PowerVR SGX Driver Code Gets Leaked

[Adarion]

You are spreading irrational fear, libv. ... (Americans?)

This is not irrational. Freedom developers keep a keen eye on licensing issues. You can't look at code that was not intended to be out there and write a driver. It is not legally possible. Maybe in some small Island state where nobody cares but a real distributor located in the Northern America or Europe or Japan, Australia, whatsnot cannot pack this driver into repositories. Have you forgotten what happened to all the libdvdcss stuff, patent encumbered code and so on?
So it is actually endangering driver development. I read through libvs blog post, yes it was long, but he doesn't write often. But when he does it seems to make a lot of sense in most cases for me. He is just trying to get serious development done, code that is in the end not just a driver that drives but also a law-proof piece of code.

And afair he is Belgian and also speaks a fair amount of German.

[Remdul]

Well obviously I did read his blog post (which I found very insightful) and I guessed from the last name libv wasn't an American. But that was my point; it seems we are being influenced far, far to much by US intellectual property laws that don't even reach this far (yet - see TPP shenanigans). But we allow OSS to be 'degraded' globally to appease hypothetical, aberrant (and inhuman) foreign laws. The expression 'fear, uncertainty, doubt' (FUD) comes to mind.

I can somewhat understand that some less ideological members of the OSS community may choose their job over their intellectual freedoms for practical reasons (income). But let's not confuse one's fear of losing his/her job (e.g. due to NDA dispute with employer) with the (mostly) imaginary threat mere 'tainted knowledge' poses to OSS. Rather, save your fears for the very real threat to consumer and human rights.

[libv]

Well obviously I did read his blog post (which I found very insightful) and I guessed from the last name libv wasn't an American. But that was my point; it seems we are being influenced far, far to much by US intellectual property laws that don't even reach this far (yet - see TPP shenanigans). But we allow OSS to be 'degraded' globally to appease hypothetical, aberrant (and inhuman) foreign laws. The expression 'fear, uncertainty, doubt' (FUD) comes to mind.

I can somewhat understand that some less ideological members of the OSS community may choose their job over their intellectual freedoms for practical reasons (income). But let's not confuse one's fear of losing his/her job (e.g. due to NDA dispute with employer) with the (mostly) imaginary threat mere 'tainted knowledge' poses to OSS. Rather, save your fears for the very real threat to consumer and human rights.

Are you trying to claim that i am not ideological enough? Are you trying to claim that i am trying to protect a job? If so you, you should try to do some research and back up those facts, and find out why I am not working for either Intel, AMD, ARM or broadcom.

Writing a graphics driver for yourself, on your own little island is fantastic. Really great. Except for those people who would like to freely use that code afterwards.

[IsacDaavid]

So to spell it out, IMG thinks their shitty closed source drivers are the most valuable commercial asset they have. That most likely means they are more hostile towards open sourcing their work than any other vendor. I'd recommend boycotting them at all costs. Such waste.

What ARM SoC would you recommend that doesn't come with PowerVR and is FOSS-friendly in the other aspects? I'm deeply considering Beaglebone because GPU aside, it passes my ethical standards.

...

So you are Luc Verhaegen the Lima developer. It all makes sense now.
Keep the great work.