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GPL only modules [was Re: [GIT PATCH] more Driver core patches for 2.6.19]

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pavel at suse

Dec 21, 2006, 7:38 AM

Post #201 of 214 (3282 views)
Permalink

Re: GPL only modules [was Re: [GIT PATCH] more Driver core patches for 2.6.19] [In reply to]

On Thu 14-12-06 20:51:36, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 14, 2006 at 12:17:49PM -0500, Theodore Tso wrote:
> > On Thu, Dec 14, 2006 at 04:33:47PM +0000, Alan wrote:
> > > > The trick is to let a lawyer send cease and desist letters to people
> > > > distributing the infringing software for 1 Euro at Ebay.
> > >
> > > Doesn't that sound even more like the music industry ? Pick on Grandma,
> > > and people who've no clue about the issue. It's not the way to solve such
> > > problems. The world does not need "The war on binary modules". Educate
> > > people instead, and talk to vendors.
> >
> > .... or like Microsoft, who is threatening to make war on end-users
> > instead of settling things with vendors. (One of the reasons why I
> > personally find the Microsoft promise not to sue _Novell_'s end users
> > so nasty. Microsoft shouldn't be threatening anyone's users; if they
> > have a problem, they should be taking it up with the relevant vendor,
> > not sueing innocent and relatively shallow-pocketed end-users and
> > distributors.)
> >
> > One of the things that I find so interesting about how rabid people
> > get about enforcing GPL-only modules is how they start acting more and
> > more like the RIAA, MPAA, and Microsoft every day....
>
> Please don't think or imply I'd plan to do this, I'm only saying that
> there's a risk for users in such grey areas.
>
> It could be that someone who wants to harm Linux starts suing people
> distributing Linux. If your goal is to harm Linux, suing users can
> simply be much more effective than suing vendors...
>
> It could even be that people distributing Linux could receive cease and
> desist letters from people without any real interest in the issue
> itself - "cease and desist letter"s are so frequent in Germany because
> the people who have to sign them have to pay the lawyers' costs that are
> usually > 1000 Euro, and that's a good business for the lawyers.

Something is very wrong with German legal system, I'm afraid.

Pavel
--
Thanks for all the (sleeping) penguins.
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vonbrand at inf

Dec 21, 2006, 8:43 AM

Post #202 of 214 (3293 views)
Permalink

Re: GPL only modules [was Re: [GIT PATCH] more Driver core patches for 2.6.19] [In reply to]

Marek Wawrzyczny <marekw1977 [at] yahoo> wrote:

[...]

> No, no, no... I was never proposing that. I was thinking of something more
> along the lines of reporting back on open-source friendliness of
> manufacturers of devices, and perhaps on the availability of open source
> drivers for the devices. I am talking only about "detected" devices. The
> database would never try and guess the vendor, model and variation of the
> system.

This is a /massive/ ammount of effort, and the data required is hard to
come by before buying, so it is rather useless. What chip is in NetworkCard
675? In 675a? (yes, I've seen dLink cards called <foo> and <foo>+ which
were /radically/ different!). Yes, here you go to the computer store and
ask them to build you a machine from parts you specify. But it is far from
the common way to get a PC (those stores mostly cater to heavy-weight
gamers, many pieces have to be special ordered), and building a machine
that works OK with Linux is a two or three day exercise in hunting down
specifications for compatible pieces. Most folks wander into the next
department store and buy a PC. Mostly terrible crap, BTW.

Where this makes sense (printers!) the data is there, mostly up to date,
and accurate.

[...]

> I actually find that trying to obtain information about what hardware
> is/isn't supported in Linux is actually quite difficult to obtain. The
> information that's on the internet is either outdated or has not yet been
> written. I was hoping to analyze the system's device information
> together with driver/device information obtained from the kernel source
> itself to give users a better (but not perhaps not as authoritative as
> I'd like to) picture of what to expect.

There is just way too much hardware out there, and new pieces come out
every day. Then there are lots of integrators that buy chips and build PCI
cards. Sometimes cards with supported chips just don't work at all. Etc. It
is all over the map.

