Chris Lloyd writes:
 > 
 > Is the code in the Solaris source distribution from Sun no good for research?

Yes, it would. 

I just had the idea to look into the sources of the production kernel
of the linux system i am using to write this message (sometimes the
most obvious ideas come pretty late...).

Kernel version is 2.2.14 which is pretty old. For porting issues i
would look into the latest development sources.

There is a file cgfourteenfb.c which contains the following header:

   /* $Id: cgfourteenfb.c,v 1.4.2.1 1999/09/28 15:59:58 davem Exp $
    * cgfourteenfb.c: CGfourteen frame buffer driver
    *
    * Copyright (C) 1996,1998 Jakub Jelinek (jj@ultra.linux.cz)
    * Copyright (C) 1995 Miguel de Icaza (miguel@nuclecu.unam.mx)
    */
After looking into the code, it looks to me as if this driver supported only 
8 bit mode, but i'm not experienced enough to see this clearly.


There are also drivers for leo (with SS1 support!!!!) and tcx,
both apparently supporting 24 and 8 bit, and creator(3d), apparently
also in 24 bit mode.

So nothing about SUN copyright, i.e., GPL. This answers Volker's
question. 


Michael