Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Wed, 1 Jan 2003 21:49:26 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Wed, 1 Jan 2003 21:49:26 -0500 Received: from hibernia.jakma.org ([212.17.32.129]:18054 "EHLO hibernia.jakma.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Wed, 1 Jan 2003 21:49:24 -0500 Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 02:57:48 +0000 (GMT) From: Paul Jakma X-X-Sender: paul@fogarty.jakma.org To: Bill Huey cc: Rik van Riel , , , Subject: Re: Why is Nvidia given GPL'd code to use in closed source drivers? In-Reply-To: <20030102013736.GA2708@gnuppy.monkey.org> Message-ID: X-NSA: iraq saddam hammas hisballah rabin ayatollah korea vietnam revolt mustard gas MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2665 Lines: 72 On Wed, 1 Jan 2003, Bill Huey wrote: > On Thu, Jan 02, 2003 at 12:31:13AM +0000, Paul Jakma wrote: > > subsystem, the VFS, etc.. These systems are rather large bodies of > > code - without which the NVidia kernel driver could not work. > > Well, no, look at the "nm" dump of the object file. It's got a lot of > proprietary code indeed. that doesnt change the fact that this large body of NVidia specific code still must make use of large parts of linux code (through function calls). > It's a very practical solution to do it this way. yes, but the legalities of it are rather grey. > > How are the standard interfaces not covered by the GPL? > > All I saw where kernel header files include in the sources, nothing > more. indeed, and if that were the only issue it would be clear there is no issue. however, it must make use of linux code at runtime through function calls - as linux makes use of the NVidia proprietary code by calling the functions it provides. > I'd rather have the experts do it at NVidia, than a half completed > open source implementation that isn't terribly optimized. I run systems that use many GPL and fully open drivers that are quite well optimised. Some of these drivers were written by the vendor's "experts" and are distributed seperately - still GPL though. Sometimes one has a choice between drivers written by the vendor and drivers written by (non-expert???) "community" authors, and often one finds the vendor driver is the one that isn't terribly optimised. > Matrix multiplies, T&L, etc... none of this stuff is done in kernel (least it shouldnt be). Its done in user-space libraries. The XFree licence allows binary only modules, indeed XFree 4 was designed to make distribution of (possibly binary) modules as easy as possible. There isnt that much magic the NVidia kernel modules ought to be doing really. > communication between user and kernel space that provides this to > the OpenGL libraries are all exotic. I'm glad that nobody has to > deal with this stuff directly and that a vendor is willing to > provide support for it. aha.. yes, all that complicated hardware stuff - you dont really want those linux kernel amatuers writing that. > bill regards, -- Paul Jakma paul@clubi.ie paul@jakma.org Key ID: 64A2FF6A warning: do not ever send email to spam@dishone.st Fortune: The system will be down for 10 days for preventive maintenance. - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/