> But Terry still wrong. There are is GPL and even more important there is
> additional Linus clause about possibility of binary drivers for Linux.
> So we have three choices for UDI drivers:
> 1. GNU GPL'ed UDI drivers or similar. Linux community are happy. [Some] Unix
> vendors are unhappy. [Some] hardware manufacturers are unhappy.
> 2. GNU LGPL'ed UDI drivers or similar. Linux community are content. Unix
> vendors are content. [Some] hardware manufacturers are unhappy.
> 3. Closed-Source UDI drivers. Linux community is unhappy. [Some] Unix
> verndors are content, some are unhappy. Hardware manufacturers are
> happy.
But you can release a UDI driver simultaneously under two
different licenses. So everyone can be happy.
I think it is in the hardware manufacturers interest to
release their UDI driver under the GPL or the XFree86
license because.
1) It costs them nothing. 2) It gets taken up in the
standard kernel, which reduces the work for them.
3) It means they can sell to non-x86 (and later non-Merced)
Linux users
4) Someone might use the UDI driver to make a native Linux
driver which is almost certain to have better
performance.
5) It makes them look good. 6) Non-Linux Non-mainstream
OSs can use it too, without having to bother the
hardware manufacturer for a precompiled version (if
they use GPL then this applies to individual users of
the other OS, if they use XFree86 licensing the driver
can go into the standard distribution of ARM-OpenBSD
or whatever.
7) People who insist on source for security reasons
or other reasons can use the hardware too.
8) People will send them bug fixes, which they can use for
non-source UDI platforms
9) Users who want to be able to file bug reports to Red Hat
etc. and the kernel list will be able to use their
hardware. I would imagine that the kernel developers
will not want to waste their time trying to debug
kernels that contain non-source UDI drivers.
If the hardware manufacturer doesn't see this then we
can recommend users not to buy from them like we do now.
I don't believe in the doomsday scenarios, on the contrary
I think this could usher in a new age, where drivers for
new hardware are available immediately instead of several
months later. It is often a frustrating experience
loading Linux on a brand new machine, because being
brand new it has new hardware, where the drivers are
untested or unavailable. Three months later it is easy
but people don't generally buy three month old machines.
That turnaround time could improve dramatically.
-- There's really no way to fix this, and still keep Perl pathologically eclectic-- Erik Corry erik@arbat.com Ceterum censeo, Microsoftem esse delendam!- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/