SUSE/Novell has announced that non-GPL kernel modules will no longer be
part of future Novell products.
Since SUSE Linux 6.3, AVM has been providing pre-compiled drivers for SUSE
Linux. Since the release of SUSE 8.1 in September 2002, AVM drivers have
been integrated into SUSE Linux distributions. Each time a new SUSE Linux
Version beta cycle starts, AVM provides the latest drivers and Karsten Keil
does an excellent job integrating those drivers. Therefore, a new SUSE
Linux release goes hand in hand with the latest AVM driver development. At
present, nearly the entire AVM product portfolio comes up with SUSE
pre-compiled modules for ISDN and DSL devices and as such is part of the
SUSE distribution:
AVM ISDN-Controller FRITZ!Card Classic
AVM ISDN-Controller A1
AVM ISDN-Controller FRITZ!Card PnP
AVM ISDN-Controller FRITZ!Card PCI / PCI v2.x
AVM ISDN-Controller FRITZ!Card PCMCIA
AVM ISDN-Controller A1 PCMCIA
AVM ISDN-Controller FRITZ!Card USB
AVM ISDN-Controller FRITZ!Card USB v2.x
AVM DSL/ISDN-Controller FRITZ!Card DSL
AVM DSL/ISDN-Controller FRITZ!Card DSL v2.0
AVM DSL/ISDN-Controller FRITZ!Card DSL USB
AVM DSL/ISDN-Controller FRITZ!Card DSL USB v2.0
AVM DSL-Controller FRITZ!Card DSL USB analog
AVM DSL-Controller FRITZ!Card DSL SL
AVM DSL-Controller FRITZ!Card DSL SL USB
AVM ISDN-Controller B1 v1.4/v2.0/v3.0 (ISA)
AVM ISDN-Controller B1 PCI / B1 PCI v4.0
AVM ISDN-Controller B1 PCMCIA
AVM ISDN-Controller C2
AVM ISDN-Controller C4
AVM ISDN-Controller T1
AVM ISDN-Controller T1-B
AVM FRITZ!X USB/ v2.0/ v3.0
AVM FRITZ!X ISDN
AVM FRITZ!Box
(AVM WLAN-Controller FRITZ!WLAN USB Stick)
consequences
In the past, the customer bought a fully functional distribution with the
release of the brand new SUSE Linux. He could use ISDN fax G3, analog modem
emulations or simply surf the internet via DSL/ISDN right away out of the
box. For most users, that is the most important point in the distribution
decision process. "Easy to use and right away surf the internet", that is
the feedback we receive from our customers, when they visit AVM at fairs.
The market share SUSE gained over past years is also based on SUSE's
user-friendly policy of AVM driver integration. For six years now this
strategic partnership with SUSE/Novell payed off for all parties. With
Novell's decision to have non-GPL drivers no longer integrated, AVMs
drivers will not be included on the distribution media anymore. The
customer then needs to have an internet connection to download AVM's
drivers or other packages. But without drivers the customer cannot download
anything from the internet.
conclusion
This process will lead to our no longer being able to provide driver
packages to the end user with a new SUSE/Novell box release. Our driver
build and QS process will be subsequent to the box release instead of
parallel to the beta cycle. The process is extended. Moreover, if the
Novell decision is implemented as stated, the unique selling proposition of
the SUSE Linux Distribution is diminished. And ultimately this decision
will generate more support for both of us.
This mail is not intended to provoke a discussion of open vs. closed
source.
The only intention of this mail is to make you aware of the consequences of
such a decision.
Kind regards
Sven Schmidt
AVM Audiovisuelles Marketing und Computersysteme GmbH
Alt-Moabit 95, D-10559 Berlin
http://www.avm.de
Andreas Jaeger
An
09.02.2006 17:14 opensuse-announce@opensuse.org
Kopie
Thema
[opensuse-announce] SUSE Linux
10.1 Update
I'd like to give you an update on our beta process with the following
list of topics:
* Deliverable of Beta4 and further schedule
* non-GPL kernel modules
* Kernel Changes km_ packages
* Major bug in Beta3: Fontconfig
* Package manager major changes
* XGL
Deliverable of Beta4 and Further Schedule
=========================================
Beta4 did not pass our internal tests, we have to delay it by one
week.
The FACTORY distribution has been updated with our current packages
that everybody can use, but doing a complete installation from the
current FACTORY tree is NOT recommended. You should just update
single packages as needed.
