1 Dec
2013
1 Dec
'13
11:21 p.m.
Hi Alex,
Long time no speak.
On 2013-12-01 23:07, Alex Ionescu wrote:
If Nuno would be accurate, then Virtual Box is in
violation of the
DDK/WDK/LPL license, because they are distributing the source of their
vbox drivers which are based on DDK/WDK, and the vbox drivers run on
ReactOS.
Attention, similar case but not necessarily the same. For example, there
is the possibility of agreeing on different license terms with Microsoft
and this means that either Innotek, SUN or Oracle as owners of vbox in
past years could have obtained such agreement.
Also, license terms can vary over the years. Really necessary to see the
file and under which license terms they were used. I took a quick look
on the vbox web repository but didn't see any mentioning of the DDK at
files like https://www.virtualbox.org/browser/vbox/trunk/COPYING
I'm quite sure that SUN did a licensing compliance analysis to
VirtualBox when they acquired Innotek. Likely the same when Oracle
acquired SUN. It is possible that some details also fly under the radar,
we can't really know what is happening on their case without looking
deeper.
Would you please point me to the files that are under Microsoft
copyright on vbox? I can check which kind of license they have.
In fact, any company that uses the DDK/WDK/LPL license
would be sued if
their driver worked on ReactOS.
With several tones of gray and mist brought into this equation.
So the real issue is to make sure we are clear that
the drivers are
designed to work on Windows -- not on ReactOS.
It is ReactOS that is designed to run Windows drivers, not the other
way around. Obviously, including such drivers in our:
In this scenario I see as a good thing that you are "boxing" the
software where Microsoft is the IPR holder. I would nevertheless
recommend contacting their legal department.
With kind regards,
Nuno Brito
---
http://triplecheck.de