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* Re: Runs with Linux (tm)
  2005-12-07 22:23                   ` Jeffrey Hundstad
@ 1970-01-02  3:28                     ` Pavel Machek
  2005-12-07 22:29                     ` Michael Poole
                                       ` (2 subsequent siblings)
  3 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Pavel Machek @ 1970-01-02  3:28 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jeffrey Hundstad; +Cc: Benjamin LaHaise, Lee Revell, Dirk Steuwer, linux-kernel

Hi!

> >>If even some "Linux-friendly" hardware manufacturers barely cooperate
> >>with the Linux comminuty now what makes you think this would work?
> >>   
> >>
> >
> >Nothing in life is guaranteed.  But at the very least, I think it would 
> >be a good step towards improving the Linux end user experience.  Instead 
> >of the unclear mess we have now (Is it supported?  Check with your 
> >vendor!), we would be able to say "Look for the Linux Certified logo".  
> >Combine that with a standard format for source code driver disks, and 
> >it would be a good step in the right direction.
> >
> > 
> >
> The problem as I see it:
> 
> A hardware vendor hires someone to write a driver.  The driver is 
> completed and submitted and finally makes it into the kernel.  It's 
> fully GPL and everyone is happy.  The hardware gets a "Native Linux 
> Support" logo.  The card goes out of favor and no one is interested in 
> maintaining the driver, it is marked obsolete and finally removed from 
> the kernel. ...the logo still suggests the hardware will work.

And? There's no problem. You still have GPLed driver, that is
reasonably nice (it was in kernel at one point), so you just fix that.
Don't overcomplicate this.

								Pavel
-- 
Thanks, Sharp!

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
@ 2005-12-05 10:52 Arjan van de Ven
  2005-12-05 11:39 ` Dave Airlie
                   ` (7 more replies)
  0 siblings, 8 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Arjan van de Ven @ 2005-12-05 10:52 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: linux-kernel

Linux in a binary world


What if.. what if the linux kernel developers tomorrow accept that
binary modules are OK and are essential for the progress of linux. 

a hypothetical doomsday scenario by Arjan van de Ven

the primary assumption in this scenario is obviously not going to
happen, but all assumptions that follow are based things that are true
in some form or another, but of course the names of the "innocent" have
been omitted.




On December 6th, 2005 the kernel developers en mass decide that binary
modules are legally fine and also essential for the progress of linux,
and are as such a desirable thing. At first, the development process of
the linux kernel doesn't change much other than a bunch more symbols
getting exported, and EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL removed.

Within 3 weeks, distributions like Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SuSE's
SLES distribution start to include a wide variety of binary modules on
their installation CDs. Debian renounces this and stays pure to the
cause, as do other open distributions like Fedora Core and openSuSE. 

The enterprise distros don't just NVidias and ATIs modules, but include
all the OEM vendor "fakeraid" modules and the various wireless,
winmodem, windsl and TCP-offloading modules as well,. However, unlike
NVidia and ATI, most of the binary driver vendors do not provide their
drivers in a "glue layer" source form, they provide only the final
binaries.

Several hardware vendors that have been friendly to open source so far,
see their competitors ship only binary drivers, and internally they
start to see pressure to also keep the IP private, and they know that
they haven't used some features of the hardware because their legal
department didn't want that IP in the public. As a result they perceive
their competitors binary drivers to be at a theoretical advantage, or at
least their own drivers could be at an advantage if they were also
closed, because they then can use those few extra features to be ahead
of the competition. By February 1st 2006, about half the hardware
vendors have refocused their internal linux driver efforts to create
value adds in the binary drivers they will release in addition to the
open drivers that already exist. Some vendors even openly stopped
supporting the open drivers because they don't have enough resources
to do both.

March 1st. All the new server lines from the top tier hardware vendors
come out with the next generation storage and network hardware. This
hardware comes with binary drivers for the last 2 versions of RHEL and
SLES distributions, and these drivers are already integrated into the
February refreshes of these distributions. One of the storage vendors
releases their driver in a .o + glue layer format, the others doesn't
bother and only releases binaries for these two distributions. Two of
the network card manufacturers release an update for their open source
driver to minimally support the new cards, the others don't. Consumer
hardware is largely unaffected; most consumer chipsets standardize on
AHCI for SATA storage and keep the existing feature sets in networking
chipsets.

