Public Discussions > General Discussion
IBM DDK License Discussion
Roderick Klein:
--- Quote from: Valery Sedletski on July 31, 2018, 04:19:56 pm ---Yes, ArcaOS does good job with supporting OS/2 on modern hardware. Though, it is closed. It is even more closed than eComStation. They do copy protection by branding some binaries with user's own name. Neither IBM OS/2, nor eCS did not do such bad things. Newer drivers like DANIS506 or AHCI are linked with closed-source libraries (DRV16, DRV32 etc.), so that they are not fully open source while having been published under GNU GPL. And they now port drivers from FreeBSD, because BSD license allows them to not publish sources.
--- End quote ---
Well one thing that is easier about ArcaOS and putting in drivers the user data is that you no longer have to deal with license number you have to enter. Having worked (note I no longer work @Mensys) on eCS the license key was not working to bad. But for some people it was a not that easy to enter the 40 or so character registration key in the installer.
As for your statement that 16 and 32 bit driver library is closed source most likely duo to the DDK license.
In this file Drv16-20161010.zip (download here https://88watts.net/software.html) is a readme file:
"The Drv16 Kit is a derivative work of the IBM DDK. You must have a IBM"
DDK license to use this software.
Anyway for the the 32 bit and 16 bit driver they have a library and a presentation on how to write drivers:
http://www.warpstock.eu/images/2015/presentations/David_Azarewicz-WSE2015_Writing_Device_Drivers.pd
Anyway again it might be the age old problem this caused the orginally IBM DDK license.
Why Arca Noae did not provide the source code of certain libraires I do not know. But I have an idea, you must be aware of what the DDK states about publishing source code! This is also the reason why UNIAUD16.SYS @Netlabs can not be published publicly, because its covered the DDK license from IBM.
As for your last statement that Arca Noae picked FreeBSD so they do not have to make the source code public.
They had a different reason, a technicall on. When I worked with David Azarewicz at Mensys on eCS the Wireless NIC driver based on Linux sources ended up being dead. Why ? The Linux guys had made such many changes to the sources you could no longer recompile the sources. Aaaah:
https://www.arcanoae.com/roadmap/
"With the aid of the MultiMac framework, Arca Noae already provides support for some Intel, Nvidia, and Realtek chipsets based on Linux drivers. Changes in the Linux driver architecture have made maintaining these drivers and porting new drivers increasingly difficult. As was announced at Warpstock 2014, Arca Noae is working on an alternative new library for porting FreeBSD drivers to OS/2."
Roderick Klein
Martin Iturbide:
Hi
When we discuss in public the IBM DDK license I think it is important for people to check the license by them self and point to the "problematic paragraph" that is in incompatible with open source software licensing.
On the first part of the license, "1. Grant of License for the IBM Code", IBM Code is referred as the device driver sample source code that is included on the package/website, it says.
--- Quote ---In addition, IBM grants to you the non-exclusive, non-assignable, non-transferable right, under the applicable IBM copyrights, to reproduce and distribute, in object code form only, the IBM Code and/or the permitted derivative work thereof, but only in conjunction with and as part of the OS/2 Device Driver and only if you:
- a) do not make any statements to the effect or which imply that the OS/2 Device Driver is "certified" by IBM or that its performance is guaranteed by IBM and
- b) agree to indemnify, hold harmless and defend IBM and its subsidiaries and their suppliers from and against any and all claims, legal proceedings, liabilities, damages, costs and expenses, including attorney's fees, arising out of or in connection with your distribution of the IBM Code and/or the OS/2 Device Driver.
--- End quote ---
But it does not mean that the derivative work, like a driver someone made, has to be under the same IBM DDK license, it can be freeware, shareware or commercial software, as long as it is in "object code only". So it looks that is not mandatory for the author to release the "drv16 or drv32 binaries" also under the IBM DDK license, while you agree to the a) and b) conditions of the license.
Will the words "...but only in conjunction with and as part of the OS/2 Device Driver" means that if someone made a driver with the IBM DDK and it just works on ArcaOS or eComStation and not on OS/2 is breaking the license?
