Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1751722AbZGTP5y (ORCPT ); Mon, 20 Jul 2009 11:57:54 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1750856AbZGTP5x (ORCPT ); Mon, 20 Jul 2009 11:57:53 -0400 Received: from bombadil.infradead.org ([18.85.46.34]:39245 "EHLO bombadil.infradead.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1750807AbZGTP5x (ORCPT ); Mon, 20 Jul 2009 11:57:53 -0400 Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2009 11:57:45 -0400 From: Christoph Hellwig To: Matthew Garrett Cc: Alan Cox , Thomas Hellstr?m , Christoph Hellwig , DRI , Linux Kernel list Subject: Re: DRM drivers with closed source user-space: WAS [Patch 0/3] Resubmit VIA Chrome9 DRM via_chrome9 for upstream Message-ID: <20090720155745.GB12536@infradead.org> References: <4A647358.1040009@shipmail.org> <20090720135844.GA16844@infradead.org> <4A648718.9000709@shipmail.org> <20090720161620.7b027f8d@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> <20090720155226.GA27885@srcf.ucam.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20090720155226.GA27885@srcf.ucam.org> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.18 (2008-05-17) X-SRS-Rewrite: SMTP reverse-path rewritten from by bombadil.infradead.org See http://www.infradead.org/rpr.html Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1472 Lines: 25 On Mon, Jul 20, 2009 at 04:52:26PM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: > I think "tightly integrated" could do with some clarification here. > qcserial was accepted despite not being functional without a closed > userspace component - an open one's since been rewritten to allow it to > work. Do we define "tightly integrated" as "likely to cross the GPL > line" (potentially the case with Poulsbo, not the case with qcserial), > or is it a pragmatic issue? What about specialised hardware drivers that > only have closed applications? Greg still claims that qcserial could be used by rebooting from Windows, right? In that it would still be extremly borderline to me, but it's settled now. We also have various SCSI HBA drivers that can be used just fine, but contain tons ot ioctls for management tools that aren't available as open source (or even easily obtainable at all). Personally I don't think we should merge those unless we have userspace code available freely, but it's a less urgent issue than merging drivers that can't be used at all. The DRM modules fall to me exactly into that category for "specialised hardware drivers that only have closed applications", and the answer to those should be a clear no. -- 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/