[libhid-discuss] MGE, HID Parser and GPL

[Tom Isaacson]

I just came across a previous discussion about this in 2007:
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lib.libhid.general/88/match=gpl

The suggestion then was to replace HID parser with the code from lsusb,
and "ask the guys who wrote that if we can use their code and license it
under the Artistic license". Did anyone contact them about this?

Tom Isaacson

-----Original Message-----
From: Charles Lepple [mailto:clepple at ghz.cc] 
Sent: Tuesday, August 25, 2009 3:00 PM
To: Tom Isaacson
Cc: libhid-discuss List; Arnaud Quette
Subject: Re: [libhid-discuss] MGE, HID Parser and GPL

On Aug 24, 2009, at 10:29 PM, Tom Isaacson wrote:

> I've been looking around for an open source library that provides USB
> HID support across Win32, Linux and OS X and libhid seems to fit the
> bill, but the GPL is a bit of a problem. I went to look at the MGE
> webpage for their HID Parser
> (http://www.mgeups.com/opensource/projects/hidparser.htm) and I get a
> message saying they were merged with another company and the website  
> is
> now www.apc.com. I can't find any reference on here to the HID  
> Parser or
> open source projects in general. Does this mean they still own it?

I am CCing Arnaud - it may be considered property of MGE Office  
Protection Systems, which is now part of Eaton.

> Is the GPL in place?

In any event, yes, the libhid code is all GPL'd.

> Assuming it is, what happened to the plans to rewrite the HID parser?
> Was any work done on this or is it wide open?

This effort has stalled, partly because the main consumer of the  
libhid project, Network UPS Tools, is GPL'd anyway, and happily using  
an older version of the HID parser code.

> On a different note, I originally found libhid on SourceForge but the
> CVS repository there doesn't contain any code. Is this a completely
> different project or was it an attempt to use a different repository?

Looks like a completely different project.