Re: Article: IBM wants to "clean up the license" of Linux
Brian Gerst (bgerst@quark.vpplus.com)
Sat, 19 Dec 1998 22:34:15 -0500
Michael Dale Long wrote:
> The binary only 3dfx.o module is quite popular with Linux users who own a
> 3Dfx card. I suspect there are some other devices that are supported only
> by binary only modules which are popular among their respective userbase,
> regardless of how small that base might be.
>
> Allowing these to be dynamically loaded into the kernel non-GPL'ed is a
> good thing IMHO. While free software is good, demanding GPL'ed drivers
> from companies who are hesitant to release binary-only drivers is not
> helpful to the parts Linux community who want support for that device.
The 3dfx.o module has source code... It's basically a module which
mmap's the card's registers and provides a few ioctl's for Glide
(binary-only, userspace) to use.
--
Brian Gerst
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