April 1st. 2 of the consumer chipset makers have upgraded their chipsets
to include a new and exciting audio feature that enables enhanced DVD
playback, but unfortunately this caused them to deviate from the
'standard' i810 audio hardware interface. One of them releases a binary
driver for a handful of distributions, the other doesn't consider linux
relevant for the desktop and hasn't bothered to do a linux driver yet.

May 1st All of the server class hardware you can buy requires at least
one but usually 2 or 3 binary modules to operate. While some of these
modules are available in blob+glue form, several are only available for
RHEL3, RHEL4 and SLES9 and sometimes the newly released SLES10. Linux
users will have the choice of 4 kernels for these servers at this time,
but no hope to run a kernel.org kernel on these servers. The Ubuntu
people are very upset and are trying hard, with varying success, to get
drivers available for their distribution. Due to this lobby success,
about 50% of the servers can be used with the Ubuntu kernel as well.

June 1st. A huge flamewar, the fourth on this topic since January,
happens on the linux-kernel mailing list. Users and some developers are
demanding that the kernel.org kernel adopts either the existing RHEL or
the SLES module ABI. Investigation shows that this is not possible, and
the thread turns into a discussion on designing a new ABI versus
freezing the existing one. Many kernel developers feel that the existing
ad-hoc ABI is not suitable for freezing and that a new ABI and API,
designed such that it can be kept stable more easily is the way to go,
while others say that this takes too much time and then won't help for
the next 2 years until RHEL and SLES have adopted this ABI, and at least
demand an immediate freeze of the kernel.org ABI so that the upcoming
RHEL5 release maybe uses it, and thus gets drivers written for it. Users
generally use RHEL or SLES for production servers, and clones like
CENTOS which have released binary compatible kernels.

July 1st. It's increasingly hard to run linux without binary modules on
most new consumer PCs. While a year earlier people would have to give up
3D acceleration for this often, now even 2D doesn't work without binary
drivers, nor does networking (both fixed wire or wireless) or sound. For
half the machines there is not enough linux support available at all,
while 20% use ndiswrapper like translation layers to run the Windows
sound and networking drivers. The Debian project, unable to run on most
machines now, is losing massive amounts of users to Ubuntu and
Ubuntu-Debian hybrids. Debian-legal and various other project lists are
impossible to read by people not interested in this particular
flame-topic. Most of the vendors who kept their open source drivers at
least somewhat updated have basically stopped doing so.

July 14th. Linus declares the kernel ABI stable but also splits off a
2.7 kernel and declares that the 2.8 kernel will have a different ABI.
In practice, only people who held on to their old machines can assist in
the 2.7 development, since none of the vendor drivers, not even the ones
who still have a blob+glue construct care about the 'too rapid' moving
development tree. 

August 21st. A serious security flaw is found in the 2.6 series, which
turns out to be a design flaw in a key sysfs API. Fixing this flaw would
require to break the module ABI and practically all modules out there,
while not fixing this flaw leaves a potential roothole open. A quick fix
is made available under a CONFIG_ option, but users who need binary
drivers have no choice but leave their systems vulnerable. Flamewars on
lkml flare up again that say Linus made a mistake in freezing the
existing ABI rather than creating a new one designed to be frozen. 2.7
development has mostly stagnated and a patch is proposed to have 2.7
have the 2.6 ABI again, reverting several key VM subsystem improvements
and Ingo's realtime patches.

August 26th. A precooked exploit for the security hole hits bugtraq, and
has been sighted in the wild as used by various rootkits. A php exploit
uses it to go from the httpd user to root. Users are putting pressure on
module vendors to release modules for the new ABI, and several actually
do so in the next three weeks. Others, mostly in the consumer area, say
that the hardware in question is no longer sold and that they aren't
going to spend any time or effort on drivers for it.






Now this scenario may sound unlikely to you. And thankfully the main
assumption (the December 6th event) is extremely unlikely.  

