Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1030551AbXAaTRi (ORCPT ); Wed, 31 Jan 2007 14:17:38 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1030553AbXAaTRi (ORCPT ); Wed, 31 Jan 2007 14:17:38 -0500 Received: from 216-99-213-120.dsl.aracnet.com ([216.99.213.120]:60425 "EHLO clueserver.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1030551AbXAaTRh (ORCPT ); Wed, 31 Jan 2007 14:17:37 -0500 Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 11:17:36 -0800 (PST) From: alan X-X-Sender: alan@blackbox.fnordora.org To: Jan Engelhardt cc: Roland Dreier , Greg KH , Jeff Garzik , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Free Linux Driver Development! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: References: <20070130012904.GA9617@kroah.com> <20070130191020.GF20642@kroah.com> <45BFA087.6020905@garzik.org> <20070130214759.GA12477@kroah.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1494 Lines: 36 On Wed, 31 Jan 2007, Jan Engelhardt wrote: > > On Jan 31 2007 09:58, alan wrote: >> On Wed, 31 Jan 2007, Jan Engelhardt wrote: >>> On Jan 30 2007 14:00, Roland Dreier wrote: >>>> >>>> An uncharitable vendor might decide it's not worth publishing specs, >>>> since the Linux guys can reverse engineer the Windows driver just as >>>> fast anyway. >>> >>> And ndiswrapper gives fire to just releasing the Windows one :( >> >> ndiswrapper is a way to make it work "now" as opposed to "correct". >> There is a lot that you cannot do with ndiswrapper that a proper driver >> can. > > The fear is that a vendor might not open things because it works > "reasonably enough" (for them as well as the enduser) at "this time". > E.g. I got sis162u.inf for some usb wireless adapter, it works > enough, but of course I am not too happy with the binary blob because > it might have some not-so-"correct" core that could silently oops me > away. Of course, the vendors need to realize that such problems will be blamed on the hardware and not on the drivers. "But I was using the Windows drivers!" -- "Invoking the supernatural can explain anything, and hence explains nothing." - University of Utah bioengineering professor Gregory Clark - 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/