Uh I think I think that's way too mean to the email. From a random web form they got some technical information, a useful CC, and offer to have a call. Not bad at all!
Also, my basic theory about hardware problems is that the problem is less that they won't share the docs, and more that even the internal docs suck. When you essentially co-evolve devices and software through many revisions of each over many years, it's easy to get a complete mess that nobody understands.
(Of course, in this specific case, DisplayLink was new, so it's maybe less of a problem.)
I think they’re upset that the library was to be released under LGPL or whatever, even though they clearly went and read from it anyway when implementing their thing.
It seems they're pretty directly admitting to referring to the LGPL library while implementing theirs under a different license.
I wonder if they'll have no issues with people directly reading their code while happening to implement the same functionality with a closed license? Or a GPL-style one?
I'm surprised they admitted to it - it's hardly "Clean Room"....
Looking at the answer, I wouldn't call it unhelpful. They were planning to release a source for the library that would essentially implement all the needed data interfaces? That's more than helpful and at least they responded.
I tried contacting Nuvoton for example about their documentation for some of their super I/O chips which lack Linux support (they do document a bunch of their chips pretty well, but for some weird reason not all).
Not only I got no details, I literally didn't even get a response from them at all. So above case is hugely better.
"<mglock> DisplayLink TM seems to be very communactive.
<mglock> asked the for specs for their DL-120/DL-160 chips, and got a detailed answer withing 4 hours."
Go through the Linux Foundation, they have a process for accessing docs for drivers that vendors normally require NDAs with established businesses for, and won't offer random people.
This is definitely not true. It’s even sometimes possible to negotiate contract and NDA terms with Large Corporations for the specific purpose of producing open source code based on NDA specs.
Yeah it depends on their stance, some vendors just want an entity that can be bound by contract and they could theoretically sue if you leak their docs, and the Linux Foundation can serve that role.
Uh I think I think that's way too mean to the email. From a random web form they got some technical information, a useful CC, and offer to have a call. Not bad at all!
Also, my basic theory about hardware problems is that the problem is less that they won't share the docs, and more that even the internal docs suck. When you essentially co-evolve devices and software through many revisions of each over many years, it's easy to get a complete mess that nobody understands.
(Of course, in this specific case, DisplayLink was new, so it's maybe less of a problem.)
I wonder if they'll have no issues with people directly reading their code while happening to implement the same functionality with a closed license? Or a GPL-style one?
I'm surprised they admitted to it - it's hardly "Clean Room"....
Looking at the answer, I wouldn't call it unhelpful. They were planning to release a source for the library that would essentially implement all the needed data interfaces? That's more than helpful and at least they responded.
I tried contacting Nuvoton for example about their documentation for some of their super I/O chips which lack Linux support (they do document a bunch of their chips pretty well, but for some weird reason not all).
Not only I got no details, I literally didn't even get a response from them at all. So above case is hugely better.
"<mglock> DisplayLink TM seems to be very communactive. <mglock> asked the for specs for their DL-120/DL-160 chips, and got a detailed answer withing 4 hours."
Unless it's just some dumb formality. I can try Linux Foundation.
Source: been there, done that.
More info here: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/legal/nda