However, and this unfortunately, several of the other "leaps" aren't
that unlikely. In fact, some of these results are likely to happen
regardless; witness the flamewars on lkml about breaking module API/ABI.
Witness the ndiswrapper effect of vendors now saying "we support linux
because ndiswrapper can use our windows driver". I hope they won't
happen. Some of that hope will be idle hope, but I believe that the
advantages of freedom in the end are strong enough to overcome the
counter forces. 



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-05 10:52 Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario Arjan van de Ven
@ 2005-12-05 11:39 ` Dave Airlie
  2005-12-05 13:55   ` Xavier Bestel
  2005-12-08 14:27   ` Graham Murray
  2005-12-05 12:18 ` William Lee Irwin III
                   ` (6 subsequent siblings)
  7 siblings, 2 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Dave Airlie @ 2005-12-05 11:39 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Arjan van de Ven; +Cc: linux-kernel

> Several hardware vendors that have been friendly to open source so far,
> see their competitors ship only binary drivers, and internally they
> start to see pressure to also keep the IP private, and they know that
> they haven't used some features of the hardware because their legal
> department didn't want that IP in the public. As a result they perceive
> their competitors binary drivers to be at a theoretical advantage, or at
> least their own drivers could be at an advantage if they were also
> closed, because they then can use those few extra features to be ahead
> of the competition. By February 1st 2006, about half the hardware
> vendors have refocused their internal linux driver efforts to create
> value adds in the binary drivers they will release in addition to the
> open drivers that already exist. Some vendors even openly stopped
> supporting the open drivers because they don't have enough resources
> to do both.

This is pretty much how the 3D drivers has gone down (as I'm sure
Arjan knows) but just to back it up with others, ATI released enough
info to make a basic 3D driver for their hardware to do OpenGL, they
didn't give out any info on the "protected IP" like HyperZ, MPEG
decoder, SmartShader, the list goes on, a lot of this has since been
reverse engineered for the older chips, then NVIDIA didn't release any
open source drivers, then ATI decided to go close source as they
couldn't compete on the feature set they were willing (allowed by
lawyers) to put into the open source drivers. ATI engineers now use
the excuse well NVIDIA have a closed source driver so we have to have
one to compete. Again neither company is willing to put resources into
doing much on the open source scene due to lack of staff, reasons, and
neither company is willing to give info to open source developers
because they need to push it all past their legal departments (despite
this info existing and a number of open source developers having
access to it via $job).

Intel are now starting to think about doing closed source only drivers
from what I heard on the grapevine, and as their open drivers only
provide modesetting via the BIOS, their drivers aren't exactly useful
in many situations..

Its a slippery slippery slope and all you people that bitch and moan
about stable API really don't have a clue what it means, Arjans
scenario is quite practical (it may take longer to happen but I doubt
the future would be much different..)

You'd also have issues with two binary drivers doing things in the
kernel that might affect each other, like bad interrupt sharing or
messing with pci setups for higher speeds, and no chance of getting
them working in any controlled fashion together without vendor
support.

Dave.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-05 10:52 Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario Arjan van de Ven
  2005-12-05 11:39 ` Dave Airlie
@ 2005-12-05 12:18 ` William Lee Irwin III
  2005-12-05 13:07   ` Pekka Enberg
  2005-12-06  1:18   ` Andrea Arcangeli
  2005-12-05 17:18 ` Jeff Garzik
                   ` (5 subsequent siblings)
  7 siblings, 2 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: William Lee Irwin III @ 2005-12-05 12:18 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Arjan van de Ven; +Cc: linux-kernel

On Mon, Dec 05, 2005 at 11:52:32AM +0100, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> Now this scenario may sound unlikely to you. And thankfully the main
> assumption (the December 6th event) is extremely unlikely.  
> However, and this unfortunately, several of the other "leaps" aren't
> that unlikely. In fact, some of these results are likely to happen
> regardless; witness the flamewars on lkml about breaking module API/ABI.
> Witness the ndiswrapper effect of vendors now saying "we support linux
> because ndiswrapper can use our windows driver". I hope they won't
> happen. Some of that hope will be idle hope, but I believe that the
> advantages of freedom in the end are strong enough to overcome the
> counter forces. 

