[alsa-devel] Creative Labs XFi drivers.
Creative Labs has released a proprietary driver base for their XFi cards. I downloaded it because it claims to have compatibility with alsa. In fact, it requires alsa include files to be able to compile. I haven't looked at the source yet (this information is all in the Readme.txt in the main download) and probably won't (especially since I don't own a Creative Labs XFi card).
What I don't understand, is are they allowed to use our code to build their drivers? They use alsa core modules to interoperate (from what I can tell in the Readme.txt). Also, this line in the License.txt is especially troubling:
In the event that the Software includes Linux code or drivers, then, unless expressly stated to the contrary, such Linux code and drivers are proprietary to Creative and all rights therein are reserved.
I'm deleting all but the big tarball I downloaded. I'll delete it later.
Tobin Davis wrote:
What I don't understand, is are they allowed to use our code to build their drivers? They use alsa core modules to interoperate (from what I can tell in the Readme.txt).
The GPL disallows distributing binaries of GPL-derived code. Creative doesn't do that; AFAICS all files interfacing with ALSA are distributed as source code.
Also, this line in the License.txt is especially troubling:
In the event that the Software includes Linux code or drivers, then, unless expressly stated to the contrary, such Linux code and drivers are proprietary to Creative and all rights therein are reserved.
What's troubling about that?
All code in the package is Creative's, and not licensed under the GPL. If they'd include some GPL code by somebody else, it would be expressly stated as such.
Regards, Clemens
At Thu, 27 Sep 2007 09:11:12 +0200, Clemens Ladisch wrote:
Tobin Davis wrote:
What I don't understand, is are they allowed to use our code to build their drivers? They use alsa core modules to interoperate (from what I can tell in the Readme.txt).
The GPL disallows distributing binaries of GPL-derived code. Creative doesn't do that; AFAICS all files interfacing with ALSA are distributed as source code.
We may change EXPORT_SYMBOL to EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL. But, it's again the same game. You can write a GPL driver that simply bridges the GPL-exported interface to others.
BTW, I heard some of X-Fi being HD-audio. Is it true?
Takashi
Takashi Iwai wrote:
We may change EXPORT_SYMBOL to EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL. But, it's again the same game. You can write a GPL driver that simply bridges the GPL-exported interface to others.
BTW, I heard some of X-Fi being HD-audio. Is it true?
What do you mean? HD-audio. Some of the X-Fi range are just rebadged SB-Live-24bit, so work with the snd-ca0106 driver, that outputs 24bit audio, so might be considered HD-audio, but not using the intel hd standard.
James
At Wed, 10 Oct 2007 16:59:23 +0100, James Courtier-Dutton wrote:
Takashi Iwai wrote:
We may change EXPORT_SYMBOL to EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL. But, it's again the same game. You can write a GPL driver that simply bridges the GPL-exported interface to others.
BTW, I heard some of X-Fi being HD-audio. Is it true?
What do you mean? HD-audio.
That's my question too. I also don't know what exactly it was meant.
Some of the X-Fi range are just rebadged SB-Live-24bit, so work with the snd-ca0106 driver, that outputs 24bit audio, so might be considered HD-audio, but not using the intel hd standard.
Yeah, that sounds like that. Thanks for information.
Takashi
participants (4)
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Clemens Ladisch -
James Courtier-Dutton -
Takashi Iwai -
Tobin Davis