Regards
Martin Iturbide:
--- Quote from: Roderick Klein on August 01, 2018, 10:37:33 pm ---Why Arca Noae did not provide the source code of certain libraires I do not know. But I have an idea, you must be aware of what the DDK states about publishing source code! This is also the reason why UNIAUD16.SYS @Netlabs can not be published publicly, because its covered the DDK license from IBM.
--- End quote ---
I think I found a satisfactory solution for that problem.
Netlabs holds a close source repository for the Lar's USB driver driver for example. The repository is not open to the public, but since Netlabs is a collaborative organization, anybody that wants to collaborate on driver development can agree to the IBM DDK license and to any collaborative rules that Netlabs may have to develop it. It just like having a company agreeing to the IBM DDK and having their employees to work on a driver and the changes of the code will remain as company's property.
Any driver made with the IBM DDK can be turn into a "close source but collaborative project" under the umbrella of a collaborative organization like Netlabs. So, if you want to share your device driver development that came from IBM DDK you can do it, the IBM DDK license is not an excuse to not made a collaborative project.
So, everybody can donate their IBM DDK based driver source code changes to Netlabs for example. Arca Noae can do that if they want to.
Regards
Valery Sedletski:
2Roderick Klein:
> Well one thing that is easier about ArcaOS and putting in drivers the user data is that you no longer have to deal with license number you have to enter. Having worked (note I no longer work @Mensys) on eCS the license key was not working to bad. But for some people it was a not that easy to enter the 40 or so character registration key in the installer.
eCS license key can be picked up from the hard disk or flash stick, so you never need to enter it manually. Branding the user name in some binaries is needed solely for copy protection. Also, it seems that user name is encrypted. So, this is obviously not for the purpose of making user's life easy. It's needed because user will be shy to share his drivers with anybody else, because copy owner's name is can be seen easily during the boot.
> As for your statement that 16 and 32 bit driver library is closed source most likely duo to the DDK license.
In this file Drv16-20161010.zip (download here https://88watts.net/software.html) is a readme file:
> "The Drv16 Kit is a derivative work of the IBM DDK. You must have a IBM"
DDK license to use this software.
Anyway for the the 32 bit and 16 bit driver they have a library and a presentation on how to write drivers:
http://www.warpstock.eu/images/2015/presentations/David_Azarewicz-WSE2015_Writing_Device_Drivers.pd
> Anyway again it might be the age old problem this caused the orginally IBM DDK license.
DRV16 and DRV32 are _closed_source_. DANIS506 and AHCI are licensed as GPL/LGPL, so they cannot be combined with closed source parts. All modifications to GPL code should be published in source form. DDK license does not mean that the source code should be closed. IBM published DDK for developer's convenience. DDK license does not contain any restrictions. Moreover, IBM didn't put any license into DDK. So, it is published "as is", but without any restrictions. Yes, no license was put into DDK. There are some copyright notices in headers/sources, but IBM simply forgot to put a license there.
> As for your last statement that Arca Noae picked FreeBSD so they do not have to make the source code public.
They had a different reason, a technicall on. When I worked with David Azarewicz at Mensys on eCS the Wireless NIC driver based on Linux sources ended up being dead. Why ? The Linux guys had made such many changes to the sources you could no longer recompile the sources.
Yes, Linux driver sources change continuously together with Linux kernel version. They make changes into kernel interfaces constantly. So, e.g., UNIAUD32 sources must adapt to each Linux kernel version constantly. FreeBSD has much stable kernel interfaces. This is one of the reasons, but not the main one. The main reason is that BSD license allows to not publish the sources. This allows to make the OS/2 community dependent from them.
Valery Sedletski:
2Martin Iturbide: Where did you took this https://www.os2world.com/wiki/index.php/IBM_OS/2_Products_Licensing_Analysis#IBM_Device_Driver_Kit_-_2004 DDK license text? I mean, which file in the source tree it is? I cannot find it in my DDK distribution. As far as I know, IBM did not put any license into the DDK, only short copyright notices in some headers/sources.
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