The December 6 event is extraordinarily unlikely. What's vastly more
likely is consistent "erosion" over time. First the 3D video drivers,
then the wireless network drivers, then the fakeraid drivers, and so on.
Each instance degrades Linux' capabilities without such drivers, and
incrementally reduces the userbase of newer releases. I doubt there will
be a "revolutionary" step at all, just progressively more erosion over
time. As things go, Linux gets "flakier" as binary modules break for
people when they upgrade, new versions support less hardware as the
binary modules hobble them, and so on. DRM even threatens to prevent
some machines from booting Linux in the categorical sense.

I expect the closed source IP affairs rather to keep chipping away
until Linux is dead, or they get tired and change strategies to kill it,
versus any sudden changes of course.


-- wli

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-05 12:18 ` William Lee Irwin III
@ 2005-12-05 13:07   ` Pekka Enberg
  2005-12-05 18:44     ` Alistair John Strachan
  2005-12-06 17:03     ` Jon Masters
  2005-12-06  1:18   ` Andrea Arcangeli
  1 sibling, 2 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Pekka Enberg @ 2005-12-05 13:07 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: William Lee Irwin III; +Cc: Arjan van de Ven, linux-kernel

On 12/5/05, William Lee Irwin III <wli@holomorphy.com> wrote:
> I expect the closed source IP affairs rather to keep chipping away
> until Linux is dead, or they get tired and change strategies to kill it,
> versus any sudden changes of course.

Alternatively, take away ndiswrapper and binary-only ATI and NVIDIA
drivers, and perhaps the users will start to care and pressure their
vendor to open up. I know I have become a very disappointed ATI
customer after figuring out that they have zero interest in me using
the hardware I paid for on Linux...

                              Pekka

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-05 11:39 ` Dave Airlie
@ 2005-12-05 13:55   ` Xavier Bestel
  2005-12-08 14:27   ` Graham Murray
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Xavier Bestel @ 2005-12-05 13:55 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Dave Airlie; +Cc: Arjan van de Ven, linux-kernel

On Mon, 2005-12-05 at 12:39, Dave Airlie wrote:
> This is pretty much how the 3D drivers has gone down

.. and it doesn't look like the Xorg people are willing/able to do
something against that: witness the current thread named "Official
method for determining modular X module path?" on Xorg's mailing-list
which deals *exactely* with Arjan's theoretical problems of
cross-distributions modules compatibility, with the same pragmatism that
made Linus choose Bitkeeper. 
As one can consider Xorg as being a device driver, albeit in userspace,
you see that the 3D part isn't going up any time soon.



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  1:18   ` Andrea Arcangeli
@ 2005-12-05 14:31     ` Brian Gerst
  2005-12-06  3:08       ` Andrea Arcangeli
                         ` (4 more replies)
  2005-12-06  8:29     ` Arjan van de Ven
                       ` (2 subsequent siblings)
  3 siblings, 5 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Brian Gerst @ 2005-12-05 14:31 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Andrea Arcangeli; +Cc: William Lee Irwin III, Arjan van de Ven, linux-kernel

Andrea Arcangeli wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 05, 2005 at 04:18:51AM -0800, William Lee Irwin III wrote:
>> The December 6 event is extraordinarily unlikely. What's vastly more
>> likely is consistent "erosion" over time. First the 3D video drivers,
>> then the wireless network drivers, then the fakeraid drivers, and so on.
> 
> I agree about the erosion.
> 
> I am convinced that the only way to stop the erosion is to totally stop
> buying hardware that has only binary only drivers (unless you buy it to
> create an open source driver or to reverse engineer the binary only
> driver of course! ;).
> 
> For example if a laptop has an embedded wirless or 3d card not supported by
> open source drivers, buy a laptop without any wireless card or without
> 3d, instead of buying one with the not-supported hardware without using
> it (I can guarantee there are still laptops that requires no 3d
> binary only drivers and no wirless cards drivers, even for the winmodems
> you can choose the ones supported by alsa). We literally have to refuse
> buying those cards with binary only kernel drivers.
> 
> Every time we buy a piece of hardware with binary only drivers we admit
> that the binary only driver vendors are doing the right choice for their
> stockholders. Only when we refuse to buy it, we can make a slight difference.
> When we don't buy hardware without open source drivers, we send the
> message to the shareholders that the management is causing them a loss.