Besides, many times you don't find information on some piece of hardware it
is because it is dirt cheap stuff that has no chance of working, so nobody
even tried.

[...]

> > Bonus points for figuring out what to do with systems that have some chip
> > that's a supported XYZ driver, but wired up behind a squirrely bridge with
> > some totally bizarre IRQ allocation, so you end up with something that's
> > visible on lspci but not actually *usable* in any real sense of the term...

> Hmmm... does this happen often? False results are definedly a show
> stopper.

Not just for systems, even for individual cards.
--
Dr. Horst H. von Brand User #22616 counter.li.org
Departamento de Informatica Fono: +56 32 2654431
Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria +56 32 2654239
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Valdis.Kletnieks at vt

Dec 21, 2006, 11:28 AM

Post #203 of 214 (3294 views)
Permalink

Re: GPL only modules [was Re: [GIT PATCH] more Driver core patches for 2.6.19] [In reply to]

On Fri, 22 Dec 2006 02:34:54 +1100, Marek Wawrzyczny said:
>
> > And then there's stuff on this machine that are *not* options, but don't
> > matter to me. I see an 'O2 Micro' Firewire in the 'lspci' output. I have
> > no idea how well it works. I don't care what it contributes to the score.
> > On the other hand, somebody who uses external Firewire disk enclosures may
> > be *very* concerned about it, but not care in the slightest about the
> > wireless card.
>
> Perhaps we just report on the individual devices then... forget the system
> rating.

OK, *that* I see as potentially useful - I frequently get handed older
boxen with strange gear in them, and need a way to figure out if I want to
install software, or cannibalize it for parts. Also helpful if a buddy has
a Frankintel box they build, and they want to know if they can install
something other than Windows....

Bonus points if it sees a card that has a known out-of-tree driver and
tells you where to find it and what its license status is (I just went
down that road with an Intel 3945)...

> > Bonus points for figuring out what to do with systems that have some chip
> > that's a supported XYZ driver, but wired up behind a squirrely bridge with
> > some totally bizarre IRQ allocation, so you end up with something that's
> > visible on lspci but not actually *usable* in any real sense of the term...
>
> Hmmm... does this happen often? False results are definedly a show stopper.

Oh, we see reports of squirrelly or downright confused hardware all the time
on this list. :)

pavel at ucw

Dec 21, 2006, 11:39 AM

Post #204 of 214 (3282 views)
Permalink

Re: GPL only modules [was Re: [GIT PATCH] more Driver core patches for 2.6.19] [In reply to]

Hi!

> > Anything else, you have to make some really scary decisions. Can a judge
> > decide that a binary module is a derived work even though you didn't
> > actually use any code? The real answer is: HELL YES. It's _entirely_
> > possible that a judge would find NVidia and ATI in violation of the GPLv2
> > with their modules.
>
> ATI in particular, I'm amazed their lawyers OK'd stuff like..
>
> +ifdef STANDALONE
> MODULE_LICENSE(GPL);
> +endif
>
> This a paraphrased diff, it's been a while since I've seen it.
> It's GPL if you build their bundled copy of the AGPGART code as agpgart.ko,
> but the usual use case is that it's built-in to fglrx.ko, which sounds
> incredibly dubious.
>
> Now, AGPGART has a murky past wrt licenses. It initally was imported
> into the tree with the license "GPL plus additional rights".
> Nowhere was it actually documented what those rights were, but I'm
> fairly certain it wasn't to enable nonsense like the above.
> As it came from the XFree86 folks, it's more likely they really meant
> "Dual GPL/MIT" or similar.
>
> When I took over, any new code I wrote I explicitly set out to mark as GPL
> code, as my modifications weren't being contributed back to X, they were
> going back to the Linux kernel. ATI took those AGPv3 modifications from
> a 2.5 kernel, backported them to their 2.4 driver, and when time came

Do they actually distribute that AGPv3 + binary blob? In such case,
you should simply ask them for the binary blob sources, and take them
to the court if they refuse. RedHat should be big enough, and ATI
certainly makes enough money...

