I think your best bet is to contact the original authors of the code and ask for permission to simply use their code as a point of reference. If they say yes, ask for it in writing :-) If they say no, your probably better of going elsewhere for that info (the BSD umass code?). Even if it's legal to look ove rthe code and use it as a reference, you probably don't want to get on their bad side and risk anything. Adam On Tue, 13 Apr 2004, Siarzhuk Zharski wrote: > Good afternoon, gentlemen, > > I'm not sure, that this is a right place to ask such questions but... > :-) Well. I'm currently working on USB SCSI interface module for mass > storage devices. Some standard protocols are already implemented, some > are partially implemented. Anyway the design of this module allows to > simply expand it for supporting another protocols that use same commands > sets and can act as SCSI devices. > > I have seen in sources of the usb storage driver from Linux, that there > are many vendor-specific devices supported, that use non-standard > protocols. One from those specific devices is FREECOM external USB drive > that I have and going to support in my driver. I have looking for > alternative sources of information about FREECOM protocol but there are > no ones. People say that FREECOM staff is also not friendly to > third-part developers. Only Linux source code is available for me now. > > The Question: Can I use this source as reference information about > FREECOM protocol for writing my own implementation under BSD license? > No, I'm not going to copy-paste any info from original sources. Work > with USB in Linux and BeOS is different - no chance to re-use. Only > ideas. I need just information how to initialize device, read/write > data, handle errors etc. > > I'm afraid that such kind of using GPL-ed information can make my work > GPL-ed too. I cannot accept this because I hope that my work can be > useful in the future for implementing such mass-storages support in OBOS > and the GPL will be a problem in this case. > > What do you think? > > As variant I can support two versions of my module: basic with support > of only standard protocols under BSD license and "extended" with such > vendor-specific support under GPL. > > Thank you for your Attention. > > Kind Regards, > S.Zharski > > >