[nycbug-talk] Linux driver violates BSD license

[Miles Nordin]

>>>>> "rl" == Ray Lai <nycbug at cyth.net> writes:

    rl> http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20070829001634

    rl> Here is a snippet of the relicensing diff:

yeah but just ten lines down on the same web page it says ``may also
be distributed under the GPLv2.''  So, they are right.  They _can_
just strip the BSD license right out of it.  Good for Reyk in inviting
them to.  If they were obligated to keep both licenses forever, it
wouldn't be ``dual'' licensed.  It would be licensed under a third
license that isn't internally consistent.

Anyway, is that for real?  madwifi will use Reyk's HAL?  That's
fantastic news.

Too bad for Felix (the OpenWRT guy), though, and anyone else who
signed Atheros's NDA, who will probably be forbidden from working on
the new madwifi for a few years.  (I'm just speculating again, though.
sorry, I should stop.)

    rl> Just because ^H is bound to the Help key in emacs doesn't mean
    rl> it is wrong.

This, I do not understand.

That not everyone uses emacs, nor should be forced to use emacs, I do
completely understand.  That some competent people with opinions of
merit hate emacs, I also understand.  That it's ``not wrong'' for a
Unix terminal to work improperly with emacs, I cannot accept.  This is
a very old Unix program that is absolutely expected to be installed
and working on every decent Unix shell.  Even a Unix sysadmin who
hates emacs understands his absolute obligation to install it on a
shell he offers to others, though he may leave it off a shell meant
exclusively for his own use.

If the delivered terminal doesn't work with emacs, then emacs users
will have to fix it---hence, it's broken.

It is normal for a decent Unix shell to be broken in a variety of ways
that you have to fix yourself (or ask some other user how to fix).
But to say it's not broken is completely ridiculous.  It _is_ broken,
and I _have_ fixed it myself, numerous times, because I use emacs, and
it *does not work* until I *fix* the *broken* backspace key period (.)

and anyway, if you want to be pedantic, I have two actual vt220's, and
when you press that key they send ^?.  You don't get to choose---they
just send ^? no matter what.  so don't come telling me your vt220
emulator that sends ^H isn't broken because the vt220 emulator in
Procomm Plus for DOS sent ^H, too, and yours is like that one, and
some devices designed to work with Procomm Plus for DOS expect ^H so
it is just a matter of preference.  I have a vt220.  Mine isn't an
emulator.  It's a vt220.  It's designed to work with Unix, and Unix is
designed to work with it.  It sends ^?.  The emacs issue is
overwhelmingly the most important one, but even if it weren't for
that, anyone who sends or expects ^H---I don't care if they're
Microsoft or SGI or FreeBSD or Procomm Plus---is _wrong_.  They were
wrong in 1983 when my vt220 was manufactured, wrong yesterday, and
will be wrong tomorrow, until they fix it, or they ship it broken and
I fix it for them.
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