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Linus Puts Kibosh On Banning Binary Kernel Modules
microbee writes "On LKML's periodic GPL vs. binary kernel module discussion, Andrew Morton hinted that he favors refusing to load binary modules in 12 months. Greg Kroah-Hartman then posted a patch to do exactly that. Surprisingly Linus chimed in and called it 'stupid' and a 'political agenda,' and even compared it with the RIAA's tactics. Later in the same thread Greg withdrew his patch and apologized for not having thought it through."
"I'm so sorry Mr. Linus! Please forgive me! I was a bad wittle boy."
This week on LKML 24. Andrew and Linus get into it over politics, while Greg watches from the closet. Watch it Friday at 8, 7 central, 6 a mountain.
Seriously, there should be no "bans" of any code from Linux. That defeats the entire point. Banning people from loading their own kernal modules because YOU think there may be some weird legal issue is exactly the same as making your media player play only DRM files.
This should be a short topic, Linus' reply (which if you haven't read you should) should finish the entire conversation right here, it's a stupid and petty toys out of the pram act and I'm glad he shot it down.
Hopefully if it somehow does make it into the trunk, there will be very quickly versions with it removed releases as we go forward too because I don't think the wider community will have any truck with this at all.
This type of shit happens every day...
Besides, what's to stop anyone from back-patching the kernel so that it does accept binary module loads? Freedom to change it; that's the GPL. Or did you think Red Hat and Novell wouldn't remove that particular feature?
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
I'm not sure what kernel list the poster has been reading. Linus is a pragmatist. He has constantly favored using the best tool for the job over religious fanaticism. There's no surprise here.
Interested in open source engine management for your Subaru?
This shouldn't be a part of the core kernel code. However, the companies providing commercial support may, of course, include such a restriction in their kernels. This would just be a step further from "we don't support your kernel if it is flagged as tainted." The user can remove them if they want, with the same consequences as removing those foil "WARRANTY VOID" stickers hiding the screw holes on electronics devices.
[
Linus was wrong on one point:
In fact, I had never understood his point until reading that post. As he points out, it clearly is hypocritical to object to the RIAA tactics (which I do) on the one hand and then propose using exactly the same sort of technological barriers to fair use on the other. If people object to binary only drivers, the sollution is for those people to refuse to use them, not for them to try to game the system to prevent other people from using them.
--MarkusQ
But the fact is that there is a large number of copyright holders for the Linux kernel, not just Linus himself. Not all of these copyright holders accept binary kernel modules, and thus they should be considered illegal to distribute with the kernel.
However, refusing users to shimmy in a binary module themselves is wrong. The GPL clearly states that it only covers distribution, not usage, so users are perfectly entitled to do whatever they want to the kernel as long as they do not distribute it. Adding a check to refuse loading of binary modules would only lead to a fork of the kernel, which is unproductive and unhelpful.
If a binary kernel module contains absolutely no code from the Linux kernel in the form of headers or anything like that, the FSF would have a hard time claiming it is derivative work, thus it should be perfectly legal to distribute. The GPL may say otherwise, but this may be an over extension of the powers of a copyright holder.
It's not distro vs use - It's more like distro versus zealots.
This is the strange effect brought on by the following situation:
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
You have to choose exactly what level of free you want.
The GPL has clauses in it that seek to prevent people from making it non-free. That's fair enough, but it's a compromise. You could make the licence more free by removing these clauses. That would enable others to limit your freedom. Linus seems to tend towards offering more freedom to make Linux less free.
But does a no-binaries patch matter? Those who want to add binary-only modules are free to customise the kernel to allow this. I hope this patch remains available. choice is good.
The way Linus talks, I think he would be happier with a BSD license than with the GPL.
When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
Before people start bashing those who proposed this, think of the devs who put so much of their time and effort into getting us Linux. And note that the proposal arose from a technical issue, not from a 'everything must be Free' stance. From the last thread /. links to, part of Greg's retraction:
It's just that I'm so damn tired of this whole thing. I'm tired of
people thinking they have a right to violate my copyright all the time.
I'm tired of people and companies somehow treating our license in ways
that are blatantly wrong and feeling fine about it. Because we are a
loose band of a lot of individuals, and not a company or legal entity,
it seems to give companies the chutzpah to feel that they can get away
with violating our license.
So when someone like Andrew gives me the opportunity to put a stop to
all of the crap that I have to put up with each and every day with a
tiny 2 line patch, I jumped in and took it. I need to sit back and
remember to see the bigger picture some times, so I apologize to
everyone here.
And yes, it is crap that I deal with every day due to the lovely grey
area that is Linux kernel module licensing these days. I have customers
that demand we support them despite them mixing three and more different
closed source kernel modules at once and getting upset that I have no
way to help them out. I have loony video tweakers that hand edit kernel
oopses to try to hide the fact that they are using a binary module
bigger than the sum of the whole kernel and demand that our group fix
their suspend/resume issue for them. I see executives who say one thing
to the community and then turn around and overrule them just because
someone made a horrible purchasing decision on the brand of laptop wifi
card that they purchased. I see lawyers who have their hands tied by
attorney-client rules and can not speak out in public for how they
really feel about licenses and how to interpret them.
Please think of the coders, and the shit they have to put up with while making your free operating system the next time you start clamoring for these closed source binary blobs.
I am amazed kernel developers let Torvalds get away with these rants. He is a most unstable guardian of the kernel. Will Torvalds be President for life, like Castro, or will he eventually hand over the reins? Morton seems like an excellent choice?
an ill wind that blows no good
The bottom line here, that Linus and so many other often ignored people are pushing, is that the GPL, and all other *copy*right licenses, are only licenses that effects distribution.
/. reader knows, almost any license discussion degenerates into the idiots that think being GPL means you CAN'T do what you want. As Linus so well pointed out, the RIAA sux, why do we have to?
Putting artificial measures into the Linux kernel that affect users of Linux, even when they're building their own kernels is BAD. Technology rules, ok?
Even RMS would recognise that the GPL is about freedom to do WTF you want with it once you've got it, but if you want to offer it to others, you damn well better give them those same freedoms.
Unfortunately, as any longtime
--Q
Because, his RIAA objection is flawed. Using free code that links/attaches into GPL-ed code is the license _requirement_, just like payment is a requirement for RIAA music. It is NOT about telling how to use that certain code as he argues. This is definitely a copyright issue and the RIAA's equivalent would be NOT selling music to someone who didn't pay for it, not the DRM crap.
