From: Andreas Zwirtes <zwirtes_at_gmx.de>
Date: Wed, 09 Oct 2002 22:16:32 +0200

I already thougt, that the copyright issue would be the first for you to
hop on. Thank you for this, because I just wanted to make clear, that
this is not a very easy decision for me.

Let me explain:
I have developed this protocol for a customer, who paid lots of money
for it. Basically, he didn't only pay for the protocol, but he
definitely did for implementing it on PC and - later on - porting it to
microcontollers. This customer won't be very happy, if I'd release the
protocol to the public. Although, the contract only included the
implementation. From that point of view I am totally free to do whatever
I want with the protocol. This has been intentional, because I knew that
I'd want to reuse it. And my customer also is aware of this. As I know
him, he'll understand the reason.

So, yes, I love rockbox and want to do whatever is possible for me to
contribute. I've decided to release the protocol, so that there are no
copyright issues. Maybe it's not even a problem for me, because I want
to change some things and that makes it a new protocol. In that way I
can do both - give the code out and resell my first one. Just give me
some time to think some things over and write it down. Well, I just
won't give out any source code, but I think that's ok because the
protocol changes and the rockbox software works a bit different than my
old one. Also it does not have to be that sophisticated as it is now.
Most of the features we won't use, so I'll leave them out. That'll give
the whole thing an easy start and I hope at least somebody will be happy
with it.

Technical issues will follow in a seperate mail.

Andreas
[radhard]
Received on 2002-10-09