Some people people agree with
him but a lot of people don't.  Unfortunately, in these sorts of discussions,
the sane people tend to stay out of it and the fruitcakes come crawling out
of the woodwork to tell you that you are doing it wrong and that you just
don't get it.

Your procmail may set ye free, just use it.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy              lm at bitmover.com          http://www.bitmover.com/lm

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Roman Zippel]

Hi,

On Wed, 23 Jul 2003, Larry McVoy wrote:

> Roman forgets that he doesn't speak for everyone, he makes statements like
> "the GPL is all about ..." as if he was elected the leader of the free
> software world and everyone agrees with him.

I voiced my opinion like everyone else, where you get this idea is 
completely unclear to me.

>  Some people people agree with
> him but a lot of people don't.  Unfortunately, in these sorts of discussions,
> the sane people tend to stay out of it and the fruitcakes come crawling out
> of the woodwork to tell you that you are doing it wrong and that you just
> don't get it.

I can give this compliment back to you.

bye, Roman

Re: Promise SATA driver GPL'd

[Adam Sampson]

Andre Hedrick <andre@linux-ide.org> writes:

> To bad people do not see the lameness of GPL and the superior
> quality of OSL.

>From a not-a-lawyer viewpoint, there's one major thing that concerns
me about the OSL 1.1 (the text of which is available on
opensource.org):

  If You distribute copies of the Original Work or a Derivative Work,
  You must make a reasonable effort under the circumstances to obtain
  the express and volitional assent of recipients to the terms of this
  License.

This "click-wrap" requirement sounds like it would cause problems for
mirror sites; we'd have to either make our users accept that there
might be software licensed under the OSL somewhere on the site before
browsing any of it -- which is ridiculous, since the vast majority of
our mirrored software isn't under such a license -- or scan all
software we mirror for OSL licenses and require acceptance on a
per-file basis, which would be possible, but a reasonably large amount
of development work, and annoying both for users and for other sites
mirroring from us.

In particular, how are we meant to enforce this for an FTP or rsync
server? We can put "Downloading software under the terms of the OSL
requires acceptance of the terms; logging in to this server indicates
your acceptance of these terms" or something similar in our
message-of-the-day, but that doesn't seem like "expressing assent"
when we know full well that the majority of FTP users won't get shown
the MOTD.

Now, we could argue that just putting a notice in our terms and
conditions saying that we might have OSL-licensed software would be a
"reasonable effort", but there's no guarantee that the copyright owner
would consider this reasonable, and it certainly doesn't seem
compliant with the spirit of the license. (Essentially, this is the
same problem that the GPL has with defining a "derivative work"; the
OPL doesn't fix this problem either.) I also don't like the idea of
having to do this for every future license that appears that also
includes these terms.

Otherwise, the license looks like a nice idea. But this clause, if
it's intended to do what I think it is, would cause serious problems
for the large number of mirror sites out there who carry free
software.

(The other concerns I've seen voiced about this license are the
"External Deployment" section, which I'm quite happy with, and the
validity of the "Jurisdiction" and "Attorneys' Fees" sections, which
look like a nice idea that wouldn't actually be possible under some
jurisdictions -- have a look in the archives of debian-legal for some
more-informed discussion about this.)

-- 
Adam Sampson <azz@us-lot.org>                   <http://azz.us-lot.org/>