jdd wrote:
Pascal Bleser a écrit :
Well.. sure, but... I think the main reason for that decision is probably the fact that binary-only kernel drivers are *illegal* as they break the GPL.
as they where included for years, the question is why now :-)
_Any_ application (including the Kernel) is in fact owned by his developpers. Anybody can fork and make a new Kernel branch (can they?)
Totally not, unless you are referring to the GPL *only*.
I don't mean "legally" owned, but practically owned. If most of the kernel guys where resigning just now, it would be nearly impossible to continue they work
It hasn't been difficult. Some kernel devs have been very vocal and radical about it.. dare I say "religious", to say the least.
again, why not before?
I just find most of them lack soft skills and communication is certainly not their strength. It could have been better prepared as well.
general problem. best programmers are not (and how could they be?) best communication experts (and vice versa)
jdd
The primary problem is that some vendors want to claim that they have Linux drivers, because that will bring more buyers, and they actually don't. The legal actions around are just the way to tell vendors that open source doesn't mean that they can play with the name kernel, brake it in million ways and than simple shift blame to kernel developers, damaging their reputation. The GPL is designed to protect original developers professional honor and right to be named as author (authorship) in many ways. The kernel is developing that means changing. Device drivers included as kernel modules must be adapted to compile with new kernel. They can't be in binary form, as you have to drop them out of new version of kernel, or stop kernel development until new version of driver is written and compiled by device vendor. Solution 1: Company gives a source under GPL. Kernel developers maintain drivers for free. That is how it works for many device drivers. Solution 2: Company gives source under other license or agreement. Kernel developers can accept only GPL. Reason: They have no money to hire lawyers to analyze proprietary licenses and other agreements, including famous nondisclosure agreements. The Free Software Foundation (FSF) legal team advice is to use GPL. They will cover GPL protection for free. Why they should analyze legal agreements? (Just click and accept:-) ) The agreements are legal bindings that will be enforced by legal authorities if one side intentionally or by mistake breaks it and get sued. To analyze all potential scenarios where kernel developers have to pay damages is job for legal experts (lawyers) and it needs much more time and space than one mail. Even attempt to analyze one single agreement will produce a lot more paper to describe what is allowed and what not by that agreement. Solution 3: Company writes device driver that will be controlled by kernel as any other program, that is called user space device driver. This solution means lesser maintenance for driver as it will work with different kernel versions, but it is all vendors responsibility to find and remove errors (bugs) if it doesn't work. Conclusion: The whole hype is produced by vendors that don't want to accept solutions 1 or 3, and still want to claim that they have Linux driver, that will bring some 3% more potential buyers. The hype is helped by naive users not realizing that playing with proprietary based agreements can take open source development model down, and in short time their nice, free Linux will seize to exist. Novell see the future with open source development model. They will not cut a branch they are sitting on, just to help few unfortunate computer users that were mislead by dishonest vendors. ATI and nVidia are examples how it can be done, if company really wants to sell their products to Linux users. -- Regards, Rajko. Visit http://en.opensuse.org/MiniSUSE --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-help@opensuse.org