On Tuesday 24 January 2006 07:04, Bill Unruh wrote: > On Mon, 23 Jan 2006, Lee Revell wrote: > > On Tue, 2006-01-24 at 03:03 +0100, Hemmann, Volker Armin wrote: > >> btw, where are suddenly all this 'we need a fix binary abi' people are > >> coming > >> from? > >> > >> Until ca 2 month ago they never spoke up, and suddenly in every forum > >> or mailing lists are popping up people, most of them posting for the > >> first time, demanding a fix ABI. > > > > It seems to have coincided with the "Linux in a binary world (a doomsday > > scenario)" thread on LKML around the same time, when some kernel > > developers made it clear that the days of them tolerating proprietary > > drivers are numbered. Many people seem to be afraid they will lose > > support for their favorite binary-driver hardware, and are trying to put > > pressure on the kernel community, rather than on the vendors where it > > belongs. > > This being a religious statement? Most users want a system that works. They > really do not care that much exactly why and how. And when people come out > and declare that they do not care about the users, but that their > principles come first, people not unnaturally get upset. At both, but > unfortunately or otherwise, the developers are more public.
no, the problem is, that a lot of people demand stupid things instead of thinking about the arguments made by the devs. binary drivers only hurt the development of linux in the long run. Nobody can debug a kernel with binary drivers. And there is a simple solution: get your drivers into the kernel, or make them completly userspace. Most users are ok with that, but some (and I suspect that most of them have a windows system full of pirated software) are crying, that the devs don't care. Which is a blatant lie. > > What are they going to do? Do a SCO and sue everyone around? Rewrite the > kernel so that proprietary drivers do not work (boy that will make them > popular)? Maybe force everyone to send any drivers to Linus for his > personal imprimature before they run? there is no need to rewrite the kernel to make binary drivers unusable. The normal course of development means that binary drivers need ongoing maintance or don't work at all. Look at all the patches nvidia posts in their forums. Or think about the fact, that via released some unichrome drivers some weeks ago - for some redhat kernels only. That is extrem user-unfriendly. I was so angry, I could have bite into my table - and I don't even use via. Because it is so wrong and harms every unichrome and not-redhat user. Oh, and because you mentioned SCO: scho had three years and have not shown anything, but set some interesstin precedence. If some dev suspects a company to incorporate GPL'ed code, he is not only able to sue (because of violation of copyright law) but demand wide access to the versin controll system. And that is not funny. btw, there have been a lot of violations. Corporations 'stealing' GPL'ed code. They got sued - they lost. Think about that. If you are making a binary only driver which incorporates or links into GPL'ed code you are on extremly thin ice. In that case I hope for you, that you have enough money for the lawyers (and your opponents lawyers if you get sued in Germany and loose). ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Do you grep through log files for problems? Stop! Download the new AJAX search engine that makes searching your log files as easy as surfing the web. DOWNLOAD SPLUNK! http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=103432&bid=230486&dat=121642 _______________________________________________ Alsa-user mailing list Alsa-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alsa-user