The problem with this statement is that Linux users are a drop in the 
bucket of sales for this hardware.  Boycotting doesn't cost the vendors 
enough to make them care.  And this does nothing for people who are 
converting over to Linux, and didn't buy hardware with that 
consideration in mind.

The only way to break the stalemate is to reverse engineer drivers. 
Turning the screws tighter isn't going to make open drivers magically 
appear.  More likely, the vendors will abandon Linux as being too 
hostile and/or too costly to support, leaving everybody back at square one.

--
				Brian Gerst

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  3:08       ` Andrea Arcangeli
@ 2005-12-05 16:23         ` Brian Gerst
  2005-12-06 18:42           ` David Woodhouse
  2005-12-06 10:42         ` Sander
       [not found]         ` <f0cc38560512060307m2ccc6db8xd9180c2a1a926c5c@mail.gmail.com>
  2 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Brian Gerst @ 2005-12-05 16:23 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Andrea Arcangeli; +Cc: William Lee Irwin III, Arjan van de Ven, linux-kernel

Andrea Arcangeli wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 05, 2005 at 09:31:30AM -0500, Brian Gerst wrote:
>> The problem with this statement is that Linux users are a drop in the 
>> bucket of sales for this hardware.  Boycotting doesn't cost the vendors 
>> enough to make them care.  And this does nothing for people who are 
>> converting over to Linux, and didn't buy hardware with that 
>> consideration in mind.
> 
> Effectively this is why 3d drivers are the only thing we litearlly lost
> control of. But my email was general. I wasn't only speaking of 3d
> hardware.
> 
> For 3d you're very well right, but once linux becomes mainstream in the
> desktop, things could change.
> 
> Also note, I've some 3d on my laptop but I need no binary only drivers
> for it, so there's some option.

Intel?  That's all nice and dandy if and only if you have an Intel CPU. 
  Not an option for AMD users, for obvious reasons.

--
				Brian Gerst

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-05 10:52 Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario Arjan van de Ven
  2005-12-05 11:39 ` Dave Airlie
  2005-12-05 12:18 ` William Lee Irwin III
@ 2005-12-05 17:18 ` Jeff Garzik
  2005-12-05 17:29   ` Jan-Benedict Glaw
  2005-12-05 18:26 ` Andrew Walrond
                   ` (4 subsequent siblings)
  7 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Jeff Garzik @ 2005-12-05 17:18 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Arjan van de Ven; +Cc: linux-kernel

Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> Linux in a binary world

You forgot the effect of binary-only on non-x86 arches...

	Jeff





^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-05 17:18 ` Jeff Garzik
@ 2005-12-05 17:29   ` Jan-Benedict Glaw
  2005-12-05 22:52     ` Bernd Petrovitsch
  2005-12-06  6:28     ` Rob Landley
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Jan-Benedict Glaw @ 2005-12-05 17:29 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jeff Garzik; +Cc: Arjan van de Ven, linux-kernel

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 669 bytes --]

On Mon, 2005-12-05 12:18:34 -0500, Jeff Garzik <jgarzik@pobox.com> wrote:
> Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> >Linux in a binary world
> 
> You forgot the effect of binary-only on non-x86 arches...

Um, let's write an binary emulator for those archs. It did work for
Alphas executing i386 code, so it'd work for PPC, too :-)

MfG, JBG

-- 
Jan-Benedict Glaw       jbglaw@lug-owl.de    . +49-172-7608481             _ O _
"Eine Freie Meinung in  einem Freien Kopf    | Gegen Zensur | Gegen Krieg  _ _ O
 für einen Freien Staat voll Freier Bürger"  | im Internet! |   im Irak!   O O O
ret = do_actions((curr | FREE_SPEECH) & ~(NEW_COPYRIGHT_LAW | DRM | TCPA));

[-- Attachment #2: Digital signature --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 189 bytes --]

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-05 10:52 Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario Arjan van de Ven
                   ` (2 preceding siblings ...)
  2005-12-05 17:18 ` Jeff Garzik
@ 2005-12-05 18:26 ` Andrew Walrond
  2005-12-05 18:34   ` Arjan van de Ven
  2005-12-05 21:19   ` David Woodhouse
  2005-12-05 23:24 ` Matthieu CASTET
                   ` (3 subsequent siblings)
  7 siblings, 2 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Andrew Walrond @ 2005-12-05 18:26 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: linux-kernel

On Monday 05 December 2005 10:52, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
>
> a hypothetical doomsday scenario by Arjan van de Ven
>

Can I ask what prompted your post?