If Linus doesn't think that the terms of the license should be uphold because of his convictions, maybe he should have went with a different license in the first place? I think that in retrospect his beliefs are closer to the BSD license than to GPL. That's ok, he's a technically minded engineer. He doesn't have to have an agenda, even if that agenda is keeping freedom. I am generally opposed to practicalism as it focuses on short term, but I can certainly understand that different people have differing opinions.
One reason is why I'm opposed to the patch is given by Linus though: the closed-source people would just move their proprietary stuff into userspace and communicate with the kernel by a gpl-ed shell in kernelspace. It wouldn't solve the moral problem ("free/open code"), these companies will only open source their drivers when they think it is advantegous for them. A kernel modification will certainly not force them.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
I understand why those that want to ban binary only modules. It causes hell for everyone on the kernel dev team.
But.... banning them instantly pisses off every single company that is barely putting out a hardware driver for Linux already (nvidia for example) A ban will not make these people go "oh,ok... we'll release the source code." they will simply flip off all Linux users and tell them to pound sand.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
"Let's put it this way: if you need to ask a lawyer whether
what you do is "right" or not, you are morally corrupt.
Let's not go there. We don't base our morality on law."
-- Linus Torvalds
Apparently our morality is simple pragmatism?
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
I'm already in a situation where most distributions don't even install because the nv drivers they try to load at default won't work on my Geforce 6800. Even the latest vesa drivers seem unbearably slow. If this patch got into the tree, I'd switch to windows the exact same day.
How do you kill that which has no life?
Actually, Linus's comments are not very negative. When he's negative, he capitalises and underscores and asterisk-ises words all over the place, and uses the phrases "NEVER", "fundamental", and "so lets not even talk about it".
This particular way of blocking proprietary drivers has been withdrawn, but the idea seems to still have support, or at least be open for debate.
Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
If Nvidia doesn't release their source because it's not "derived" from the linux kernel (they only use a GPL kernel interface to bridge it to their driver), then why TF do they have a seperate driver download for linux? Why don't they didn't they just build a kernel interface to their windows driver? When their driver stops working with newer kernels and they patch it to work again, isn't that patch "derived" from the linux kernel, otherwise where esle would the patch be derived from?
What Linus is saying may not exclude the possibility of a single kernel dev suing Nvidia for GPL license violations or possible copyright infringent.
Just a thought,
BBH
How is this a surprise in any way, shape, or form? This is the way Linus has always been. Anyone who didn't see that response coming is a complete moron. In fact, reading the summary, as soon as I saw the phrase "Surprisingly, Linus chimed in" I was expecting to see that he supported the motion, merely because that would be so surprising. Move along people, this isn't news.
I hate grammar Nazi's.
It's probably a truism at this point that the Open Source model's greatest strength (its openness) is also the basis of its greatest weaknesses (dogmatism and ideologically-driven decisions. Whatever you may think about his personality or his motivations, Linus is a much-need voice of pragmatism. If you look at competing *nixes in terms of technological currency, development activity, and install base, you can see the value of benevolent dictatorship - as opposed to just plain demagoguery *cough* Theo *cough*.
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.
Had this gone in, vendors would write a very small kernel driver which they're not afraid of GPL'ing. This "driver" would do nothing more than expose the necessary IRQs and registers to userspace, where they can then have a proprietary driver which does the donkey work.
In other words, just as likely to break a system horribly as a binary blob, if not more so as now any userland program running as root can speak directly to the hardware. With the added bonus that you've just demonstrated to every hardware vendor out there that not only do you not like binary drivers, you'll go out of your way to make their life harder.
Linus has kept focus, that linux was, is and will be about technology and I agree with him on that. It is about providing wealth of options for software users. Not twisting their hand in very specific way. GPL protects linux kernel. Using GPL to blugeon other people's practices into extreme ways that GPL can be interpreted is silly.
See there is new and old world. In the new world code is the law. In the old world it is legalese like licences, laws for real people from standpoint of non-technical point. To Linus GPL is only a way to protect kernel code, like a tool. Nothing political. Whereas for Mr Stallman it is his life and politics. For linus gnu toolkit and gcc, came with added protection of GPL. And gpl for him is exactly like a tool.
When you are a carpenter, you don't think of societal and humane implications of using auto-nailer to a hammer. Same with Linus, his codebase is what matters first. He is driving politics from within the kernel, you might say in very meritocratic way and not from GPL and how morally conflicting it is with GPL, to load binary drivers. GPL is a cover from blatant abuse of the kernel code.
Linus has kept focus since beginning of the project and I stand with him on that. He is a coder first, and likes to provide things and services for other fellow coders, not be meddeling in world of politics.
If they're dead, then they should have no control over what the license can be changed to.
Or is the GPL a magic copyright that should be extended indefinitely past an author's death?
Thank you Greg, for forcing Linus to take a stand. Brilliant. Now we know exactly what Linus thinks, any previous equivocation about binary modules notwithstanding.
Linus believes that technology trumps the rules that govern civil society. The irony is that the very people Linus badmouths share the same objective - to improve the lot of society by promoting better technology. The difference is that folks such as the FSF believe that the social fabric matters. They believe that patent landmines hinder software development, for example. They believe that sharing ideas, rather than holding them close to the vest, helps us all. Linus himself stands as a poster boy for the benefits that these objectives make manifest. If politics and law are irrelevant, then maybe Linus should try forking a propriety version of Linux, to see how that works out.
Linus writes great code, and does an amazing job managing a globally distributed project. But as far as vision goes, I must say I find him shortsighted. Basically, Linus would rather have other folks deal with the admittedly disruptive consequences of attempting stricter enforcement of the project's license. That's certainly his right. If I were in Linus' shoes, I don't know that I'd want to embroil myself in politics either; hacking code is much more fun. But in the long run, we'll all be better off if someone with a little clout stands up and takes it in the chin. I just wish Linus would stop badmouthing the folks who are willing to do so.
> it will only result in _exactly_ the crap we were just trying to avoid,
> namely stupid "shell game" drivers that don't actually help anything at
> all, and move code into user space instead.
Why is this bad? Separating out the kernel-space open source code from the binary blob is the only way to really ensure that the module will work with any kernel version. NVidia does it right, it works and it's binary. I don't even notice that it's not all open source because the kernel part is and compiles when I install it. Having that wrapper might not make it very fast, but it does at least WORK, and is supportable.
I'm frankly a little tired of devices that say they are supported, when they provide a binary-only module for one specific kernel version of RedHat.
Unfortunately, dropping binary module support in the kernel won't fix the problem. The real big players will just forward-port the support of those binary blobs into newer kernels, and now instead of just having to deal with binary drivers, we have to deal with distributions having different code support in the kernel. And who wants the commercial linux distributions to be more flexible than the free ones? Not I!
