Hi, as an independent kernel developer, I couldn't resist answering. Kenneth Schneider schrieb:
<rant> 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, -drivers- for their products. I think it may be time for the kernel developers to stop sticking their collective, holier than thou noses in the air and stop dictating what a distribution can and cannot include in their distribution, namely third party drivers. This is certainly going to drive a -LOT- of people back to MS. It is hard enough to get people to linux with the slow development of drivers, now it will be even worse. </rant>
And how exactly is a closed source Linux better than Windows? If anyone disagrees with the Linux kernel developers about licensing, he or she is free to rewrite the kernel from scratch or switch to any of the *BSD variants. The kernel is not a special piece of software, linking closed source code against it is as forbidden as with any other GPL project. I personally welcome any obstacle thrown in the direction of binary only drivers because this is a clear way to communicate that vendors of said binary-only drivers are not tolerated. And it will make it easier to sue these vendors in the long run. As a side note, binary only drivers are an interesting target for reverse engineering. I already did that once and the new GPL driver was faster, more stable and (most important) free. Regards, Carl-Daniel -- http://www.hailfinger.org/