Re: Please open sysfs symbols to proprietary modules

[linux-os]

On Mon, 7 Feb 2005, jerome lacoste wrote:

> On Mon, 7 Feb 2005 11:55:31 -0500 (EST), linux-os <linux-os@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > On Mon, 7 Feb 2005, Chris Friesen wrote:
> >
> > > Lee Revell wrote:
> > > > On Wed, 2005-02-02 at 21:50 -0500, Kyle Moffett wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > It's not like somebody will have
> > > > > some innate commercial advantage over you because they have your
> > > > > driver source code.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > For a hardware vendor that's not a very compelling argument.  Especially
> > > > compared to what their IP lawyers are telling them.
> > > >
> > > > Got anything to back it up?
> > >
> > > I have a friend who works for a company that does reverse-engineering of ICs.
> > > Companies hire them to figure out how their competitor's chips work.  This is
> > > the real threat to hardware manufacturers, not publishing the chip specs.
> > >
> > > Having driver code gives you the interface to the device.  That can be
> > > reverse-engineered from watching bus traces or disassembling binary drivers
> > > (which is how many linux drivers were originally written). Companies have
> > > these kinds of resources.
> > >
> > > If you look at the big chip manufacturers (TI, Maxim, Analog Devices, etc.)
> > > they publish specs on everything.  It would be nice if others did the same.
> > >
> > > Chris
> >
> > I also have first-hand knowledge. Once there was a company called
> > Data Precision. Just point your favorite search-engine to that
> > name. They were a wholly owned subsidiary of Analogic. They
> > no longer exist. Data Precision would take a year or more
> > to develop a product. Six weeks after it was available on
> > the market, it would have been cloned by Pacific-rim companies
> > and dumped into the US at below US manufacturing cost.
> > [..]
>
> Shouldn't you be able to use legal action against companies that
> provide such clones (at least in your country)? You could maybe even
> sue the local resellers for participating to the fraud.
>
> J

Sure, but the window of opportunity necessary for sales
has been lost. That's how these thieves live. They start
a company with the secret backing of a mother-ship like
(name any Pacific rim company). They clone the US product.
Then they sell and ship. Once a distribution problem
exists, of any kind BTW, the company disappears.

The local resellers know only that a lower cost thingy,
that worked just as good as the US advertised box,
became available that allowed them to serve their
customers at a lower cost, while improving the
distributors profit. These are all altruistic.
There is no avenue for a lawsuit here.

FYI, in the 60s you could buy "transistor radios"
made in USA. They were made in Usa, Japan, and they
carried a "RCA Victrola" label. Everything was
designed to deceive, including the name of a city
that was incorporated solely to deceive Americans
at a time when Americans were being taught to
buy American products.

Cheers,
Dick Johnson
Penguin : Linux version 2.6.10 on an i686 machine (5537.79 BogoMips).
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