We have decided to release Beta 4 on 2006-02-16 and Beta 5 on
2006-02-23. We'll finalize the schedule after testing and evaluating
these two betas.
non-GPL kernel modules:
=======================
Most developers of the kernel community consider non-GPL kernel
modules to be infringing on their copyright. Novell does respect this
position, and will no longer distribute non-GPL kernel modules as part of
future products. Novell is working with vendors to find alternative
ways to provide the functionality that was previously only available
with non-GPL kernel modules.
Kernel Changes / km_, kmp, and kernel-flavor-nongpl packages:
=============================================================
We added support to cleanly handle packages that contain kernel
modules by representing the dependencies of mouldes on the kernel ABI
as rpm dependencies. This allows third party modules to be provided
and integrated cleanly.
Modules that were previously included in our kernel packages using the
km_ package mechanism [1] have been converted to the new package
format [2]; the km_ mechanism is no longer supported. Packages that
contain additional kernel modules are now named name-kmp-kernelflavor
(e.g., wlan-kmp-default. lirc-kmp-smp).
The kmp mechanism [2] supports creating and using additional Kernel Module
Packages easily and reliably.
The kernel-kernelflavor-nongpl packages which contained modules that
had non-GPL licenses have been removed.
[1] The km_ package mechanism is described at
http://www.suse.de/~agruen/kernel-doc/.
[2] Kernel Module Packages Manual for CODE10,
http://www.suse.de/~agruen/KMPM/
Major Bug in Beta3: Fontconfig
==============================
It might be that X11 apps just crash or are really slow (installation
of some packages took rather long), which was due to a bug in
fontconfig. A first fix is in fontconfig packages in the Beta3
fixed-rpm directory on ftp.opensuse.org .
Beta4 will fix most known bugs. Current packages are available at:
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/projects/m17n/10.1 -
If you use them, update to both fontconfig and fonts-config. The
packages in there are newer than what is currently in the FACTORY
tree. If you find bugs in the m17n packages, please report them in
bugzilla stating the exact version you're using.
Package Manager Major Changes
=============================
We're replacing our package manager resolver library with a new version
called "libzypp".
libzypp is the integration of SUSE's yast2 Package manager and
Ximian's libredcarpet. At Novell we used two solutions so far - Red
Carpet and YaST package manager - and decided to merge both in a best
of breed approach.
The advantages for SUSE Linux are:
* A better resolver than before
* More information about why a package is installed or no solution is
found
* A better integration of all those feature that were added over the
years to our package manager.
* A command line interface ("rug")
* A common handling of packages *and* patches
* Dependency handling for update packages
* A better way to handle selections (we call them now "patterns")
* Remote management (not yet in SUSE Linux 10.1)
* Additional repositories during installation (no GUI in SUSE Linux 10.1)
* More flexibility in handling of different repositories, e.g. it is
possible to have additional patterns for each repository.
The new library handles yum metadata, YaST sources (both also remote
via ftp, http, nfs and smb) and additionally Zenworks, Opencarpet and
RCE (Red Carpet Enterprise) servers as installation sources. The
alternatives smart and apt-get will also work as they did on SUSE
Linux 10.0.
Together with libzypp, we get the zmd daemon, the rug command line
interface, the zen-updater, zen-remover, zen-installer packages.
In addition to the existing packages, we're adding these new packages:
* zmd: system daemon used by rug, zen-*
* rug: Command line client
* web-updater: Updater with more features than zen-updater
* zen-updater: Simple updater
* zen-remover: Tool to remove packages
* zen-installer: Tool to add packages
We're still working on the integration of "libzypp" into our tree, the
package manager in our FACTORY tree is not yet fully functional.
XGL
===
Xgl is an Xserver that uses OpenGL for its drawing operations. Xgl
engineer David Reveman has posted enhancements to Xgl and a new
compositor, 'Compiz' with a request that it be added to the
freedesktop.org CVS repository. Some operations like antialiased font
rendering is noticeably faster with this technology, and future
graphics hardware might only have support for 3D operations and no 2D
core any more.
These additional packages have now been added to the SUSE Linux
FACTORY tree. Note that compiz has a couple of build problems that
need to be fixed before it will go out.
For details on XGL, please check http://www.opensuse.org/Xgl .
Andreas
--
Andreas Jaeger, aj@suse.de, http://www.suse.de/~aj/
SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Maxfeldstr. 5, 90409 Nürnberg, Germany
GPG fingerprint = 93A3 365E CE47 B889 DF7F FED1 389A 563C C272 A126
[Anhang "att3brm9.dat" gelöscht von Sven Schmidt/AVM]