I mean, really, who would even want to do add binary modules to the kernel in the state it is now? If they really want to get things going in a more positive and Enterprise like way they'd be looking at making it easier to cross compile your modules. For example making it possible for me, end user, to develop and compile kernel modules on my current Ubuntu environment which are meant to be used on a Debian Stable environment. So basicly: Using 2.6.15 and working for 2.6.8.
In its current state this is totally impossible. They depend on specific gcc features (which can be overcome by installing multiple gcc versions. I personally consider this approach insane but thats just me I suppose). Next you have direct ties into system packages like bintutils, for example the assembler. If I have bintuils 2.16 around its impossible for me to compile something for a kernel which uses 2.12. Simply because bintutils is not backwards compatible with its ancestor. Summing up: I'd have to run a one on one copy of the system I'm working for in order to get development going.
Now... This is also a classic situation for developers willing to supply binary modules (IMO anyway). But when we're talking about these kind of specifics its not that unlikely that the server I'm working for has a completely different hardware setup than the one I'm developing on (for example; I use vmware-server a lot for these things) making it sometimes totally impossible to actually run such a kernel. And that can become really ugly, really fast, if the kernel I'm trying to develop for doesn't allow me to do any development on it (for example due to mission critical stuff). Alternatives? In the current situation I'd have to get myself double the hardware I suppose, that way I can "clone" the environment and then use that to develop a kernel module.
OR I could move on to environments like the BSD or Solaris variants which allow for much easier cross compilation and are by far less anal about binary 3rd party drivers. SO please forgive me if I laugh it up a little when people currently start talking about possibly allowing binary drivers while still sticking their hands in the sand when it comes to the real problems at hand.
If you really want to become more professional (that is at least my impression of the whole story) you don't start by stuff like this. Instead focus on a development cycle which doesn't re-invent the wheel suspension during every new release, thus making it impossible for tire manufactorers to produce a product which can last for several cycli. Untill that happens I really think things like these are funny and sad at the same time, and in the overal won't change a thing.
so if all binary closed source drivers are banned, the companies are gonna say, "ahh they wanna play hard ball eh? alright we fold, heres the source."
not likely,
and it certainly wouldnt make it easier to produce drivers for our favorite hardware, (read nvidia) there may be a little more incentive for developers, but still come on.
but then again, like was also mentioned above, if they are banned i dont really care ill use whatever bloody driver i want anyway.
the thing is though, that nvidia wont support linux, in fact i doubt any hardware vendor that values its own IP will, so it will indirectly screw me the user. super.
This reminds me of something the RIAA might say: "Give the people 12 months warning ... then make their music players load only DRM-tagged files."
Take a peek at a history book: It used to be legal for one man to own another. Did that make it moral? Hardly.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
okay in theory one cannot link any binairy blob with the kernel and redistribute it, this is forbidden by the (strong copy-left of the) GPL.
but if Linus wants to allow this why not put Linux under a license with a weaker copyleft, like the LGPL?
at the current situation i think the kernel devs are right when they feel the GPL is violated.
cies breijs.
That continual discussion on the LKML doesn't help anyone, and misses an important technical opportunity.
Does anyone seriously believe that all card and peripheral device manufacturers will go fully FOSS any time soon, or indeed ever? No --- nobody is that unrealistic, no matter how much we'd love it to happen.
So, since it's not going to happen, how can we best live with binary modules without suffering the many, very bad consequences of closed code being in our kernel?
This is how:
Find a *technical* way of containing binary modules within MMU-protected kernel domains, at the same level as the "real" kernel but with controlled/restricted access to it. This would make binary modules almost as safe as user-code but still able to communicate rapidly with the kernel resources.
If you do that, the entire religious or political issue disappears, and instead we would have a significantly more robust/resilient kernel in practical terms.
No more bitching. Just find a way to keep the inevitable binary modules under tight MMU control.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Linux is punted as the 'Free' OS but Linus has always tried to remain apolitical. He doesn't have a problem with binary drivers, etc.
:(
I believe that this is a really bad thing in the long term. What use is a Free OS if you can't find hardware to run it on without being forced to trust someone else with no peer review?
Hard as this is to say, I really agree with Theo DeRaadt on this point - binary drivers are just evil. We can't see the source so we have no idea what is in there (see the recent security hole within the Nvidia drivers for an example of how this can bite you) and we can't fix it when there are issues. The Nvidia vuln was around for months if I remember right and the last time I checked, the workaround was to run a beta version. We often can't distribute the drivers with or firmware with the OS, making it more difficult to provide something that is easy for users to use.
Linus' continued acceptance of binary drivers removes the incentive to produce Free drivers or at least release the specs so that the community can write their own. Specifically in the server arena, we have enough market share now to apply pressure to the vendors, but as long as they know that they can get away with providing us a closed source driver to use our hardware, they have no incentive to release specs or work with the community.
And this doesn't just hurt Linux. Linus is choosing to allow code that restricts the rights of the users in his kernel. That's his choice. But I personally believe he has a wider responsibility. Because Linux has a large share of the Free unix market, all of the other Free unixes are losing out and as a society we are becoming more and more restricted in how we can use the things we pay for.
Despite his invoking the RIAA as someone we don't want to be like, the unintended consequences of his actions are doing the same thing that the RIAA do to us - restricting our ability to use the things we buy in the way we want to.
The Linux crowd scream for Freedom when it's convenient, but when it impacts their ability to have shiny 3D graphics, they just roll over and take it from behind. Sad
If you ban all non-free software, you actually end up restricting the freedom to use non-free software. /me does a happy dance
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
Why is it module developers have to conform to GPL, but application developer's do not? I have written Linux modules - the interface to the kernel looks like just another API. It should be considered that way. Since modules don't have to be linked intrinsically with the kernel (they can be built later and linked in dynamically), you could argue that they are not really part of kernel development. They are separate entities, managed by the kernel but not part of the kernel.
Woowwww
Do you know any other logical fallacies? You must lead a horrible life to have such an opinion.
