On Wednesday 31 May 2006 02:59, Terry Eck wrote:
Anders Johansson wrote:
slamr wasn't GPL, and non-GPL kernel modules were removed for legal reasons
Is there somewhere on the Novell/SuSE site which covers the legal side of why some things are not being included in the latest version? AFAIK Nvidia modules are not GPL but are vital for 3D performance. I would like to understand why making it easier for users is a legal problem.
It's a licensing thing. I don't know about a specific page, but it has to do with the GPL, and linking to non-GPL things. It's always been an issue, and the nvidia driver has never been directly shipped with the distribution. As for making it easier, you might want to read up on the "partner driver program" that's currently being launched. You will soon be able to add an installation source from nvidia or ati and install the driver directly from them. This is what will replace the hackish "run an online update to download the driver", which really broke as soon as nvidia released a new version of their driver, because the patch script you downloaded only retrieved the version which was current at the time of release. In this new scheme, you should get the latest driver always