On 19/07/2007, Greg Kroah-Hartman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > From: Hans J. Koch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > Documentation for the UIO interface > ... > +<para>If you use UIO for your card's driver, here's what you get:</para> > + ... > +<listitem> > + <para>if you need to keep some parts of your driver closed source, > + you can do so without violating the GPL license on the kernel.</para> > +</listitem> > +</itemizedlist> > + ...
Do we really want this? In my oppinion we run the risk here of encouraging behaviour akin to what NVidia is doing - release a small kernel "glue" module and then keep the driver proper in a binary blob (in userspace, but still a binary blob). If the company goes out of business and take their driver source with them then users are left with a useless, un-debugable, un-maintainable binary blob. Don't we instead want to encourage/pressure people to release specs and/or source code for their hardware/drivers so open, modifiable drivers can be written? This opens the door for people to start writing closed drivers. In the long run that seems to me like a bad deal for our users. -- Jesper Juhl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Don't top-post http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/T/top-post.html Plain text mails only, please http://www.expita.com/nomime.html - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/