Besides that, i agree with Linus, binary modules should not be banned. Because of the ability to use binary modules, a lot of commercial software are made available and that is A Good Thing (Tm)
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
you realize at one point Nvidia tried to roll everything into binaries for the nforce chipsets... All that's needed is a company like Adobe to make a binary kernel package for Flash/Shockwave and the gig is up for Open Linux. That's what Linus doesn't see. Tivo routinely DMCAs people for "cracking" the non-kernel parts of their code... imagine if they could actually put a kernel module in for ALL the external plugs on the box! Imagine if Adobe released a Flash package that used a binary kernel module that loaded an encrypted Flash program... we'd have cool software in a heartbeat, and the **AA would be happy as clams.. but it would probably rewrite TCP and video to make a "Secure" stream. Maybe buddy up with Nvidia's binary video to help out! Of course NOBODY, not even Linus himself could troubleshoot it without breaking the DMCA, no matter how simple it would be to fix. From a developer POV they won't KNOW what to fix when they get bug reports... it may be ILLEGAL to try to find out!! That's why "Tivo-isation" should be fought at all costs. Like other posters have said, Linux got this far on it's own... why allow changes to our "ethics" just because companies smell the money NOW?
banning is a bad thing, but promoting vendors wich provide open standadards and source to help their bottom line (ie sell more product) could push the other vendors to open up. There are still the issues of not being able to open up due to non-disclosure agreements. That is something else to deal with.
Linus didn't name Linux, the community did. It was to honor the fact that he started it all.
Perhaps you should actually learn the history of Linux before you open your mouth and prove your ignorance to the world.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
My understanding is that the aim of such a patch would not be primarily for its direct effect (limiting users) but for its indirect effect: urging vendors to release source, which ultimately is PRO-user. It therefore seems like disingenuous rhetoric to claim that this would be "purely to limit the *end user* and specifically limit what they can do with their computer".
To me, the idea of thusly restricting binary-only modules seems pretty close to the spirit of the GPL. Similar rhetoric could be concocted regarding the GPL, i.e. someone could claim that it "restricts end users" by disallowing them the latitude to mod code, compile it, and distribute it without source for their own ends... but the goal of the GPL is very much about preserving the freedom of end users.
The only reasonable argument I've seen against the binary-restricting patch is the practicality-based argument that there may currently be so many highly desirable binary-only modules that such a patch doesn't have the critical mass to effectively force the hand of the binary-only vendors. I don't know enough to comment on the validity of the numbers of such modules, but more to the point: this is a *practical* objection, not a philosophical one. The practical objection may be perfectly valid, but if so it in no way justifies the portrayal of the restrictive patch as being philosophically "wrong", or having its heart in the wrong place.
I disagree with Linus's equating of the patch with the RIAA's tactics. That is bullshit. The RIAA's tactics are intended to restrict people and impoverish society to the end of benefitting a few crabbed souls. The patch as proposed is intended to empower people. Equating the two is like equating a toothache with braces; sure, they both hurt your mouth, but there's a good reason for the latter.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
You're being too generous to nVidia. Their excuse doesn't mean that there is no alternative.
If they really wanted to help Linux out of this mess, they'd run their binary blob (containing alleged proprietary IP) as a memory-locked, real-time user process, and provide an open-source kernel module to communicate with it. Then their driver could remain closed without creating a questionable GPL licensing situation, compromising kernel security, adding to the kernel dev's very real nightmares, and opening up Linux to the same virus attacks as Windows.
Unrestricted binary modules are a disaster waiting to happen for Linux. They have to go.
It's just a shame that all this is basically the result of a really fucked up kernel design.
The kernel right now is one big monolithic, undocumented blob of ever changing ugly interfaces that requires breaking the license if you want to add a closed source driver. There is no clear interface for any third-party work that doesn't involve the inclusion of core kernel code into closed-source modules. This design of course clashes with the reality of needing closed-source drivers for some tasks. Face it: nvidia, ATI and others are not going to open their driver sources just because a minority OS doesn't want to play with them anymore. It's really a miracle that they still are making drivers, because core interfaces are changing weekly, so instead of being little bitching whiners, be thankful for that gesture of goodwill.
What Linux IMO really needs is a stable, well-designed external interface for such drivers. I don't know how possible it would be to create something like that, but systems like QNX suggest that it actually works. But I guess that having such an interface and actual *gasp* documentation for it would be too much to ask, especially from people who apparently don't know about the terrific capability of C to include comments in the code. It does work for other things than just the license! So far, I've only been working with three or four little interfaces in the kernel, and and each one of those required at least a week of code exploration before I could even only get to a trial-and-error phase, just because to the fact that (1) there is no or just outdated documentation in the kernel package itself, (2) the code isn't commented, and (3) all tutorials on the web are aimed at kernel version 2.2.0.
Yes, I'm quite disgusted with OSS in general and especially Linux, but it's still less expensive than the other crap./p
Fight hunger. Filet a politician and send him to a 3rd world country of your choice.
Now it's just that Novell can't submit any kernel driver or patch. So there!
His more recent statements simply continue this long-standing policy. It also gives more credence to the notion that the Linux kernel will probably not be moving to the GPL v3 when it is finally released. Linux is somewhat unique in the Free Software World in that it explicitly identifies itself as being released under v2 of the GPL rather than v2 or later.
Perhaps you should actually learn the history of Linux before you open your mouth and prove your ignorance to the world.
practice what you preach. Linus named it "Freax" -- it was his friend Ari Lemmke, the FTP admin where the code was hosted, that named it "Linux". calling him "the community" is a bit pushing it.
Stop Computers/Cars Analogies on S
Yes, I realize this.
What I didn't realize, until reading Linus's post, was why he didn't see things this way.
His point, which he made quite clearly (to me at least) is that locking out binary-only drivers falls into the same category of trying to tell other people what they can and can't do with their computers; it would be a clear case of adopting the very tactics to which some people (myself included) object in order to prevent the "bad guys" from doing it. It's a "we have to burn the village in order to save it" strategy, and for that reason he doesn't want to follow it.
Note that he quite clearly states that he isn't going to try to prevent others from locking out binary only drivers from their trees, just that he isn't going to fire the first shot.
I am not sure that I entirely agree with his position, but I understand it much better than I did before, and consequently can see the merit of it where I previously did not.
--MarkusQ
Linus is so awesome. I get a hard-on just reading some of the stuff he posts to mailing lists. I like how he suggests they try to get this merged into Ubuntu and SUSE. The latter is now M$-pwned, and the former will soon be including binary video drivers by default. He knows full well this patch isn't going anywhere. Linus is a great BDFL. I'm proud to run Linux.
Ari made up about half the Linux community at the time.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Besides that, i agree with Linus, binary modules should not be banned. Because of the ability to use binary modules, a lot of commercial software are made available and that is A Good Thing (Tm)
Linus's reasons, as appear in his message, are completely and utterly different from yours. To briefly summarize: first, this prevents USE of binary modules, but the GPL can only come into effect when you DISTRIBUTE something (via copyright law). Second, this will just annoy people, by shoving the kernel developers' opinions down their throat (any they can change the kernel source to allow binary modules anyhow). Third, it won't work, because a small GPLed "shim" can load a binary driver (as NVidia already do).
