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Kororaa Accused of Violating GPL
AlanS2002 writes "The Kororaa Project, a pre-configured binary install method for Gentoo Linux which bundles nVidia's and ATI binary drivers in its Kororaa Xgl Live CD , has put its Live CD on hold after being accused of violating the GPL. The issue appears to be the distribution of the Linux Kernel and nVidia's/ATI binary drivers together. When the binary drivers are built the GPL'ed code is included in the binary result, which is a violation."
...NOT GPL here. AFAIK, Nvidia doesn't allow ANYONE, except maybe some commercial distros, distribute their drivers with GPL software, more or less.
There are certainly legal gotchas with such distribution as Kororaa, but my pick is that GPL is "lesser evil" here.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
Yes, it's quite apparent that you don't think very much overall.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
That's because the kernel and X people are daft. Stuff that fiddles with hardware registers has no business being in userland. It makes the X server one big honking exploit waiting to happen.
GPL is a copyleft license.
It is there to preserve the freedoms of the end users, not nessicarially the developers.
If your a developer that wants to ensure that your software and the software your end users use will always be Free then you use the GPL.
If your a developer that wants to provide software that is always going to be open source and that other projects using your code have to respect the same rights for their end users then BSD is a shitty license.
If your a developer that doesn't mind that downstream end users have to deal with restrictive licenses wrapped around your code then you use the BSD. For instance if you don't mind that Microsoft and Apple can use your code without providing any source code and restricting the rights of their end users then BSD is great.
It's very obvious that the core kernel developers want to ensure that their code remains open source, that they don't approve of binary-only drivers, and therefore use the GPL license. Going to BSD license would be a step in the wrong direction for them.
Some of us don't give a shit about games. I'm not a 14-year-old anymore. 3D is for wankers.
If you can't shake the addiction though... how about a Nintendo product? I'm told that Nintendo makes cheap computers that are designed almost exclusively for playing games. You can even use a 52-inch widescreen TV instead of some puny computer monitor. The games are all well matched to the CPU, RAM, controllers, etc. You never need to worry about system requirements.
Microsoft has a similar product. No, not Windows. (not sure what that is useful for) I mean the X-Box.
Sony makes something like this too. It's called something like Playstation, Playstation 2, or maybe Playstation 3. I don't know and I don't care, but you might like the product.
I just happen to enjoy playing Doom3 and UT 2004. What card other than an ATI or Nvidia is going to pull that off and has open source drivers?
You're using open source drivers, but then you go and (censored) it up by using a closed source game.
I'll admit to having played Quake up until about age 21, but this was not a good use of my time. Fortunately I found a wife and got a job.
I'm really sick of hearing how Linux needs proprietary 3D drivers, or even any 3D at all. I definitely don't ever want windows that are less than 100% opaque. I don't see a use in having stupid gimmicks like a desktop that rotates around on the face of some object. Please, stop bloating my OS with useless fluff.
I'm not a TWM or VTWM user, and haven't been since 1993. I don't exactly love the Athena widgets. Really though, things are getting way out of hand. We reached attractive usability long ago, and are now adding crud just to be new and shiny.
Today, the PC most needs to become quiet and reliable. It needs to lose the moving parts. This would have already happened if we didn't keep adding fluff just because we can.
And if you do switch to BSD (which would apparently make sense given your attitude), don't come crying to me when nothing works because commercial entities are even less likely to contribute back for fear of others gaining an advantage and not having to reciprocate.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
And you have no business whining about the fact that Linux is GPL! You chose to use it, therefore you must accept the fact that FREEDOM is the point, NOT utility! If you care more for utility than Freedom, BSD makes more sense for you.
If that's not zealot-sign, I don't know what is. "Freedom" might be the point for a dogma-swinging fanatic like yourself (although the BSD license is more "free" for any sane definition of "freedom" anyway). Others like myself may prefer it for the increased power and flexibility. Or some might prefer the price tag.