I agree. The only way I can see that this wouldn't be an issue would be
in the case of something like the ip telephony dissector - where it
isn't the protocol itself that's a problem, it's the use of external
libraries with incompatible licenses. For that case, the license change
seems fairly reasonable.
For the "protocol is protected by a patent so you can't even analyze
it", which seems like complete nonsense to me, it doesn't seem like a
legitimate reason to change the license.
I believe that if the license is changed, and someone comes out with a
binary-only dissector for a useful protocol, then people will very
likely use the binary dissector to help write a non-closed
plugin/dissector. This is no different than examining an oracle session
trace alongside a dump of the capture as an aid to improving the oracle
dissector.
-- Nathan
------------------------------------------------------------
Nathan Neulinger EMail: nneul@xxxxxxx
University of Missouri - Rolla Phone: (573) 341-4841
Computing Services Fax: (573) 341-4216
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Christopher K. St. John [mailto:cks@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Thursday, November 21, 2002 10:26 AM
> To: ddutt@xxxxxxxxx
> Cc: mwood@xxxxxxxxx; ethereal-dev@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [Ethereal-dev] Request: Change the allowed
> license of plugins
>
>
> On Thu, 21 Nov 2002, ddutt@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
> > > I suspect that there is some confusion of ideas here.
> > >
> > > (Preface: this is not legal advice. If you want legal
> advice, hire a
> > > lawyer.)
> > This is the primary reason why I think that in the end,
> rather than debate
> > legal battles, if we can agree that modifying the license
> for the plugins is
> > OK, we can all get back to doing actual work.
> >
>
> Modifying the licence makes your life easier, but other people's
> life considerably harder. Besides the issues surrounding contacting
> all the contributors about the license change, there's also the
> implicit threat that Cisco considers the existing plugins to be
> a violation of their patent. Thats the only way it makes sense, right?
> Either writing a plugin for a Cisco protocol is a controlled use of
> the patent, or it's not. If it's not, then Cisco's request doesn't
> make sense. If it is, then changing the licence is an admission that
> only Cisco (and Cisco patent licensees) are allowed to write protocol
> analyzers for Cisco protocols.
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