On Tue, 2006-02-21 at 14:21 +0100, Carl-Daniel Hailfinger wrote: > 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?
And I never said anything about "closed source linux". > 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. > Fine. Then start writing all of the rest of the drivers that are non-gpl so that current and future users don't loose functionality and can use new and better hardware when it comes out. Keep in mind that perhaps over 95% of the users of linux distributions are -NOT- programmers. Oh and I -DO- appreciate all of your hard work. Perhaps it -IS- time to start looking at BSD. -- Ken Schneider UNIX since 1989, linux since 1994, SuSE since 1998 --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