However, he hates binary drivers, and for good reason. I agree both with this and with his reasons, and disagree with yours.
The most they can say is that it violates a license which may be applied to the kernel if the kernel devs so choose it, but it's certainly not against the law.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
The withdrawal is very well thought out and no summary will do it justice. Please read it if you are at all interested in licensing and Linux
This is the same link from the summary.
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
Let debian, mandriva, redhat, suse, ubunto, gentoo and all the other distros decide for themselves whether they want to ban binary modules, and then watch people walk with their feet when they find that their favourate distro that used to play doom3 doesn't anymore.
Banning binary modules will only reduce what people can do on linux and therefore drive people away, which is not what you want.
We all know that the correct nomenclature should been "Gnu/Freax", and that is why it got renamed. :-P
[]'s Victor Bogado da Silva Lins
^[:wq
Erm, no, the only commercial software made possible by this is hardware drivers - I wouldn't necessarily call that a "good thing". Yes, it means you can use your 3D-accelerated nvidia/ati-card right now, but it may also mean that there will never be a "proper" driver for those cards.
Larger commercial software products, like games, database systems, or what-have-you are not touched by this issue.
If it's so secret, then how come I've never heard of it?
I think he's more worried with legal implementations.
I believe there is a restriction in 64-bit vista that prevents unsigned drivers.
Nope. There is a restriction in all versions of Vista against using unsigned kernel mode drivers. However, the new Windows Driver Model makes it possible for 99% of drivers (minus graphics drivers) to run in usermode.
So, you can't run unsigned kernel mode drivers. But, unlike XP, you don't have to run kernel mode drivers - they all run in userspace. Interesting, since this will cut heavily into the profits Microsoft makes from driver signing, but it make the OS a billion times more stable - usermode drivers can't bluescreen. (This is also why there's "hardware compatibility" problems with Vista right now - although the user-mode drivers are easier to write, not everyone has ported their drivers yet.)
DATABASE WOW WOW
Way to make metaphors completely meaningless. Why say someone "chimed in" when what he actually did was disagree? You're just sprinkling in imagery because your high school English teacher taught you it was a good thing to do. Metaphors and similes are supposed to aid communication, not obfuscate it.
Proper driver? The drivers for said cards seem pretty proper as-is. Perhaps you meant "isn't in the form that /I/ want it to be in".
Banning binary modules is a bad way to spread the open-source/free-software philosophy. By giving users the choice between FLOSS and proprietary software, we can hope they'll make the "right" choice and choose FLOSS. OSS developers around the world work hard on their projects to prove that FLOSS is technically superior while also politcally purer. Removing this option altogether, in a way, is the same sort of guerilla vendor lock-in tactics that are used by DRM purveyors. We shouldn't force people to use a completely open-sourced kernel stack -- we should show them that it is superior and let them choose for themselves.
Yes, it means you can use your 3D-accelerated nvidia/ati-card right now
That is 'proper' enough for me.
Larger commercial software products, like games, database systems, or what-have-you are not touched by this issue.
* sigh *Wrong! See Oracle's ASMlib for one example of why you are wrong.
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
they use a universal driver .... one driver for **every** geforce card (that is, every nVidia card in existance except the RIVA/TNT cards from the days of yore)
"The drivers for said cards seem pretty proper as-is."
As long as you're not anywhere near the bleeding edge. If you are, you'd notice that the binary drivers tend to lag as compared to their OSS counterparts; default stack size change, xen compatibility and aiglx are recent examples.
The one and only truly sane and rational "Big Wig" in the entire FOSS/GNU/Linux universe.
/required/ to be available. 99.99% of the worlds population DOES NOT CARE. They just want something that installs relably and WORKS. Similarly, manufacturers want to focus on a version of Linux so they can build, test and release and have any customer be able to use their product.
:)
Thank ghod for Linus! He keeps a reign on the rampant ideology that continuously threatens to destroy Linux entirely for anything other than hobbiest or academic use. If only there were more Linus to go around.
If Linux is going to make inroads on the desktop, binary compatibility between all point versions of the kernel and X and glib and all the other base libs has to be maintained so that binary distribution of software can reasonably be expected to work. EVEN IF the source is also
I get at least one or two calls a week from a customer of ours using a version of linux that I didn't even realize was out yet or something completely new and I have to DL, install, compile and test our software for every single one because they DO NOT WANT TO DO IT THEMSELVES! This kind of support is horrendous for large projects. Linux seems to throw every roadblock imaginable in the path of developers, FOSS or not. This needs to END.
Thank you Linus! Now if only you would come to the conclusion that kernel API stability was just as important, we might really have something
Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
... wouldn't want some leet hax0r inserting a DRM-defeating driver in there to intercept sound just before it hits the sound card would we?
The closed source drivers lag on the bleeding edge?
Which has driver support for XGL-like effects: the nVidia closed source driver, or the nv open source one?
To make such a blanket statement like that's silly.
It's definitely a good thing. The idea of banning binary kernel modules is a slippery slope that eventually leads to the idea that you can't run any program under linux unless it's GPL.
cat
Anyone else shocked by this?
Later in the same thread Greg withdrew his patch and apologized for not having thought it through.
In my experiece disagreement on the Internet usually results in angry responses, foul language, name calling, etc.
Wouldn't it be nice if all mailing lists/forums were filled with reasonable people??
This guy is just complaining, and he gets "Interesting"? Hell, it isn't even a good complaint!
As has been said before by other posters, disabling binary-only modules won't break the nVidia driver! This is because the nVidia driver uses a GPLed (source-available) module (apparently called a "shim") to load the nVidia driver.
I too use a late-model nVidia card with Linux (Debian unstable), and I too use the nVidia binary driver. But even if this policy would actually break that driver, I would certainly not switch away from Linux. I guess my OS choices are not so fragile as yours; if that's all it would take to make you use Windows, just go ahead and switch now.
The only reason the parent gave was that he feels commercial software being made available for Linux is a good thing. Is this what you are disagreeing with?
I pay full whack for the GC. I don't get the support or jack shit off them.
If they see the GC business going downhill they'll find different reason for this than "you don't do GPL" unless we TELL THEM.
Last GF card bought 4 years ago. Soon the OSS dompatible low-end will be enough to play any game I still have no problems.
The current situation is that NVidia cards work fine with the binary driver, but the open driver is terrible (due to lack of docs). The ATI binary driver, for whatever reason, doesn't support some cards for many months after they are released. OTOH, the open ATI driver is at least usable for X, although the GL acceleration isn't very good. I don't like binary drivers, but there are some reasons that the companies keep them closed. ATI needs to pick a side though, and decide if it is supporting Linux or not.
