Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S965135AbWLOVaS (ORCPT ); Fri, 15 Dec 2006 16:30:18 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S965134AbWLOVaR (ORCPT ); Fri, 15 Dec 2006 16:30:17 -0500 Received: from main.gmane.org ([80.91.229.2]:52128 "EHLO ciao.gmane.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S965135AbWLOVaP (ORCPT ); Fri, 15 Dec 2006 16:30:15 -0500 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org From: James Porter Subject: Binary Drivers Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2006 21:20:58 +0000 (UTC) Message-ID: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org User-Agent: Loom/3.14 (http://gmane.org/) X-Loom-IP: 72.156.214.83 (Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.0.8) Gecko/20061025 Firefox/1.5.0.8) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1847 Lines: 27 I think some kernel developers take to much responsibility, is there a bug in a binary driver? Send it upstream and explain to the user that it's a closed source driver and is up to said company to fix it. For what it's worth, I don't see any problem with binary drivers from hardware manufacturers. Just because nvidia makes a closed source driver doesn't mean that we can't also create an open source driver(limited functionality, reverse engineered, etc.,etc.). I firmly believe that the choice should be up to the user and/or distro. I'm not a kernel dev, I don't know c...but I understand the concepts and I should have the right to do what I want with this GPL code. Restricting me only frustrates me. Should the default be open source, definitely; should binary drivers be blocked from running on a linux kernel...certainly not. I personally like nvidia's products, they have spent a lot of money in R&D. One example is SLI, if their spec was open what would stop ATI from stealing their work(patents?, gotta love those). Personally I think nvidia has excellent support for linux, I have actually convinced people to use linux(desktop and server) just by showing them beryl with the nvidia beta drivers. Lastly I think it's ridiculous to create,diplay, and distribute "Free" as in freedom and "Free" as in cost software only to later consider limiting my freedom...want to know why a lot of large companies don't support linux...exactly threads like this. Why make the effort to use "Free" software only to have the rug pulled out from under you. This is what makes the BSDs so attractive. - 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/