As stated previously, this really isn't in the purvue of UDI.
However, this is an interesting thought:
How about if UDI has a "UDI conformant" certification label which
certifies that the driver, when run, complies with the UDI
specification...
and...
there's also a "GNU conformant" or "FSF conformant" certification
label that can be independently obtained which makes a statement about
source code. This certification would not be provided by UDI or the
related parties but would be provided by ??? (FSF? Richard Stallman?
Andrej Presern?)
Note only would this move the open source discussion into the proper
venue but would further serve to increase the visibility of the
free-software campaign.
The best thing about it is that it insures freedom for the driver
writers: freedom of choice. The problem with your proposal is that it
prevents a developer from doing a technical thing because of an
artificial issue which seems to me to be the reason for the GPL in the
first place so isn't putting source distribution requirements into UDI
antithetical to the free-software purpose itself?
>
> The point of certification is not to establish and control quality of the
> drivers. It's point is a guarantee that you can 'roll your own' UDI conforming
> driver for a UDI conforming device if you don't like, or can't use, drivers
> that already exist, or if you don't want to use them simply because
> they suck.
I disagree. I'm not aware of any other conformance specification
which requires distribution of: source code, schematics, wiring
diagrams, mechanical drawings, or other intellectual property. When
you purchased your UL or TUV certified toaster, did it come with
schematics? Source code for its microprocessor brain? Thermal
transfer equations and thermal flow vectors? Instructions for
creating and assembling plastic and metal moldings to build the
toaster components?
BTW, your toaster may still suck. You have the option of contacting
the manufacturer, buying a different brand, deciding not to toast your
bread, or building your own toaster.
>
> > If, instead, you have a published interface vendors can write to the
> > interface _once_ and, over time, see that their competition is not
> > toppling over the edge into bankruptcy, but is actually benefitting
> > from having source available drivers, they will eventually realize
> > that source available drivers is a competitive advantage (and may
> > realize before then that's it's a lot cheaper to release the sources
> > and let third parties write and maintain the drivers.)
>
> They may, in which case everything is fine since everybody wins. Then again
> they may for some reason not care about this particular competitive advantage
> and just do a binary driver. In order to be sure you get to benefit too, you
> make sure you are at least _able_ to produce your own driver if the hardware
> vendor doesn't feel like doing it - for whatever reason. And you need a
> reference source or hardware specs for that, unless you'd like to resort to
> practices like reverse engineering.
You are arguing that companies must provide information to you, even
if there's no competitive advantage to them, even if they don't want
to, even if it *hurts* them or even drives them out of business... all
because it's inconvenient to you.
An extrapolation of this argument is that if this were to happen we
would end up in one of two distinctly unpleasant situations:
1) hardware vendors would not see any competitive advantage to
producing the hardware in the first place, therefore the hardware
never gets created, therefore growth in the computer industry
stagnates and we all suffer, or
2) the big hardware vendor can copy all of the innovation made by the
"little guys" as soon as they make it available and use it's
marketing capabilities to insure that consumers are only aware of
or use the big vendor's products. The result is that all the
little guys can't compete and we end up with a monopoly.
>
> It's of little use to the open source community if you can write a driver only
> after you've signed an NDA because that means that you can't share the source.
> On the other hand, commercial vendors may not care so much if they have to sign
> an NDA - they just want to ship to the customer a binary driver for a particular
> platform and particular UDI environment that they're selling, one that is
> radically different than the one you're using. This means that now commercial
> vendors have competetive advantage, ie they have drivers which you don't, which
> is not the intention of UDI, and certainly not the reason to accept UDI now is
> it?
Actually that has nothing to do with UDI. That's status quo.
> Andrej
>
> --
> Andrej Presern, andrejp@luz.fe.uni-lj.s
Regards,
Kevin
-- ________________________________________________________________________ Kevin Quick Interphase Corporation Engineering Dallas, Texas kquick@iphase.com http://www.iphase.com 214.654.5173- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/