We just aren't communicating. I never said I was boycotting anyone. What I said was that some people (for whatever reason) choose to produce products that I don't consume (for whatever reason). That was the point of the diet food reference. It's not that I'd love to buy overpriced proprietary food but choose not to because I have this burning desire to punish the company that makes it for their business practices. I don't buy it because I don't want it at the price, in the form, and under the conditions they are offering it.
The rest of your response follows the same sort of pattern. You seem to be obsessed with controlling the behavior of others, for "the greater good" or whatever, while I am more concerned with not allowing others to control my behavior. Part of my policy for doing that is to engage in cooperative agreements with others, wherein we agree not to try to control each other's behavior.
In other words, I think freedom is important, and don't place much value on playing World of Warcraft or whatever, while you seem to be very concerned with being able to buy new things and play games and so forth, thus see controlling the rights of others and the "perceptions of the marketplace", promoting "the common good," retaliation against oligopolies, etc. as necessary to obtaining your goals. While I can support restricting the rights of some people to protect others in certain situations (e.g., I would restrict the US government's "right" to hold people indefinitely without charges in order to protect those people, and myself, from a potential police state) I just don't see the issue of gaming on bleeding edge graphics cards as being at that level of urgency.
--MarkusQ
Putting any code in the kernel to prevent said modules from loading is just plain DRM. If the consensus (Linus?) decides that this should be prohibited, then language to that effect can be placed in the kernel copyright notice. The honor system, and millions of eyeballs in user space should be the enforcement method.
From a practical point of view, I can imagine a DRM scheme creating some instability in some systems and create quite a bit of overhead work for those of us who want to slap togethet the occasional module for their own use. I do some of this for custom hardware which (at this time) is not distributed (with its required modules) and as such does not require me to distribute source. If I have to start adding DRM hooks into my hobby projects, I may have to find a more developer friendly platform to work with.
Have gnu, will travel.
Excuse me, but GNU must be capitalized to emphasize its importance over all other open source projects -- as well as the fact that it is a recursive acronym.
The only reason the parent gave was that he feels commercial software being made available for Linux is a good thing. Is this what you are disagreeing with?
I disagree that running commercial software is reason enough for having binary kernel modules. Now, commercial software is fine, if you want/need that sort of thing, but you should run it in userspace. Binary drivers in the kernel are something else altogether.
AFAIK most commercial software written for Linux does not need to run anything as a kernel module, so the connection between "having commercial software on Linux" and "binary drivers in the kernel" is fairly slim, anyhow. Please correct me if I am wrong.
The Good News: Linux can be successful. The Bad News: many Linux users will stop caring whether it's successful or not, because its biggest advantage will be lost.
Sometimes I wonder why Linus doesn't just take a job at Apple. He would be a perfect fit, there. They'd love him; he'd love them, and he'd get to work on great proprietary projects.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Very few drivers can be user mode drivers in the new driver framework. About the only thing that supported fully right now is USB. The long term goal is to support a vastly larger set of possible user-mode drivers, but your jubilation is premature.
I have written to all major vendors and to several local shops, asking for a WLAN card that would be guaranteed to work with LINUX. Not all answered, but all those that did said essentially the same: no we cannot offer this, we do not even know exactly what works, we do not provide support for Linux, ask your favorite Linux distro.
"Asking your favorite Linux distro" usually results in recommendations for what is *likely* to work, but there is no guarantee, because vendors might use different chips in products, so you never know *for sure*, let alone get a guarantee or support.
This is just an unacceptable sitation for an average computer user. The major argument of companies is that they do not want to open source their drivers.
I have used Linux for years now, but I find it idiotic to be that fundamentalistic when the result is that certain things (and WLAN cards is not the only kind of hardware) are simply not usable or extremely limited in their usefulness.
Bottom line: I agree with Linus, because a Linux that can't do many of the things other OS can do will never be really be competitive. I want Linux to be a realistic alternative. When we follow the fundamentalist nonsense of some guys, this will never happen.
Dont you mean the history of UNIX, including the UNIX clone, Linux?
So go get it merged in the Ubuntu, (Open)SuSE and RHEL and Fedora trees
first. This is not something where we use my tree as a way to get it to
other trees. This is something where the push had better come from the
other direction.
Anyone remember the stock kernel which shipped with the FC5 isos? There was a "mistake" in that kernel which prevented the loading of such modules (think the ATi and nV drivers). Was patched pretty soon though.
Read Linus' post - his reasoning is clear. If there is demand for this feature let the distros decide - Linus' tree isn't the correct place to apply this first.
Sounds fair to me.
Making sure the kernel remains maintainable, is a technical virtue. What are you going to do when a binary driver keeps you from being able to update your box's kernel, because the new kernel uses a different ABI? Be unhappy with your old kernel's performance and reliability and security, that's what.
Making sure the kernel remains auditable, is a technical virtue. What are you going to do when you find out that a binary driver allows your box to be root exploited? Be unhappy with your kernel's performance and reliability and security, that's what.
Having your kernel be Free Software, is an idea that has a metric shitload of technical merit. Linus is making a technical decision that will result in Linux being less maintainabile and secure than it could be. Ok, maybe this tradeoff is worth it but don't pretend it's not a technical decision that doesn't have tremendous technical ramifications. The maintainability that GPL guarantees to its end users, is the only reason Linux isn't just another has-been obscure Unix-a-like.
Politics isn't something that is seperate from the rest of life; it matters. Politics has practical consequences, and any engineer that chooses to bury his head in the sand, isn't being realistic.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
- It's called User Mode Driver Framework (UMDF). WDM is something totally different.
- At the moment, it's only for USB and Firewire drivers AFAIK.
- Microsoft doesn't make ANY money from signing drivers. Companies sign drivers themselves, using a certificate they purchase from verisign or another of several trusted certificate suppliers.
Doom 3 (or any other commercial high end graphics software).
Working, fully functional, stable NVidia/ATi drivers to run said software.
(Of course, this isn't the only type of software people have or want to run on Linux, it's just the most familiar and easiest to talk about for argument sake...)
Many closed source drivers can't be opened because of licensed 3rd party technology the licensee (e.g. nVidia) has no legal authority to open. And, the last I checked the open source nvidia driver project still can't hold a candle to nVidia's closed driver.
If you want support for the latest hardware in Linux, sometimes you might have to bend a little. nVidia isn't going to open up just because you want them to (and legally they can't). And any reverse engineering efforts are going to be constantly playing catch-up with Windows.
