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Writing a basic Linux device driver when you know nothing about Linux drivers

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374 points sbt567 | 5 comments | 22 Jun 25 10:29 UTC | HN request time: 0.663s | source
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ahartmetz ◴[25 Jun 25 20:09 UTC] No.44381377[source]▶
> I also thought I’d message the vendor and ask them if they could share any specifications or docs regarding their protocol. To my surprise, Nanoleaf tech support responded to me within 4 hours, with a full description of the protocol that’s used both by the Desk Dock as well as their RGB strips.

How cool is that? Too many vendors still think that they have valuable intellectual property in such relative trivialities. And that handing out the specs freely helps their competitors more than themselves.

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1. 2Gkashmiri ◴[26 Jun 25 02:19 UTC] No.44383663[source]▶
I have a solar inveter from a company, aparticular German brand. I wanted to use home assistant with it so I needed rs232 data.. tried the support and they asked me to sign an NDA.

Okay, cool. I did with a fake name, address and everything and they sent a file..

Turns out the file is available online.

Facepalm pro Max.

So my question is, what kind of "IP" is in a data sheet that needs protection ? And this isnt even some secret product but a generic solar product sold by millions.

Rs-232 protocol ? Really ?

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2. wiz21c ◴[26 Jun 25 06:53 UTC] No.44384869[source]▶
They have asked to the legal team who basically don't know shit about what us do and who will always take the most conservative approach possible. So you'll get either: no answer, a "NO" answer or an "NDA" answer.
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3. Mad_ad ◴[26 Jun 25 07:26 UTC] No.44385053[source]▶
Was it Alpha-ESS? they make it so stupidly hard to get your information outside of their smartphone app.
4. tialaramex ◴[26 Jun 25 11:12 UTC] No.44386205[source]▶
Yup. The default from lawyers will be "No" because why help? The correct way to use lawyers, either in-house counsel or a paid lawyer if you have a specific project is to tell them what you want to happen and then they figure out what the best legal course of action is to closest achieve that. Mundanely this might mean e.g "Fill out form X1234 and then send letters to this politician suggesting they support your X1234 application" but at the extreme it could mean closer to the situation in the UK where a ferry company illegally fired crews with zero notice, and their legal advice had clearly been "Worst case they put one of your executives in prison, probably not even that, but either way you replace union workers with people on slave wages and that means $$$".
5. ainiriand ◴[26 Jun 25 17:00 UTC] No.44389179[source]▶
Germans germaning!