whitpa
12-28-02, 08:25 PM
I'd like to voice my displeasure over a specific clause of the NVidia graphics driver license agreement which is causing me some grief, namely para 2 of 2.1.3:
"No Separation of Components. The SOFTWARE is licensed as a single product. Its component parts may not be separated for use on more than one computer, nor otherwise used separately from the other parts. "
What I would like to do is distribute select components of the NVIDIA_GLX-1.0-xxxx.tar.gz bundle for use in an embedded thin client system. The embedded system in question (diet-pc.sf.net) runs entirely in RAM using an initrd, and therefore cannot afford to host anything other than absolutely essential runtime components (in this case nvidia_drv.o and possibly libglx.so.1.0.xxxx and libGLcore.so.1.0.xxxx if GL is needed, plus of course the NVdriver/nvidia.o kernel module).
The reason I would like to do this is that the nvidia driver has many useful features that the standard XFree86 4.x nv driver doesn't, such as a fast and reliable YUV XVideo extension, actual *use* of DDC/EDID-probed data, OpenGL, etc.
Although I would otherwise be allowed to do this under the Linux exception clause 2.1.2, the above 2.1.3 clause not only forbids me from doing this, but also forbids any of my clients from following any DIY HowTo I might write.
This seems to me to be counter to the spirit in which the Linux exception clause was written. I have no intention of altering any binaries or omitting a copy of the Nvidia license agreement from my distribution. So where's the harm?
"No Separation of Components. The SOFTWARE is licensed as a single product. Its component parts may not be separated for use on more than one computer, nor otherwise used separately from the other parts. "
What I would like to do is distribute select components of the NVIDIA_GLX-1.0-xxxx.tar.gz bundle for use in an embedded thin client system. The embedded system in question (diet-pc.sf.net) runs entirely in RAM using an initrd, and therefore cannot afford to host anything other than absolutely essential runtime components (in this case nvidia_drv.o and possibly libglx.so.1.0.xxxx and libGLcore.so.1.0.xxxx if GL is needed, plus of course the NVdriver/nvidia.o kernel module).
The reason I would like to do this is that the nvidia driver has many useful features that the standard XFree86 4.x nv driver doesn't, such as a fast and reliable YUV XVideo extension, actual *use* of DDC/EDID-probed data, OpenGL, etc.
Although I would otherwise be allowed to do this under the Linux exception clause 2.1.2, the above 2.1.3 clause not only forbids me from doing this, but also forbids any of my clients from following any DIY HowTo I might write.
This seems to me to be counter to the spirit in which the Linux exception clause was written. I have no intention of altering any binaries or omitting a copy of the Nvidia license agreement from my distribution. So where's the harm?