They'll probably resolve the problem fast if they feel legal actions
are pending.
Pavel

--
Thanks for all the (sleeping) penguins.
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NiSteinkamp at web

Dec 22, 2006, 3:48 AM

Post #205 of 214 (3299 views)
Permalink

Re: GPL only modules [was Re: [GIT PATCH] more Driver core patches for 2.6.19] [In reply to]

Hi,

Pavel wrote:
> Something is very wrong with German legal system, I'm afraid.

In this case you are right. Our legal system is often very strange.
______________________________________________________________________________
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bunk at stusta

Dec 23, 2006, 3:24 AM

Post #206 of 214 (3282 views)
Permalink

Re: GPL only modules [was Re: [GIT PATCH] more Driver core patches for 2.6.19] [In reply to]

On Thu, Dec 21, 2006 at 03:38:29PM +0000, Pavel Machek wrote:
> On Thu 14-12-06 20:51:36, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> > On Thu, Dec 14, 2006 at 12:17:49PM -0500, Theodore Tso wrote:
> > > On Thu, Dec 14, 2006 at 04:33:47PM +0000, Alan wrote:
> > > > > The trick is to let a lawyer send cease and desist letters to people
> > > > > distributing the infringing software for 1 Euro at Ebay.
> > > >
> > > > Doesn't that sound even more like the music industry ? Pick on Grandma,
> > > > and people who've no clue about the issue. It's not the way to solve such
> > > > problems. The world does not need "The war on binary modules". Educate
> > > > people instead, and talk to vendors.
> > >
> > > .... or like Microsoft, who is threatening to make war on end-users
> > > instead of settling things with vendors. (One of the reasons why I
> > > personally find the Microsoft promise not to sue _Novell_'s end users
> > > so nasty. Microsoft shouldn't be threatening anyone's users; if they
> > > have a problem, they should be taking it up with the relevant vendor,
> > > not sueing innocent and relatively shallow-pocketed end-users and
> > > distributors.)
> > >
> > > One of the things that I find so interesting about how rabid people
> > > get about enforcing GPL-only modules is how they start acting more and
> > > more like the RIAA, MPAA, and Microsoft every day....
> >
> > Please don't think or imply I'd plan to do this, I'm only saying that
> > there's a risk for users in such grey areas.
> >
> > It could be that someone who wants to harm Linux starts suing people
> > distributing Linux. If your goal is to harm Linux, suing users can
> > simply be much more effective than suing vendors...
> >
> > It could even be that people distributing Linux could receive cease and
> > desist letters from people without any real interest in the issue
> > itself - "cease and desist letter"s are so frequent in Germany because
> > the people who have to sign them have to pay the lawyers' costs that are
> > usually > 1000 Euro, and that's a good business for the lawyers.
>
> Something is very wrong with German legal system, I'm afraid.

The point that you can take legal actions against anyone distributing
something that violates your rights should be present in more or less
all legal systems.

What might be special in Germany is only that you can demand your costs
after successfully taking legal actions.

> Pavel

cu
Adrian

--

"Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
"Only a promise," Lao Er said.
Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed

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pavel at ucw

Dec 23, 2006, 1:36 PM

Post #207 of 214 (3278 views)
Permalink

Re: GPL only modules [was Re: [GIT PATCH] more Driver core patches for 2.6.19] [In reply to]

