On Sat, 16 Dec 2006, Dave Jones wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 16, 2006 at 09:20:15AM -0800, Linus Torvalds wrote:
>
> > 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
> to do a 2.6 driver, instead of doing the sensible thing and dropping
> them in favour of using the kernel AGP driver, they chose to forward
> port their unholy abomination to 2.6.
> It misses so many fixes (and introduces a number of other problems)
> that its just unfunny.
>
> The thing that really ticks me off though is the free support ATI seem
> to think they're entitled to. I've had end-users emailing me
> "I asked ATI about this crash I've been seeing with fglrx, and they
> asked me to mail you".
>
> I invest my time into improving free drivers. When companies start
> expecting me to debug their part binary garbage mixed with license
> violations, frankly, I think they're taking the piss.
>
> A year and a half ago, I met an ATI engineer at OLS, who told me they
> were going to 'resolve this'. I'm still waiting.
> I live in hope that the AMD buyout will breathe some sanity into ATI.
> Then again, I've only a limited supply of optimism.
You would think ATI's steaming pile of crap would be a good reason for
them to give up on the whole binary module thing and just release specs so
someone else can write a decent driver.
I made the mistake of purchasing an ATI X1600. No open kernel driver.. no
open X driver. The ATI drivers don't even complile on amd64 on any
recent kernel and their X drivers are prone to random screen corruption
that requires nothing less than a full reboot to clear.
IMO let those morons keep writing themselves into a corner with this crud
and then perhapse they will see for themselves that binary modules are a
horribly bad idea instead of having someone else to blame when this whole
thing finally fails.
Gerhard
--
Gerhard Mack
[email protected]
<>< As a computer I find your faith in technology amusing.
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