The whole license debate is nothing more than a religious ideology that does nothing to promote the adoption of Linux. The majority of potential users out there (me inlcuded) just want something that works. They aren't going to be willing to deal with low budget hardware and second rate drivers just to push some religious agenda. If I wasn't able to do EVERYTHING on Linux that I can do on Windows I would never have made the switch. I certainly would never have settled for a hacked unstable video driver just to prove a point that nobody outside the community even cares about.
If Linux is going to stay competative, they are going to have to lose the agenda...
Of course not, GNU is not UNIX.
The drivers for the Atheros chips were essentially required to be binary by the FCC (United States communication rules). Don't know if this is still true. The reasoning is that if software were provided that the users could violate the restrictions on broadcast power and such. But by making parts of the driver be binary only, it can be argued that violations can only occur by reverse engineering. These drivers though only had a small layer of binary code, most of it was in source code.
That said, I support binary modules for the same reason that I support non-GPL modules. I want to run modules free of political and religious restrictions. I don't want my operating system to tell me that a module with a BSD license makes me an immoral or misguided person, or that public domain code is eroding our rights, or that commercial code is inherently evil. If I want to commit a sin, then that's my right, I don't need my OS to proselytize me.
Linus has the right attitude. He's for the use of GPL as a tool to make Linux better; but not to use Linux as a mean to push the GPL way of thinking on everyone.
That's just hilarious.
GR
"Paranoia is the flaw and gift of man. Heed its advice, but do not live by its will."
Doesn't VMware Workstation install binary modules into the kernel? For a lot of people VMware Workstation is very necessary from day-to-day use. I know that VMPLayer and GSX server is now free, but Workstation has oh so much power and configurability. Also, locking people out from using an upwards of $500 program is going to piss a lot of people off, such as myself. I'm sure VMware could work their way around it, but right now it does Just Work(tm) and I am very greatful for it.
:-)
I may be going out on a limb here and may not understand completely how Vmware works, but from what I can see from installing it just last night [recently wiped and installed Gentoo over SUSE 9.1] it searches for a module and if it cannot find one that works, it compiles one?
Please correct me if I am wrong. Half of this comment is a statement and half is a question.
Oh yeah. My database just won't function without the 3D acceleration on my video card.
Look, there are only about two or three things that need good 3D video drivers: Games and CAD spring to mind. For everything else, the rate at which data is blitted to the screen is simply not the rate determining step in the workflow.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
*blink*
Astroturf much?
It was named 'Linux' when it was still entirely his own code. Only after several hundred programmers added their work did it become only fractionally his code. Even so, he still operates as the project manager.
As for 'self-righteous' - what?? I don't even know where you're getting this article being self-righteous; he's basically saying 'Practicality is more important than principles, here guys. We kinda NEED the binary-only modules.'
Self-publicist? Gimme an example.
No, seriously. You work for SCO?
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Tyranny isn't the worst enemy of a democracy. Cynicism is.
The trouble is, allowing binary kernel modules hasn't resulted in Linux having working, fully functional, stable nVidia and ATi drivers. Rather, it's given us crappy drivers that interfere with ACPI and cause crashes.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
At the time Linux was named (not by Linus, who wanted to call it Freax, but at the insistence of Ari Lemmke, who controlled the FTP server), he had written the vast majority of it.
Here, trollie, trollie. I have a nice cookie for you! Good troll.
*yells over shoulder* Allright, now boys, get 'im!
*watches the troll sizzle in the arcs from a group of amped-up cattle prods*
Ahh, but that was satisfying.
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FYI, the shim Nvidia uses appears to NOT be under the GPL or any compatible license.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
A similar situation exists for many printers, printer-fax-copier devices, graphic tables and many other hardware devices.
In all cases the usual reason given by the companies for not providing a drivers is that they do not want to make the drivers open source and thus expose the inner workings and maybe trade secrets to the general public.
With wireless drivers there is the additional issue of legal requirements: a driver must not allow, for example, to drive the radio with more than the allowed power.
Unless LINUX finds a way for companies to provide closed drivers, I do not see too bright a future when it comes to support common hardware devices.
A similar problem exists when it comes to handling media, but thats a different topic.
If the companies tell all linux users to pound sand, then there will be a nice market there. Some of those companies (if past history is anything to go by, it will be all the asian ones) will just go ahead and give us docs. Then we will have high quality, stable, secure drivers. Then linux users will actually HELP get docs from the other companies since they don't have the option of using binary shit, and more companies will wake up and start treating their paying customers like customers instead of like hostages.
It appears to me that the guy is referring to hard disc drivers for Oracle deployments, not 3D video drivers. I can see how a db vendor might want to implement their own drivers for such a thing, but then, I can see why people might not like seeing such a scheme be market dominant.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Preparing a derivitive work is copyright infringment, and doesn't have to involve making a copy of the original.
It's not surprising at all. Linus is a pragmatist, and I agree with him, it is a politically motivated move.
Off on a bit of a tangent.... Sometimes it really does surprise me that Linus actually picked the GPL license when he released Linux - he doesn't agree with the GNU coding standards (go read the coding style kernel docs) and he doesn't seem politically motivated about destroying commercial software.
His ideals, to me sound like they're a lot more aligned with the BSD-way of thinking, which is to just put the code out there and if people use it (for whatever use, including commercial gain), then fine - if not, that's fine too.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Thanks for the corrections on UMDF. I also found out that 32-bit versions of Windows will load unsigned kernel-mode drivers, but only on an administrator account. (64-bit versions still won't load any.
However, the drivers have to be signed by Microsoft, which only happens after you pass their Windows Logo Program testing thingy, which involves you paying $dough to their software engineers to thoroughly check out the quality of your code. (Kinda ironic in a way, right?)
Companies can sign their own drivers (and other programs) to verify that the program came from the company it says it does - you see these screens when you run a program you download from the Internet in XP. But, the signing I was talking about is the stuff Microsoft will sign only after you pass (and pay for) their Windows Logo quality testing.
DATABASE WOW WOW
"Do you know any other logical fallacies? You must lead a horrible life to have such an opinion."
Was that a joke, as it's obviously a logical fallacy? I can't really tell.
You have tried to support your argument with faulty reasoning! Go directly to jail; do not pass Go, do not collect $200!
"Rather, it's given us crappy drivers"
As opposed to even crappier drivers?
No, whether or not you can link binary drivers to your kernel has no impact at all on what software you can run in userspace.
OTOH, allowing binary kernel modules can be a "slippery slope" that leads to a situation where you are *expected* to load binary kernel drivers just to have a working linux system. (Think XGL and the like - in a few years it may actually be required to have working 3D hardware acceleration in order to use a modern Unix/Linux desktop.)
