Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1755323Ab0KUXgM (ORCPT ); Sun, 21 Nov 2010 18:36:12 -0500 Received: from thunk.org ([69.25.196.29]:33584 "EHLO thunker.thunk.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1754768Ab0KUXgL (ORCPT ); Sun, 21 Nov 2010 18:36:11 -0500 Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2010 18:35:44 -0500 From: "Ted Ts'o" To: =?iso-8859-1?Q?G=E1bor?= Stefanik Cc: Alan Cox , "Luis R. Rodriguez" , Greg KH , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-wireless , David Miller , "John W. Linville" , Stephen Hemminger , "Perez-Gonzalez, Inaky" , Charles Marker , Jouni Malinen , Kevin Hayes , Zhifeng Cai , Don Breslin , Doug Dahlby , Julia Lawall Subject: Re: Challenges with doing hardware bring up with Linux first Message-ID: <20101121233544.GI23423@thunk.org> Mail-Followup-To: Ted Ts'o , =?iso-8859-1?Q?G=E1bor?= Stefanik , Alan Cox , "Luis R. Rodriguez" , Greg KH , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-wireless , David Miller , "John W. Linville" , Stephen Hemminger , "Perez-Gonzalez, Inaky" , Charles Marker , Jouni Malinen , Kevin Hayes , Zhifeng Cai , Don Breslin , Doug Dahlby , Julia Lawall References:

<20101121130236.GE23423@thunk.org> <20101121172906.GD3703@kroah.com> <20101121203124.1ba8212e@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> <20101121214407.GH23423@thunk.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.20 (2009-06-14) X-SA-Exim-Connect-IP: X-SA-Exim-Mail-From: tytso@thunk.org X-SA-Exim-Scanned: No (on thunker.thunk.org); SAEximRunCond expanded to false Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2056 Lines: 40 On Sun, Nov 21, 2010 at 10:47:53PM +0100, G?bor Stefanik wrote: > > By forcing the driver to be GPL, you automatically exclude Windows > from the list of platforms supported by such a cross-OS driver, as the > Windows NDIS headers are AFAIK under a GPL-incompatible license, so no > GPL driver can be written for Windows. I said GPL "with exceptions". The exceptions would allow linking with the necessary glue code (also licensed under GPL "with exceptions") that allow linkage with legacy operating systems --- including Windows. OK, the BSD's won't like it. Tough. If someone were to make all of this code available under those terms, they can either decide to suck it up and use the code, or use the fact that the hardware dependent portion of the driver is GPL'ed, which means it won't be supplied in object-file only form, ala Nvidia, but in source code form, so that if the BSD's want to use the GPL'ed source code as hardware documentation so they can write their own docmentation, at least they have the option/freedom to do so. That at least would be my recommendation of what anyone doing these Linux 802.11 compatible stack and shim code for legacy operating systems do. If we're going to do the work, we might as well set up the licensing to force companies to do the right thing --- because if we don't force companies to do the right thing, in all likelihood there will be a race to the bottom where they won't. And even if you think companies will be altruistic, why not make sure the license is such that the non-altruistic companies, or the clueless companies are forced by their lawyers to do the right thing? Even if Broadcom has reformed (and I don't competely believe it yet), why should we be completely confident that they won't backslide? - Ted -- 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/