>
> On December 6th, 2005 the kernel developers en mass decide that binary
> modules are legally fine and also essential for the progress of linux,

Has anyone (influential) actually being toying with this idea? I hope not, but 
if they are, I'd like to know who to lobby...

Andrew Walrond

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-05 18:26 ` Andrew Walrond
@ 2005-12-05 18:34   ` Arjan van de Ven
  2005-12-05 19:41     ` jmerkey
                       ` (2 more replies)
  2005-12-05 21:19   ` David Woodhouse
  1 sibling, 3 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Arjan van de Ven @ 2005-12-05 18:34 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Andrew Walrond; +Cc: linux-kernel

On Mon, 2005-12-05 at 18:26 +0000, Andrew Walrond wrote:
> On Monday 05 December 2005 10:52, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> >
> > a hypothetical doomsday scenario by Arjan van de Ven
> >
> 
> Can I ask what prompted your post?

I got one too many hatemails from a "nvidia fanboy" who blamed me for
just about anything wrong in the world.... I fear that most of these
people have no idea why open source drivers matter, or at least what the
consequences are for not caring about drivers being open or not.


> 
> >
> > On December 6th, 2005 the kernel developers en mass decide that binary
> > modules are legally fine and also essential for the progress of linux,
> 
> Has anyone (influential) actually being toying with this idea? I hope not, but 
> if they are, I'd like to know who to lobby...

this part of the "story" is fiction. A lot of the rest is not. There are
already several servers that you can only use with binary modules..
modules only available in full binary form for RHEL and SLES kernels for
example. 


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-05 13:07   ` Pekka Enberg
@ 2005-12-05 18:44     ` Alistair John Strachan
  2005-12-05 19:47       ` Gene Heskett
                         ` (2 more replies)
  2005-12-06 17:03     ` Jon Masters
  1 sibling, 3 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Alistair John Strachan @ 2005-12-05 18:44 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Pekka Enberg; +Cc: William Lee Irwin III, Arjan van de Ven, linux-kernel

On Monday 05 December 2005 13:07, Pekka Enberg wrote:
> On 12/5/05, William Lee Irwin III <wli@holomorphy.com> wrote:
> > I expect the closed source IP affairs rather to keep chipping away
> > until Linux is dead, or they get tired and change strategies to kill it,
> > versus any sudden changes of course.
>
> Alternatively, take away ndiswrapper and binary-only ATI and NVIDIA
> drivers, and perhaps the users will start to care and pressure their
> vendor to open up. I know I have become a very disappointed ATI
> customer after figuring out that they have zero interest in me using
> the hardware I paid for on Linux...

The problem with this approach is the tiny size of the minority of customers 
using ATI's video cards on a non-Windows OS.

I think the only way we can persuade vendors to not take the direction that 
Arjan speculates they will, is to increase the Linux userbase (and therefore 
ATI customers using Linux) by making "Desktop Linux" increasingly competent.

As easy as it is to be pessimistic about binary vendor lockin, there's still 
places in industry, government and inevitably the general public where Linux 
is slowly starting to take off as a real desktop alternative to Windows.

When this happens, vendors will just have to solve all the IP nonsense 
associated with their hardware, or design hardware to be more dependent on 
firmware so that largely open source drivers are more feasible for them.

-- 
Cheers,
Alistair.

