Re: [avr-chat] Re: Programmer for everyone!

[Graham Davies]

Clemens Koller wrote:

> What can be done *illegally* [to produce a programming / debugging
> interface with  JTAG ICE MkII / Dragon functionality]?
> Is reengineering debug interfaces illegal of a product I bought?!

IANAL, but it is my impression that *copying* a JTAG ICE MkII or AVR Dragon 
would be illegal under copyright law as Atmel retain all rights to the 
design by not expicitly giving them away.  I think what you have to do to be 
legal is double-blind reverse engineering.  One group disects, say, the AVR 
Dragon and writes down what it does without saying how it does it.  A second 
group who have not seen the AVR Dragon then independently implements that 
functionality.  This could get tricky because an important thing that the 
AVR Dragon does is load up its firmware from the AVR Studio distribution.

> Then, my idea was to extend i.e. the USBisp with a debugwire
> functionality (if leagal 8-) ...

In my opinion, this would be a worthy project if it could be done.

Graham.

P.S. When I previously wrote "... people only build their own ..." it would 
have been better if I'd written "... people only design their own from 
scratch ...".  I didn't mean to imply that people don't build programming 
interfaces themselves from existing designs.  They do.  My point was that 
there is no need to create another design unless it offers something new.