Re: Why is my copyright code in the linux kernel?

From: David Johnston
Date: Fri Mar 04 2011 - 00:29:50 EST


On 3/2/2011 1:52 PM, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
On 03/01/2011 03:54 PM, Ted Ts'o wrote:
On Wed, Mar 02, 2011 at 12:30:45AM +0100, richard -rw- weinberger wrote:
You will see a remarkable resemblance to parts of
linux-2.6.36.2/drivers/staging/rt2860/common/cmm_aes.c. E.G. the AES code,
please note, this is a staging driver.
It's not even the primary driver. Is there anything that this driver
provides that isn't provided by the upstream supported, mainline
rt2x00 project? I.e., can we just delete the staging driver?

If we are going to keep the staging driver for some reason, one of the
things that should be added to the TODO list would be delete its
driver-specific AES code and replace it with calls to the kernel's
generic AES code, which among other things, has the advantage that it
can take advantage of the AES-NI instructions provided on more modern
x86 CPU's.

I'd like to know who is an appropriate person to discuss this with.
the code is from ralink.
David, you might want to contact ralink directly, since it's likely
they are distributing that driver with your AES code in other places
besides just in the mainstream kernel sources. Even if we delete the
code in the staging tree, they might be distributing that driver still
via other means.

I think it's more fundamental than that. If ralink -- or anyone else --
submitted a plagiarized driver to the staging tree, we should remove it
immediately unless the copyright holder (David in this case) is willing
to allow us to retain it while things are sorted out.

And yes, David still needs to contact ralink about sorting out the
violation.

Finally, obviously, a proper Linux driver should use the AES facilities
in the kernel crypto core.

-hpa
Yes I am willing to allow you to retain it.
I guess, to be all legalese..
I herein permit you to use any 802.11 related C code taken from the www.deadhat.com website, in the linux kernel, and to publish it under the terms of version 2 of the GNU General Public License.

Yes I've emailed ralink and VIA. I hope they're nice people.

DJ



--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/