Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261182AbTEMNDz (ORCPT ); Tue, 13 May 2003 09:03:55 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S261184AbTEMNDz (ORCPT ); Tue, 13 May 2003 09:03:55 -0400 Received: from mail.ithnet.com ([217.64.64.8]:16147 "HELO heather.ithnet.com") by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id S261182AbTEMNDy (ORCPT ); Tue, 13 May 2003 09:03:54 -0400 Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 15:16:30 +0200 From: Stephan von Krawczynski To: linux-kernel Cc: Linus Torvalds Subject: What exactly does "supports Linux" mean? Message-Id: <20030513151630.75ad4028.skraw@ithnet.com> Organization: ith Kommunikationstechnik GmbH X-Mailer: Sylpheed version 0.9.0pre1 (GTK+ 1.2.10; i686-pc-linux-gnu) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1602 Lines: 32 Dear all, I recently came across a very annoying question regarding Linux compatibility. It rises a fundamental question which should be discussed, IMHO. Facts are: I bought a card from some vendor, claiming "support for Linux". I tried to make it work in a configuration with a standard 2.4.20 kernel from kernel.org. The drivers (kernel modules) are binary-only. They did not load because of a version mismatch. Asking for versions loadable with standard kernels, I got the response that they only support kernels from Red Hat and SuSE, but no standard kernels. This leads to my simple question: how can one claim his product supports linux, if it does not work with a kernel.org kernel? Is there any paper or open statement from big L (hello btw ;-) available what you have to do to call yourself "supporting linux"? I know that the technical background is ridiculous, because it should very well be possible to recompile their drivers under stock 2.4.20, but it looks like they don't want to, simply. I am in fact a bit worried about this behaviour, because I take it as a first step to a general market split up already known to *nix. My general conclusion would be that something not working with a standard kernel cannot be called "supporting linux", no matter what distros ever are supported. You may call me purist... Any ideas? Regards, Stephan - 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/