The ongoing Philips webcam driver saga [LWN.net]

The ongoing Philips webcam driver saga

Posted Jun 2, 2005 21:41 UTC (Thu) by giraffedata (guest, #1954)
In reply to: The ongoing Philips webcam driver saga by eru
Parent article: The ongoing Philips webcam driver saga

Are unfounded accusations of copying a problem?

In today's story, we see that Alan Cox thought the accusations were reasonable, and I don't think he would find unfounded accusations reasonable.

Assuming it's technically possible to do the reverse engineering, I'll bet it's possible to arrive at the same set of numbers in such a way as to convince Alan and his ilk that no copying took place. And that's enough for the code to survive.

to post comments

The ongoing Philips webcam driver saga

Posted Jun 3, 2005 5:50 UTC (Fri) by eru (subscriber, #2753) [Link]

Are unfounded accusations of copying a problem?

They can be. It's called "FUD".

I hope you are right. But I think for that to happen more is needed than the finished code: The author of the clean-room version must be able to document how he independently arrived at the numbers.