On 19/07/2007, Greg Kroah-Hartman <[email protected]> wrote:
> From: Hans J. Koch <[email protected]>
>
> Documentation for the UIO interface
>
...
> +<para>If you use UIO for your card's driver, here's what you get:</para>
> +
...
> +<listitem>
> + <para>if you need to keep some parts of your driver closed source,
> + you can do so without violating the GPL license on the kernel.</para>
> +</listitem>
> +</itemizedlist>
> +
...
Do we really want this?
In my oppinion we run the risk here of encouraging behaviour akin to
what NVidia is doing - release a small kernel "glue" module and then
keep the driver proper in a binary blob (in userspace, but still a
binary blob).
If the company goes out of business and take their driver source with
them then users are left with a useless, un-debugable, un-maintainable
binary blob.
Don't we instead want to encourage/pressure people to release specs
and/or source code for their hardware/drivers so open, modifiable
drivers can be written?
This opens the door for people to start writing closed drivers. In the
long run that seems to me like a bad deal for our users.
--
Jesper Juhl <[email protected]>
Don't top-post http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/T/top-post.html
Plain text mails only, please http://www.expita.com/nomime.html
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