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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."
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.