[gentoo-dev] hsfmodem old ebuild

[Corvus Corax]

Hi, any one around who still has the ebuild for the old 6.x version
of the net-dialup/hsfmodem ebuild ?

I just upgraded my system, and emerge updated to the now unmasked 7.x version of this package

unfortunately the 7.x tree (as has been mentioned in several bugreports)
is commercial and the hardware driver is crippled until "activated" with a license key

while 6.x was working fine and unlimited with a less restrictive license

I still have the tar.bz2 file but Im missing the ebuild to downgrade again

Of course one might argue I could buy a license - but I never will:

Selling drivers for money to get hardware working you already bought
is a very dangerous business model that should in no way be supported.

A commercial driver is actually worse than no driver at all, because the
company selling the commercial product has all interest
(and contracts with the manufacturer) to keep there monopoly established
by keeping the specs secret and hold their "intellectual property" under
restrictions that would make any 3rd party driver illegal and impossible

Actually from there its a very close step to selling time-restricted licenses
that need monthly fees to work or something like this

Imagine - buy your hardware - then pay protection to the driver seller to be able to use it...
Its like what printer manufacturers are doing with the ink - but thats another story

As had been stated in one of the bugs - you should keep an old ebuild with the still free driver around

would be a shame if I had to switch to Microsoft Windows to use my modem and go online ...
(just kidding)

So could anyone of you devs reput an old ebuild into the portage tree?
Or at least point me to an archive where it could be found?


thnx


Corvus