On Sat 2006-12-23 12:24:29, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 21, 2006 at 03:38:29PM +0000, Pavel Machek wrote:
> > On Thu 14-12-06 20:51:36, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> > > On Thu, Dec 14, 2006 at 12:17:49PM -0500, Theodore Tso wrote:
> > > > On Thu, Dec 14, 2006 at 04:33:47PM +0000, Alan wrote:
> > > > > > The trick is to let a lawyer send cease and desist letters to people
> > > > > > distributing the infringing software for 1 Euro at Ebay.
> > > > >
> > > > > Doesn't that sound even more like the music industry ? Pick on Grandma,
> > > > > and people who've no clue about the issue. It's not the way to solve such
> > > > > problems. The world does not need "The war on binary modules". Educate
> > > > > people instead, and talk to vendors.
> > > >
> > > > .... or like Microsoft, who is threatening to make war on end-users
> > > > instead of settling things with vendors. (One of the reasons why I
> > > > personally find the Microsoft promise not to sue _Novell_'s end users
> > > > so nasty. Microsoft shouldn't be threatening anyone's users; if they
> > > > have a problem, they should be taking it up with the relevant vendor,
> > > > not sueing innocent and relatively shallow-pocketed end-users and
> > > > distributors.)
> > > >
> > > > One of the things that I find so interesting about how rabid people
> > > > get about enforcing GPL-only modules is how they start acting more and
> > > > more like the RIAA, MPAA, and Microsoft every day....
> > >
> > > Please don't think or imply I'd plan to do this, I'm only saying that
> > > there's a risk for users in such grey areas.
> > >
> > > It could be that someone who wants to harm Linux starts suing people
> > > distributing Linux. If your goal is to harm Linux, suing users can
> > > simply be much more effective than suing vendors...
> > >
> > > It could even be that people distributing Linux could receive cease and
> > > desist letters from people without any real interest in the issue
> > > itself - "cease and desist letter"s are so frequent in Germany because
> > > the people who have to sign them have to pay the lawyers' costs that are
> > > usually > 1000 Euro, and that's a good business for the lawyers.
> >
> > Something is very wrong with German legal system, I'm afraid.
>
> The point that you can take legal actions against anyone distributing
> something that violates your rights should be present in more or less
> all legal systems.
>
> What might be special in Germany is only that you can demand your costs
> after successfully taking legal actions.

What is special in Germany is fact that any random lawyer can demand
$1000 (not his cost, his profit) if you distribute code that is not
his...
Pavel
--
(english) http://www.livejournal.com/~pavelmachek
(cesky, pictures) http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~pavel/picture/horses/blog.html
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bunk at stusta

Dec 23, 2006, 5:07 PM

Post #208 of 214 (3267 views)
Permalink

Re: GPL only modules [was Re: [GIT PATCH] more Driver core patches for 2.6.19] [In reply to]

On Sat, Dec 23, 2006 at 10:36:02PM +0100, Pavel Machek wrote:
> On Sat 2006-12-23 12:24:29, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> > On Thu, Dec 21, 2006 at 03:38:29PM +0000, Pavel Machek wrote:
> > > On Thu 14-12-06 20:51:36, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> > > > On Thu, Dec 14, 2006 at 12:17:49PM -0500, Theodore Tso wrote:
> > > > > On Thu, Dec 14, 2006 at 04:33:47PM +0000, Alan wrote:
> > > > > > > The trick is to let a lawyer send cease and desist letters to people
> > > > > > > distributing the infringing software for 1 Euro at Ebay.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Doesn't that sound even more like the music industry ? Pick on Grandma,
> > > > > > and people who've no clue about the issue. It's not the way to solve such
> > > > > > problems. The world does not need "The war on binary modules". Educate
> > > > > > people instead, and talk to vendors.
> > > > >
> > > > > .... or like Microsoft, who is threatening to make war on end-users
> > > > > instead of settling things with vendors. (One of the reasons why I
> > > > > personally find the Microsoft promise not to sue _Novell_'s end users
> > > > > so nasty. Microsoft shouldn't be threatening anyone's users; if they
> > > > > have a problem, they should be taking it up with the relevant vendor,
> > > > > not sueing innocent and relatively shallow-pocketed end-users and
> > > > > distributors.)
> > > > >
> > > > > One of the things that I find so interesting about how rabid people
> > > > > get about enforcing GPL-only modules is how they start acting more and
> > > > > more like the RIAA, MPAA, and Microsoft every day....
> > > >
> > > > Please don't think or imply I'd plan to do this, I'm only saying that
> > > > there's a risk for users in such grey areas.
> > > >
> > > > It could be that someone who wants to harm Linux starts suing people
> > > > distributing Linux. If your goal is to harm Linux, suing users can
> > > > simply be much more effective than suing vendors...
> > > >
> > > > It could even be that people distributing Linux could receive cease and
> > > > desist letters from people without any real interest in the issue
> > > > itself - "cease and desist letter"s are so frequent in Germany because
> > > > the people who have to sign them have to pay the lawyers' costs that are
> > > > usually > 1000 Euro, and that's a good business for the lawyers.
> > >
> > > Something is very wrong with German legal system, I'm afraid.
> >
> > The point that you can take legal actions against anyone distributing
> > something that violates your rights should be present in more or less
> > all legal systems.
> >
> > What might be special in Germany is only that you can demand your costs
> > after successfully taking legal actions.
>
> What is special in Germany is fact that any random lawyer can demand
> $1000 (not his cost, his profit) if you distribute code that is not
> his...

