Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S265213AbUD3Sfg (ORCPT ); Fri, 30 Apr 2004 14:35:36 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S265218AbUD3Sff (ORCPT ); Fri, 30 Apr 2004 14:35:35 -0400 Received: from kinesis.swishmail.com ([209.10.110.86]:46856 "EHLO kinesis.swishmail.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S265213AbUD3SfM (ORCPT ); Fri, 30 Apr 2004 14:35:12 -0400 Message-ID: <40929D7E.5020403@techsource.com> Date: Fri, 30 Apr 2004 14:39:58 -0400 From: Timothy Miller MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Keith D Burgess Jr CC: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: [PATCH] Blacklist binary-only modules lying about their license References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 3241 Lines: 72 Keith D Burgess Jr wrote: > A couple days ago when I stumbled onto this discussion, I was prompted > to at least post an opinion from a user perspective. Having followed > along since then, I am beginning to wonder why I am so interested in the > Linux community in the first place. I have to admit, my chin is still on > the floor having read some of the personal attacks directed towards > Marc. Why, for some, has this become a personal issue and not a > technical one? I think Marc summed it up best (a few times) by saying: I never felt it was a personal issue. It's a technical problem, and it's a legal problem. No one faults Marc for what he wanted to do. We only fault him for the way he went about doing it. I'm ambivalent about the future impact of supporting companies who do not want to develop open-source drivers, but I DO support Marc's right to develop software which aids in using proprietary drivers under Linux for the sake of users who otherwise could not use their hardware. That is to say, there are certain philosophical aspects of developing such a wrapper that concern me, but I respect Marc's right to do it anyway. > >>> I repeat, the \0 is purely a technical workaround, done without any > > mischievous intent. > > Can't we respect this as his explanation and move on so these efforts > can be better directed towards improving the kernel? We respect this explanation, but this explanation has nothing to do with what we're complaining about, which is why this discussion continues. It's like being asked why you stubbed your classmate's toe and responding "because it's Thursday". Well, not THAT far off, but it demonstrates my point. We DO accept the fact that he didn't MEAN to break the law. It's just not a valid excuse! > Hell - Marc has > alot of work to-do in order for driverloader to be compatible with 4K > stacks ;) (BTW I have no idea how you can support Fedora but it is > appreciated.) There seems to be a couple posters here that understand > why this workaround was done and agree that there needs to be a better > way than seeing repeated "tainted" messages. In my opinion, this is the > perspective that should have been taken from the start. Or at least once > the list realized the intent and received Marc's appologies. And that's what's happening. It's Marc's insistence that he's innocent on the grounds that he didn't mean it that has so many people all riled up about it. Yes, we're "letting him off" (ie. not suing for past infractions) on the grounds that he didn't mean it, but we want him to understand why he shouldn't have done it and stop doing it. He doesn't seem to understand why it was wrong, and that bugs us. If Marc had just said, "OOPS! Sorry. That was a stupid error on my part. I'll fix it and never do it again," then this argument would never have happened. Mistakes happen all the time. We're just used to people who are able to learn from their mistakes. - 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/