Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1030313AbVLGHEI (ORCPT ); Wed, 7 Dec 2005 02:04:08 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1030324AbVLGHEI (ORCPT ); Wed, 7 Dec 2005 02:04:08 -0500 Received: from pentafluge.infradead.org ([213.146.154.40]:924 "EHLO pentafluge.infradead.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1030313AbVLGHEH (ORCPT ); Wed, 7 Dec 2005 02:04:07 -0500 Subject: Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario From: Arjan van de Ven To: Luke-Jr Cc: Linux Kernel Mailing List In-Reply-To: <200512070702.38437.luke-jr@utopios.org> References: <1133779953.9356.9.camel@laptopd505.fenrus.org> <4394ECA7.80808@didntduck.org> <1133880581.4836.37.camel@laptopd505.fenrus.org> <200512070702.38437.luke-jr@utopios.org> Content-Type: text/plain Date: Wed, 07 Dec 2005 08:03:52 +0100 Message-Id: <1133939032.2869.10.camel@laptopd505.fenrus.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.2.3 (2.2.3-2.fc4) Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Spam-Score: 1.8 (+) X-Spam-Report: SpamAssassin version 3.0.4 on pentafluge.infradead.org summary: Content analysis details: (1.8 points, 5.0 required) pts rule name description ---- ---------------------- -------------------------------------------------- 0.1 RCVD_IN_SORBS_DUL RBL: SORBS: sent directly from dynamic IP address [213.93.14.173 listed in dnsbl.sorbs.net] 1.7 RCVD_IN_NJABL_DUL RBL: NJABL: dialup sender did non-local SMTP [213.93.14.173 listed in combined.njabl.org] X-SRS-Rewrite: SMTP reverse-path rewritten from by pentafluge.infradead.org See http://www.infradead.org/rpr.html Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1301 Lines: 24 On Wed, 2005-12-07 at 07:02 +0000, Luke-Jr wrote: > On Tuesday 06 December 2005 14:49, Arjan van de Ven wrote: > > Sure. But that doesn't mean there is no purchase power. HP, Dell and IBM > > and co DO have purchasing power over NVidia and ATI. If they tell ATI or > > NVidia to either go open source (unlikely) or rearchitect their drivers > > to do the "hot IP" in userspace, it will happen. > > Proprietary code in userspace is not much better. Actually yes it is a lot better. Maybe it's not perfect, especially when it talks to hardware, but in general userland code won't be able to crash the machine, and is far less sensitive to internal changes to the kernel. Userland applications are also independent works and are isolated from eachother when they run. As long as you don't need them for your system to boot.. Needing a userspace "driver" for 3D stuff is a bit less optimal than the regular userland application, because it voids some of the advantages I listed above, but it still is a heck of a lot better than doing it in kernel land.... - 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/