Re: [somewhat OT] binary modules agaaaain

From: Ihar 'Philips' Filipau
Date: Sat Apr 24 2004 - 05:11:21 EST


Guennadi Liakhovetski wrote:
Hello all

I came across an idea, how Linux could allow binary modules, still having
reasonable control over them.

I am not advocating for binary modules, nor I am trying to make their life
harder, this is just an idea how it could be done.

I'll try to make it short, details may be discussed later, if any interest
arises.

A binary module is "considered good" if


I belive that you forgot to make "The Point."

And "discussion" (good vs. bad isn't discussion, but flames) went in wrong direction.

Be constructive. For example: Let's aks h/w producers making at least glue layer open source (bsd or something), so people eventually might help to maintain this glue layer.
How it can help? - producer with time may move bigger parts of driver into open source domains.
How it can gets screwed? - producer might just start liking when someone is doing his work for him. Some license a-la GPL to not let glue layer to slip into binary only domain back must be in place.

This could be a good starting point for h/w producers and linux comunity as a whole.

Saying Good/Bad is just B.S. - helps no-one.
Building bridges between comunity and producers - might improve and deepen relationships. And that's what I hope for.

P.S. nVidia driver might be an example: IIRC nVidia engineers were saying that they have four 2/3rd party code parts inside driver, which they are not able to open source/GPL. But open source glue layer to connect this "tainted" 4 parts with Linux kernel might help everyone: nVidia, LK and even those four companies. At least I hope for this.
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