Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (3767 mails)

[Kenneth Schneider <suse-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 2006-02-21 at 14:12 +0100, Robert Schiele wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 21, 2006 at 07:49:21AM -0500, Kenneth Schneider wrote:
> > I just can't understand the stance of the kernel developers shutting out
> > companies that are trying to provide drivers for their product. This is
> > certainly more FUD fuel being provided to MS. Who are the kernel
> > developers to tell a company to stop exactly what we need more of,
> 
> You just didn't get it.  _They_ have written the code and thus it is part of
> _their_ intellectual property rights to decide about the license of their
> code.  If you don't like the license of a software product you are free not to
> use it.
> 
> Actually there _are_ good technical reasons against binary-only drivers.  If
> you are not aware of them you can browse the list archives of the kernel
> mailing list.  But even if there did not exist _any_ technical reason it is
> still their decission because they provide something to you for free.  Either
> you like it or you don't like it.  It is ok to state your opinion about that
> topic but I hope you do understand now "who the kernel developers are".
> 
I -do- know who they are and I -DO- appreciate the great work that they
do I just cannot nor will I ever understand the justification for the
kernel developers telling Novell to stop distributing the non-GPL
drivers I.E. kernel-smp-nongpl-2.6.13-15.8. If the inclusion of this RPM
helps Novell sell more copies of their distribution then I say let
Novell do so and help further the linux cause. Next thing you know the
kernel developers will tell distributions to stop including -any-
non-gpl software under the guise that it -may- taint the kernel. Just
plain old BULL S#)T as far as I am concerned.

-- 
Ken Schneider
UNIX  since 1989, linux since 1994, SuSE  since 1998