Hi Hans-Peter, On Tue, Feb 14, 2006 at 07:50:51PM +0100, Hans-Peter Jansen wrote:
Am Dienstag, 14. Februar 2006 18:06 schrieb Marcus Meissner:
This is btw one reason for the packagemanager changes, that this package installation from multiple external sites is possible.
Hmm, how do you download something, if the e.g. AVM DSL/ISDN Combo Card driver is missing (like it's the situation here), and that's the only way to internet?
Sure, hopefully you already ordered the big fat red warning sticker for the boxed product which explains, that things which just worked before, won't do anymore!
This is not new. We've always been fighting to get as much support for new hardware in by e.g. using the latest kernels, trying to add newer drivers from various sources and integrating them. And along the way, sometimes a piece of hardware stopped working, as the driver had not been ported to a newer kernel or because tests exposed that it was more a danger to the user than a help.
While I understand SUSE/NOVELLs standpoint concerning nongpl modules/packages, I also see, that you're in fact loosing a unique selling proposition, like Sven Schmidt noted by imposing a chicken/egg problem to your users, which can only be circumvented, if carefully planning an install/upgrade process.
I don't think that increasing the amount of supported hardware by a small amount by violating the rules of the community by supplying non-GPL kernel modules is the right differentiator. I think that fighting to get more hardware supported with GPL drivers is the better way to go. This is the strategy that the creators of Linux are setting and Linux has come to where it is now by most people supporting this. SUSE has always been supporting this as well -- just it has been somewhat generous with exceptions. SUSE has invested some work to support such exceptions in the past. Are you telling me that the handful of drivers that we can not support any more the same way we did are the key differentiator that made you chose SUSE Linux? I actually believe that we improve on the driver side rather than making it worse by allowing others to provide kernel modules that cleanly integrate into the system and survive kernel updates. This way, more parties can contribute kernel modules and not everything needs to go via the bottleneck of our kernel team. [...]
I really hope, that SUSE get the package manager - before 10.1 release - to the point, where it prevents kernel updates, unless external kernel modules, which are tagged as critical for it's proper operation, are available. Otherwise, automatic updates cannot work, which is the real selling point here..
I have good news for you: This already exists. It's part of the way
we handle kernel module packages, see
http://en.opensuse.org/Kernel_Module_Packages/
The extra modules have dependencies on the kernel ABI, and the new
update tool does handle dependencies for updates.
Best,
--
Kurt Garloff