Re: [NTLK] Hacked WiFi driver

On 1/7/07, Milan Votava <votava@mageo.cz> wrote:
>
> At 21:28 7.1.2007, you wrote:
> >Okay.
> >
> >Lets turn the discussion this way:
> >* We can all agree that Hiroshi *owns* his drivers.
>
> I will dispute this predicament. As I post earlier I don't believe
> Hiroshi has created the driver from the scratch. I do believe he has
> used some opensource (freebsd probably) driver he has based his work
> on. I'm no opensource expert but I think you can't simply take an
> opensource stuff and turn it in to a close/commercial product without
> making the final product to comply with the opensource license...

I'm not too sure that this is what Hiroshi did. I don't think anyone other
than Hiroshi could answer this other than if someone had the source code to
review and determine this...

My theory is: Mr. Hiroshi simply took an opensource driver from
> freebsd opensource project and turned it to a commercial product by a
> process of translating it to the newton platform. While it was a
> complex and difficult job it it doesn't mean the final product
> belongs to him. He had to release the source code to public at least...

Now if someone used open source code straight then I'd say yeah it should be
open source.
However he had to write New Newton Code for the Driver - now this is
definitely a question for someone who knows open source (legalease
speaking.)

I do recall that I searched for one of Hiroshi's older websites and he at
one point was giving up on the code and offered what he had to anyone
interested in developing it further. He didn't have time was my
understanding at that particular point in time. Now if anyone got that code
then someone could work with that. But this current code is considered
Shareware - Not Abandonware, as he personally stated that there will no
longer be new registrations offered. This leaves no questions what he was
doing. He didn't take it away, nor did he prevent anyone from using the
driver. The only limitation is no WEP.

After reading his site again I see no limit regarding the resale of my
license. It's common practice for shareware and commercial products to be
sold afterwards to another individual and the license would be transferred
to the new owner. I've recently done this with NSBasic which I purchased
from a licensed individual and had that transferred to me now. Thank you
NSBasic for your help in that matter. Some companies write specifically that
if you buy it that it can not be transferred. I can across this situation
recently also when I purchased a Newton with a piece of software which is no
longer being sold or developed for the Newton - however it is for the
PocketPC and Palm platforms still. I asked them in person and they clarified
that it is part of their licensing agreement that it CAN NOT be transferred
and a buyer is aware of this fact prior to purchase.

Now let me get back to my situation. I do recall asking Hiroshi about the
transfer of licenses. IIRC this was possible but I can't verify this at this
time as I can not find my original email... but looking at the situation and
common practice licenses should be transferable on the norm and even with
shareware software but of course there are those cases where the software
developer stipulates it as non-transferable...

In any case I'm asking for an offer again.
The highest offer will get this license which I will give up the right to
use on one Newton.
Since I did purchase two licenses it's fine with me as I will only in the
future setup one Newton Server via WiFi.
I don't plan to use WiFi on more Newtons than one...

-- 
God bless,
Sonny Hung
the Hung Family
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