This is a misunderstanding.

You can demand the costs for your lawyer.
The costs for your lawyer depend on the amount in controversy.

The one who tells his lawyer to take legal actions might be a copyright
owner, but it's also possible based on competition law.

> Pavel

cu
Adrian

--

"Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
"Only a promise," Lao Er said.
Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed

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vonbrand at inf

Dec 23, 2006, 7:11 PM

Post #209 of 214 (3270 views)
Permalink

Re: GPL only modules [was Re: [GIT PATCH] more Driver core patches for 2.6.19] [In reply to]

Valdis.Kletnieks [at] vt wrote:
> On Fri, 22 Dec 2006 02:34:54 +1100, Marek Wawrzyczny said:

[...]

> > Perhaps we just report on the individual devices then... forget the system
> > rating.

> OK, *that* I see as potentially useful - I frequently get handed older
> boxen with strange gear

== gear for which there is probably no documentation at all

> in them, and need a way to figure out if I want to
> install software,

LiveCD of your choice...

> or cannibalize it for parts. Also helpful if a buddy has
> a Frankintel box they build, and they want to know if they can install
> something other than Windows....

Same as above.

> Bonus points if it sees a card that has a known out-of-tree driver and
> tells you where to find it and what its license status is (I just went
> down that road with an Intel 3945)...

If in-tree driver is already a challange, out-of-tree is hopeless.
--
Dr. Horst H. von Brand User #22616 counter.li.org
Departamento de Informatica Fono: +56 32 2654431
Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria +56 32 2654239
Casilla 110-V, Valparaiso, Chile Fax: +56 32 2797513
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dmarkh at cfl

Dec 24, 2006, 3:57 AM

Post #210 of 214 (3277 views)
Permalink

Re: GPL only modules [was Re: [GIT PATCH] more Driver core patches for 2.6.19] [In reply to]

James Courtier-Dutton wrote:
>
> I agree with Linus on these points. The kernel should not be enforcing
> these issues. Leave the lawyers to do that bit. If companies want to
> play in the "Grey Area", then it is at their own risk. Binary drivers
> are already difficult and expensive for the companies because they have
> to keep updating them as we change the kernel versions. If they do open
> source drivers, we update them for them as we change the kernel
> versions, so it works out cheaper for the companies involved.
>

Hum. We open sourced our drivers 2 years ago. Now one is 'changing' them
for us. The only way that happens is if they can get in the official
tree. I know just from monitoring this list that our drivers would never
be acceptable for inclusion in any "functional form". We open sourced
them purely out of respect for the way we know the community feels about
it.

It would cost more for us to make them acceptable for inclusion than it
does for us to just maintain them ourselves. I suspect that is true for
most vendor created drivers open source or not.

So kernel developers making the required changes as the kernel changes
is NO real incentive for any vendor to open source their drivers. Sorry.

If it were knowingly less difficult to actually get your drivers
included, that would be an incentive and then you original point would
hold as an additional incentive.

