On Sun, Mar 27, 2005 at 11:16:54AM -0800, Aaron Gyes wrote:
> > And then the user want to upgrade the 2.0 kernel that shipped with this
> > box although the company that made the hardware went bankrupt some years
> > ago.
> >
> > If the user has the source of the driver, he can port the driver or hire
> > someone to port the driver (this "obscure piece of hardware" might also
> > be an expensive piece of hardware).
>
> So what? Sure, GPL'd drivers are easier for an end-user in that case.
> What does that have to do with law? What about what's better for the
I wasn't talking about legal issues.
I was answering Dave's "very specialist piece of equipment" opinion.
And my point was that even in this case it's better for the user to have
the source.
> company that made the device? Should NVIDIA be forced to give up their
> secrets to all their competitors because some over zealous developers
> say so? Should the end-users of the current drivers be forced to lose
> out on features such as sysfs and udev compatability?
>
> I love Linux, and a I love that free software has become mildly
> successful, but the zealots are hurting both.
There are many bug reports to linux-kernel that are undebuggable because
they involve the nvidia binary-only module.
I do personally know several people who use the nvidia binary-only
modules and have as a result experienced stability problems on their
computer. Linux has an IMHO justified reputation for being stable.
Users experiencing system stability problems due to binary-only modules
might wrongfully attribute them to Linux harming the reputation of
Linux.
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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