Shawn Walker wrote:
>> Software that didn't meet those rules (closed source binaries, NDA covering
>> ARC review) could still be installed on the distro, but couldn't be a core
>> part of it.
>
> I disagree with this for the reasons I listed above. Good work and
> drivers shouldn't be excluded as long as sufficient redistribution
> rights are available for them. We don't want to handicap ourselves
> just to be able to claim "100% open source."
Do we want to be able to have a reference distro that can be easily ported to
new platforms (PowerPC, Itanium, or whatever else people want) or one that is
limited to the existing platforms due to core closed binaries?
Perhaps a middle ground of allowing closed drivers for specific hardware that
isn't as likely to be of interest to other platforms would allow for both
portability to other platforms and being able to run as much hardware as
possible on selected platforms.
--
-Alan Coopersmith- alan.coopersmith at sun.com
Sun Microsystems, Inc. - X Window System Engineering