My humble $.02 worth

Regards
Mark

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seanlkml at sympatico

Dec 24, 2006, 5:22 AM

Post #211 of 214 (3280 views)
Permalink

Re: GPL only modules [was Re: [GIT PATCH] more Driver core patches for 2.6.19] [In reply to]

On Sun, 24 Dec 2006 06:57:58 -0500
Mark Hounschell <dmarkh [at] cfl> wrote:

> Hum. We open sourced our drivers 2 years ago. Now one is 'changing' them
> for us. The only way that happens is if they can get in the official
> tree. I know just from monitoring this list that our drivers would never
> be acceptable for inclusion in any "functional form". We open sourced
> them purely out of respect for the way we know the community feels about
> it.

That shows some class, thanks.

> It would cost more for us to make them acceptable for inclusion than it
> does for us to just maintain them ourselves. I suspect that is true for
> most vendor created drivers open source or not.
>
> So kernel developers making the required changes as the kernel changes
> is NO real incentive for any vendor to open source their drivers. Sorry.
>
> If it were knowingly less difficult to actually get your drivers
> included, that would be an incentive and then you original point would
> hold as an additional incentive.

Out of curiosity what specific technical issues in your driver code make
you think that it would be too expensive to whip them into shape for
inclusion?

Cheers,
Sean

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pavel at suse

Dec 24, 2006, 6:27 AM

Post #212 of 214 (3290 views)
Permalink

Re: GPL only modules [was Re: [GIT PATCH] more Driver core patches for 2.6.19] [In reply to]

Hi!

> > > > So let's come out and ban binary modules, rather than pussyfooting
> > > > around, if that's what we actually want to do.
> > >
> > > Give people 12 months warning (time to work out what they're going to do,
> > > talk with the legal dept, etc) then make the kernel load only GPL-tagged
> > > modules.
> > >
> > > I think I'd favour that. It would aid those people who are trying to
> > > obtain device specs, and who are persuading organisations to GPL their drivers.
> >
> > Ok, I have no objection to that at all. I'll whip up such a patch in a
> > bit to spit out kernel log messages whenever such a module is loaded so
> > that people have some warning.
>
> Here you go. The wording for the feature-removal-schedule.txt file
> could probably be cleaned up. Any suggestions would be welcome.
>
> thanks,
>
> greg k-h
>
> -----------
> From: Greg Kroah-Hartmna <gregkh [at] suse>
> Subject: Notify non-GPL module loading will be going away in January 2008
>
> Numerous kernel developers feel that loading non-GPL drivers into the
> kernel violates the license of the kernel and their copyright. Because
> of this, a one year notice for everyone to address any non-GPL
> compatible modules has been set.
>
> Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh [at] suse>
>
> ---
> Documentation/feature-removal-schedule.txt | 9 +++++++++
> kernel/module.c | 6 +++++-
> 2 files changed, 14 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
>
> --- gregkh-2.6.orig/Documentation/feature-removal-schedule.txt
> +++ gregkh-2.6/Documentation/feature-removal-schedule.txt
> @@ -281,3 +281,12 @@ Why: Speedstep-centrino driver with ACPI
> Who: Venkatesh Pallipadi <venkatesh.pallipadi [at] intel>
>
> ---------------------------
> +
> +What: non GPL licensed modules will able to be loaded successfully.
> +When: January 2008
> +Why: Numerous kernel developers feel that loading non-GPL drivers into the
> + kernel violates the license of the kernel and their copyright.
> +
> +Who: Greg Kroah-Hartman <greg [at] kroah> or <gregkh [at] suse>
> +
> +---------------------------
> --- gregkh-2.6.orig/kernel/module.c
> +++ gregkh-2.6/kernel/module.c
> @@ -1393,9 +1393,13 @@ static void set_license(struct module *m
> license = "unspecified";
>
> if (!license_is_gpl_compatible(license)) {
> - if (!(tainted & TAINT_PROPRIETARY_MODULE))
> + if (!(tainted & TAINT_PROPRIETARY_MODULE)) {
> printk(KERN_WARNING "%s: module license '%s' taints "
> "kernel.\n", mod->name, license);
> + printk(KERN_WARNING "%s: This module will not be able "
> + "to be loaded after January 1, 2008 due to its "
> + "license.\n", mod->name);
> + }
> add_taint_module(mod, TAINT_PROPRIETARY_MODULE);
> }
> }

perhaps printk('Binary only modules are not allowed by kernel license,
but copyright law may still allow them in special cases. Be careful,
Greg is going tuo sue you at beggining of 2008 if you get it wrong.')
would be acceptable way to educate people?
Pavel
--
Thanks for all the (sleeping) penguins.
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dmarkh at cfl

Dec 24, 2006, 6:42 AM

Post #213 of 214 (3302 views)
Permalink

Re: GPL only modules [was Re: [GIT PATCH] more Driver core patches for 2.6.19] [In reply to]

Sean wrote:
> On Sun, 24 Dec 2006 06:57:58 -0500
> Mark Hounschell <dmarkh [at] cfl> wrote:
>
>
>> Hum. We open sourced our drivers 2 years ago. Now one is 'changing' them
>> for us. The only way that happens is if they can get in the official
>> tree. I know just from monitoring this list that our drivers would never
>> be acceptable for inclusion in any "functional form". We open sourced
>> them purely out of respect for the way we know the community feels about
>> it.
>
> That shows some class, thanks.
>
>> It would cost more for us to make them acceptable for inclusion than it
>> does for us to just maintain them ourselves. I suspect that is true for
>> most vendor created drivers open source or not.
>>
>> So kernel developers making the required changes as the kernel changes
>> is NO real incentive for any vendor to open source their drivers. Sorry.
>>
>> If it were knowingly less difficult to actually get your drivers
>> included, that would be an incentive and then you original point would
>> hold as an additional incentive.
>
> Out of curiosity what specific technical issues in your driver code make
> you think that it would be too expensive to whip them into shape for
> inclusion?
>
> Cheers,
> Sean
>

Well just off the top of my head, one of our drivers directly mucks with
all the irq affinities (irq_desc) via a provided user land library call.
This single call forces all 'other' irqs to be serviced by all the
'other' processors. I know this would never fly in kernel. User land
/proc manipulation is not an option for us here.

We have another that absolutely requires the Bigphysarea patch. We
refuse to use "MEM=xxxx" and use a fixed address. Every installation
would require a special configuration and our 'end users' would have to
have some understanding of all that. We are also maintaining that patch
internally also. So this product (for full functionality with our not so
open source application) requires a special kernel to begin with. Other
than that this one might have a chance of inclusion. It only requires
the bigphysarea when used with this application. It will actually build
and work (basically) with or without it.

Another is actually somewhat tied to the one mentioned above in that
this one has to facilitate the ability of its card being able to to PIO
reads and writes to 'special locations' in userspace and to the SRAM
memory of the above card. Even when on different pci busses. I've looked
at some of the V4L drivers that also do this sort of thing and I'm
confused by how they are doing it so I'm almost certain that what we are
doing would be considered 'wrong'.

Then there is probably the biggest one of all. The coding style issue.
Don't get me wrong I understand and agree with what I've read about it.
Our drivers were written by hardware people. Or I should say they were
written by OUR hardware people. I can offend them because I am among
them. No offense intended to any of you invaluable hardware guys.

I see 6 months of full time work before I could even sanely ask what I
needed to do for inclusion. It seems easier to just try to keep up with
the changes.

I'm certain our company is not the only one in this situation. I see
many GPL external kernel drivers. Why?

Mark
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dtor at insightbb

Dec 24, 2006, 11:59 AM

Post #214 of 214 (3285 views)
Permalink

Re: GPL only modules [was Re: [GIT PATCH] more Driver core patches for 2.6.19] [In reply to]

On Sunday 24 December 2006 09:27, Pavel Machek wrote:
>
> perhaps printk('Binary only modules are not allowed by kernel license,
> but copyright law may still allow them in special cases. Be careful,

Come again?

> Greg is going tuo sue you at beggining of 2008 if you get it wrong.')
> would be acceptable way to educate people?

Since this message will be seen by an end-user who is likely does not
do any distribution he has nothing to fear from Greg ;)

--
Dmitry
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