Sam Leffler releases HAL source [LWN.net]

Sam Leffler releases HAL source

Posted Dec 4, 2008 12:38 UTC (Thu) by mkflint (guest, #50223)
Parent article: Sam Leffler releases HAL source

I'd welcome the release of the code, but I'm a little saddened by the termination of their agreement. To say "OK, you can release the code, but now you're on your own" is quite an odd thing to do.

Are they supportive of open source code, or not? Or is it just me who's seeing mixed messages here?

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Sam Leffler releases HAL source

Posted Dec 4, 2008 17:18 UTC (Thu) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link]

I suspect that the real issue is money. Times are hard, companies are laying off staff, and they aren't in a position to pay engineers to work on the code.

So they are open-sourcing as well as dumping the code. Better than nothing, I guess.

Sam Leffler releases HAL source

Posted Dec 6, 2008 18:09 UTC (Sat) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link]

So they are open-sourcing as well as dumping the code.

I didn't see anything about dumping the code. The comment was about Atheros no longer giving Sam information about its products, and how that seems inconsistent with Atheros no longer keeping the source code closed.

But I think it's entirely consistent. Sam's special NDA access to the information for use in producing closed-source code, making him the only person who could develop it, is the opposite of open source.

If there's an inconsistency, it's that Atheros didn't release the information to the public at the same time as the code.