[Linux-fbdev-devel] Re: [forum] Re: Announcement: Modification to the base XFree86(TM) license.

[Egbert Eich]

Andrew C Aitchison writes:
 > As I remember it, the pertinent register information here was reverse 
 > engineered, so it is at least arguable that I'd be copying fbdev
 > intellectual property here if I'd extracted and reused it.
 > Perhaps I was wrong, but my understanding from my days in a software
 > house taught me that I'd be breaking copyright not just by lifting
 > lines of code, but also by reading the code and copying intellectual
 > property, including register information.
 > 
 > Besides there are only a few ways of writing code to twiddle a bit in
 > a register - I could easily duplicate a line of code while
 > reconstructing it from the register description, and it would be hard
 > to prove that I didn't just copy the line directly.
 > 
 > So, for one developer at least, the reason there has been no traffic
 > from fbdev to XFree86 is *directly* because of the licence issue.
 > 

if at all I would consider this register information the IP of the
hardware vendor not of the person who reversed engineered it.
Therefore that should not be a GPL issue and you are in the same
legal situation as the author of the GPLed code. 

Egbert.