If it's so secret, then how come I've never heard of it?
Although banning proprietary modules is probably not the best idea, something needs to be in place to ensure that all drivers do not become proprietary (like in other popular operating systems). I can't find the link, but about a year ago, somebody wrote an article outlining how such a thing would be very detrimental to everything - the ABI would need freezing, security holes would never get fixed....
Perhaps more liberal use of EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL (permitting only GPL-licensed modules to use a certain ABI feature) would have a place in doing this. Few other nonideological benefits otherwise are there to make a driver or feature free.
Was it not Freix? As in Free UNIX.
...weaknesses (dogmatism and...
Scanning through the rest of your post I couldn't find the closing parenthesis. I'm throwing up this error on line 1 to ask if I should truncate or assume one at the end of the text.
No, it doesn't. The VMware kernel modules (vmmon and vmnet) are provided entirely in source code form, even though they technically aren't GPL (i.e. license says you can modify and distribute them, but only for use with VMware products). The actual VMware virtual machine monitor binary that provides the hardware emulation and dynamic binary translation is ~300 KB (inside the vmware-vmx executable), and it runs in a dedicated address space isolated from the kernel. The kernel modules just do context switching and make this address space look like a regular Linux process. It's the same idea as Xen: the kernel mode hypervisor is very small and fast, while something like qemu-dm runs in the same address space as the VM to provide all other features.
Whether you call it a module, or an application, both are a gob of bits loaded into RAM, dynamically linked to GPL code, then utilize said GPL code to provide services. This logic is contrary to the GPL which states that a non-GPL program may call services of a GPL program through a public interface, so long as it does not rely on "intimate knowledge" of how the GPL code operates. Last time I checked, Linux device driver interfaces and KPIs were pretty well documented in public, and though I could see the case to exclude certain modules that access kernel tables that are hidden behind the KPIs, I have to say I see no reason stated by the GPL that suggests a non-GPL program can't be loaded on a GPL operating system and use the services provided by that operating system, kernelspace, userspace, or otherwise.
As for your straw man argument (i.e., XGL), GPL absolutely guarantees that you can use your GPL code without having to also use non-GPL code. Your argument is a non-starter.
You might want to try actually reading the GPL and the FAQ of the GPL before representing yourself as an authority on this topic. There is also a website which you may be unfamiliar with, where I am sure you will be welcomed here
The funny thing about this whole thing is the dunderheads who stirred up this shit have unwittingly violated the GPL themselves by trying to modify the license without obtaining permission from all the authors involved. Why Linus held back on that point in his posting kind of escapes me.
cat
Has anyone bothered listening to Linus speak (or maybe read his book?). He's not RMS. He chose the GPL for his kernel because he liked the idea, not the politics (if you try really hard you can still sort the two out).
Quack, quack.
FSF's "long-term" perspective has also given you GCC, among other things. The failure of one project does not mean that their philosophy is flawed. Like there haven't been a few dead ends in Linux kernel development?
On one hand, look at what Linus has done for the community. On the other hand, I can't think of any cases where Linus has taken a stance that favors the community lately when community versus corporate interests collide.
"Didn't think it through" - as usual. If Linus hadn't said something, the Linux zealots would be yelling "yeah! stick it to the man!"
To "chime" does mean to agree. If the submitter had said that Linus chimed with them, you would be correct. The verbal expression "to chime in" means "to interject remarks or questions into another's discourse".
AFAIK, only the firmware for Wi-Fi chipsets is required to be a binary blob, not the driver. The driver loads the firmware from disk and uploads it to the card at boot.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
If you want to see Linux users debating the proprietary driver issue, head over to www.investorvillage.com and look at the SCOX message board.
Depends on whether you define crappy as:
A) Having less features
or
B) Causing my machine to die in mysterious ways occasionally
Processes aren't linked into the kernel at all like modules are, the only things they're linked against are userland libraries and you still have to respect each libraries license regardless of what license the kernel is under. Each process's only real interaction with the kernel is via syscalls and even those are usualy proxied via some library like glibc. And on top of that the Linux kernel has a specific exception for userland apps in it's license so that it can't be interpreted like you just did.
The funny thing about this whole thing is the dunderheads who stirred up this shit have unwittingly violated the GPL themselves by trying to modify the license without obtaining permission from all the authors involved. Why Linus held back on that point in his posting kind of escapes me.
Because the patch wouldn't violate the GPL at all, the GPL covers distribution but not use and the patch was purely runtime check, gregkh even admitted this in the post where he apologized and withdrew the patch.
Possibly, the fork should be called "GNU/Linux".
Having said that, I also understand Greg's difficulties: he seems to be selling support for Linux, and lots of people waste his time by asking him to fix problems caused by closed-source (binary) modules hooked up into a Linux system. Which of course he can't do since the binary modules might well be at fault and he hasn't got a clue what they are doing
So the problem is Greg being innundated by support requests from people who try to have him fix systems which are broken by binary-only modules.
I think a solution would be a piece of software that simply goes through all kernel modules and lists those that aren't Open Source.
Then Greg could limit his activities up-front to systems that don't include any Closed Source binaries (or at least only ones known to be unproblematic), and quickly determine if this is the case for any system handed to him, or even ask people to run the module checker first before he looks at their support requests.
Wouldn't that take care of things?
When I first read about this topic on osnews, I was a bit worried for the future of binary drivers in linux, and I seriously wondered how a decision like this had been made with no prior publicity - It seems quite a major issue to me.
Thank God that Linus has a decent head on his shoulders.
"Women are just like ninjas; They lie even when it is more convenient to tell the truth." ~ Unknown
What in the world are you going on about? In the same post as stating:
without providing a single instance of me doing so to support your claim, you say:
And
For the record, I haven't (that I can see) engaged in ad hominem attacks (I haven't even "sic"ed your typos). If I have, please point them out.
Also, for the record, I didn't "describe any solution" to anything; I said (quite clearly, I thought) that for the first time I think I understood Linus's position on the issue of binary only drivers. That's it.
Why would I want to control how other people (you, specifically, since you're the only one doing it at the moment) choose to label me? I am not trying to control you in any way. Go ahead, call me whatever you wish, think of me in whatever terms you are most comfortable with. Have fun, enjoy yourself.
And I'm sorry that my claiming to understand Linus's position upsets you so, but there is very little I can do about it.
--MarkusQ
I don't need to test my programs.. I have an error correcting modem.
I've never had ACPI problems or crashes with the open source drivers. I have with the proprietary ones.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak