On Wed, Feb 14, 2007 at 01:42:25AM -0800, Greg KH wrote: > Well, as my goal is to have a GPL driver for everything, I don't see how > this can hurt :)
What's the point of making the driver GPL if only one person is has the documentation to know how to change it? Don't you think it's short sighted to focus on having ``a GPL driver for everything'' rather than ``a maintainable GPL driver for everything''? > Now others can have different goals, and that's great and fine. I'm not > saying you can't work on something if you wish to do so. Your actions harm efforts of people interested in open documentation. Hardware vendors will take your offer as a sign that every driver writer should be willing to sign NDAs. Adaptec has pulled this stunt in the past: FreeBSD developers agreed to sign NDAs for documentation, and so Adaptec decided it's acceptable to require all driver writers to do so. > But for you to try to tell me that I shouldn't work to achive my goal, > as it somehow conflicts with your goals, is pretty rude, don't you > think? If someone significant in the open source community offered to write binary-only Linux drivers for free because his goal was just to have ``a Linux driver for everything,'' wouldn't you ask that he reconsider a longer term goal? > There is no reason you can not extend the same kind of offer to > companies to help your project achieve success. And there's no reason Linux can't accept binary only drivers. I think it's great for Linux to support as many devices as possible, and I think your reaching out to vendors to help with driver writing is great as well. I only wish you wouldn't agree to terms that will keep the much needed documentation out of other developers' hands.
