Re: [dpdk-dev] [PATCH] ntnic: add PMD driver

[Finn Christensen <fc@napatech.com>]

> From: Stephen Hemminger [mailto:stephen@networkplumber.org]
> Sent: 26. august 2016 18:54
> To: Finn Christensen <fc@napatech.com>
> Cc: dev@dpdk.org
> Subject: Re: [dpdk-dev] [PATCH] ntnic: add PMD driver
>
> On Fri, 26 Aug 2016 13:44:01 +0000
> Finn Christensen <fc@napatech.com> wrote:
>
> > +The NTNIC poll mode driver library (**librte_pmd_ntnic**) implements
> > +support for **Napatech NIC** 40/50 Gbps adapters.
> > +This PMD is implemented as a pure software virtual device and must be
> > +created by using the EAL --vdev=parameter (parameters are explained i
> detail later).
> > +It runs on top of the Napatech NIC Driver Suite that must be
> > +installed and started.
>
> What is the license of this driver suite?

The driver suite is a closed-source driver, which is not free downloadable.

> IMHO the upstream DPDK shouldn't be a platform for non-free driver suites.

This is our first steps towards opensource, and our upcoming NIC is partly build on HW and SW from our Accelerator products. And since we already bypasses the kernel effectively in our driver, this first solution for a DPDK PMD driver, has been built on top of that software suite.
We like the idea of opensource, but we will need to do the transition stepwise, considering our NIC product.
We have seen large performance improvements (x4-x7 times with 64 byte packets compared to a std NIC in a phy-ovs-vm-ovs-phy setup utilizing a modified DPDK), and this is the main motivation to go forward and try to push our contribution to DPDK upstream. This is the first step of contributions that we want to make.
This DPDK PMD solution is not compileable unless you have our driver. We may need to make that possible, so that a free downloadable driver can be retrieved.

Once this is said, we thought that the DPDK was BSD licensed and I must admit that we have failed to see this limitation that you are mentioning. Is there another license or agreement text that we need to read?

Thanks for your repy!
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