On 09/08/2007, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Wed, 08 Aug 2007 23:36:00 +0200, Jesper Juhl said: > > > 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. > > On the other hand, given that we've always said that closed-source stuff in > userspace is OK, the only way to not let *that* horse out of the barn is to > not merge UIO at all. > Exactely.
> If you have UIO in the kernel talking to stuff in userspace, you're going to > have to deal with closed-source stuff at the userspace end of the pipe. > Naturally. I just wanted to get people to think about whether or not this is something that we are willing to accept for device drivers - I guess it is since UIO is already merged - I just think it's a potential step back in terms of encouraging open source drivers for Linux, that's all. > Unless somebody can come up with some great feat of sophistry to avoid that? > I think the only way to avoid it is to not provide something like UIO. -- 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/