'No sense being pessimistic, it probably wouldn't work anyway.'
Third year Computer Science undergraduate.
1F2 55 South Clerk Street, Edinburgh, UK.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-05 18:34   ` Arjan van de Ven
@ 2005-12-05 19:41     ` jmerkey
  2005-12-06  9:26     ` [OT] " Alexander E. Patrakov
  2005-12-06 16:27     ` Simon Oosthoek
  2 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: jmerkey @ 2005-12-05 19:41 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Arjan van de Ven; +Cc: Andrew Walrond, linux-kernel


Welcome to reality.

Jeff

On Mon, Dec 05, 2005 at 07:34:01PM +0100, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> On Mon, 2005-12-05 at 18:26 +0000, Andrew Walrond wrote:
> > On Monday 05 December 2005 10:52, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> > >
> > > a hypothetical doomsday scenario by Arjan van de Ven
> > >
> > 
> > Can I ask what prompted your post?
> 
> I got one too many hatemails from a "nvidia fanboy" who blamed me for
> just about anything wrong in the world.... I fear that most of these
> people have no idea why open source drivers matter, or at least what the
> consequences are for not caring about drivers being open or not.
> 
> 
> > 
> > >
> > > On December 6th, 2005 the kernel developers en mass decide that binary
> > > modules are legally fine and also essential for the progress of linux,
> > 
> > Has anyone (influential) actually being toying with this idea? I hope not, but 
> > if they are, I'd like to know who to lobby...
> 
> this part of the "story" is fiction. A lot of the rest is not. There are
> already several servers that you can only use with binary modules..
> modules only available in full binary form for RHEL and SLES kernels for
> example. 
> 
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-05 18:44     ` Alistair John Strachan
@ 2005-12-05 19:47       ` Gene Heskett
  2005-12-06 10:51       ` Luke-Jr
  2005-12-07  0:01       ` William Lee Irwin III
  2 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Gene Heskett @ 2005-12-05 19:47 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: linux-kernel

On Monday 05 December 2005 13:44, Alistair John Strachan wrote:
>On Monday 05 December 2005 13:07, Pekka Enberg wrote:
>> On 12/5/05, William Lee Irwin III <wli@holomorphy.com> wrote:
>> > I expect the closed source IP affairs rather to keep chipping away
>> > until Linux is dead, or they get tired and change strategies to
>> > kill it, versus any sudden changes of course.
>>
>> Alternatively, take away ndiswrapper and binary-only ATI and NVIDIA
>> drivers, and perhaps the users will start to care and pressure their
>> vendor to open up. I know I have become a very disappointed ATI
>> customer after figuring out that they have zero interest in me using
>> the hardware I paid for on Linux...
>
>The problem with this approach is the tiny size of the minority of
> customers using ATI's video cards on a non-Windows OS.

Hey, I resemble that remark.  I've been using an ATI XTacy 9200SE for
a couple of years now, since an nvidia card crowbared the buss & blew out 
a
motherboard.  Needless to say, I wasn't happy with nvidia over that. 
I bought a faster cpu & more ram on a different mobo for this machine.

But, get this:  Another new board, with the same cpu & ram on it, is
now running that cpu 70F degrees cooler, at 200 mhz faster on the cpu
clock.  With another nvidia card in it, running my milling machine.

>I think the only way we can persuade vendors to not take the direction
> that Arjan speculates they will, is to increase the Linux userbase
> (and therefore ATI customers using Linux) by making "Desktop Linux"
> increasingly competent.

I'm not a 'gamer' so the last frame per second isn't that important
to me, but its close to 1000 on a small piece of a 1600x1200 screen.

>As easy as it is to be pessimistic about binary vendor lockin, there's
> still places in industry, government and inevitably the general public
> where Linux is slowly starting to take off as a real desktop
> alternative to Windows.

Its been my alternative since 1998, never was windows here, coming in
from the amiga world.
>
>When this happens, vendors will just have to solve all the IP nonsense
>associated with their hardware, or design hardware to be more dependent
> on firmware so that largely open source drivers are more feasible for
> them.

Don't hold your breath, its not healthy in the long view...

-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
99.36% setiathome rank, not too shabby for a WV hillbilly
Yahoo.com and AOL/TW attorneys please note, additions to the above
message by Gene Heskett are:
Copyright 2005 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved.


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-05 18:26 ` Andrew Walrond
  2005-12-05 18:34   ` Arjan van de Ven
@ 2005-12-05 21:19   ` David Woodhouse
  2005-12-05 21:24     ` Arjan van de Ven
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: David Woodhouse @ 2005-12-05 21:19 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Andrew Walrond; +Cc: linux-kernel

On Mon, 2005-12-05 at 18:26 +0000, Andrew Walrond wrote:
> > On December 6th, 2005 the kernel developers en mass decide that binary
> > modules are legally fine and also essential for the progress of linux,
> 
> Has anyone (influential) actually being toying with this idea? I hope not, but 
> if they are, I'd like to know who to lobby...

http://git.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commitdiff;h=e3c3374fbf7efe9487edc53cd10436ed641983aa

Remember that the only distinction between EXPORT_SYMBOL() and
EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL() is that the latter is a technological measure to
prevent abuse. The use of EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL() cannot actually impose any
additional restrictions over and above what the GPL requires of
EXPORT_SYMBOL() -- because any additional restrictions would themselves
violate the GPL.

Thus, the only point in the above-linked patch is to remove a technical
measure which prevents abuse. I feel very strongly that it should be
reverted.

-- 
dwmw2


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-05 21:19   ` David Woodhouse
@ 2005-12-05 21:24     ` Arjan van de Ven
  2005-12-05 21:54       ` David Woodhouse
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Arjan van de Ven @ 2005-12-05 21:24 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: David Woodhouse; +Cc: Andrew Walrond, linux-kernel

On Mon, 2005-12-05 at 21:19 +0000, David Woodhouse wrote:
> On Mon, 2005-12-05 at 18:26 +0000, Andrew Walrond wrote:
> > > On December 6th, 2005 the kernel developers en mass decide that binary
> > > modules are legally fine and also essential for the progress of linux,
> > 
> > Has anyone (influential) actually being toying with this idea? I hope not, but 
> > if they are, I'd like to know who to lobby...
> 
> http://git.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commitdiff;h=e3c3374fbf7efe9487edc53cd10436ed641983aa


I think you're wrong on this. Not about thinking it should be reverted
per se, but in the big picture it's not linked to the scenario. One
export more or less doesn't matter at all. 


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-05 21:24     ` Arjan van de Ven
@ 2005-12-05 21:54       ` David Woodhouse
  2005-12-05 23:56         ` Tim Bird
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: David Woodhouse @ 2005-12-05 21:54 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Arjan van de Ven; +Cc: Andrew Walrond, linux-kernel

On Mon, 2005-12-05 at 22:24 +0100, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> I think you're wrong on this. Not about thinking it should be reverted
> per se, but in the big picture it's not linked to the scenario. One
> export more or less doesn't matter at all. 

Yeah, I suppose that's true to a large extent, but the fact that Linus
is actively aiding and abetting a licence violator by reverting this
particular symbol from EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL() to EXPORT_SYMBOL() sends a
very strong message. And it's not one which we should be sending.

Linus chose not to collect copyright assignments; therefore this kind of
decision isn't his to make. We are bound by the GPL and (GPLv3 aside) we
have no practical option to change that -- by royal decree or otherwise.

I think it's time to recognise that there's no difference in licensing
terms between EXPORT_SYMBOL() and EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(). The _only_
difference is that the latter will lead to harsher punishments for
violators because it needs to be actively circumvented. 

We should switch _everything_ to EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(). It can't change
the licensing question at all -- if binary-only modules were legal
before they will _still_ be legal, because we're not allowed to impose
additional restrictions anyway. But the change does strengthen the case
against anyone found to be in violation of the licence, because they
have to deliberately circumvent the protection it implies.

-- 
dwmw2


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-05 17:29   ` Jan-Benedict Glaw
@ 2005-12-05 22:52     ` Bernd Petrovitsch
  2005-12-06  6:28     ` Rob Landley
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Bernd Petrovitsch @ 2005-12-05 22:52 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jan-Benedict Glaw; +Cc: Jeff Garzik, Arjan van de Ven, linux-kernel

On Mon, 2005-12-05 at 18:29 +0100, Jan-Benedict Glaw wrote:
> On Mon, 2005-12-05 12:18:34 -0500, Jeff Garzik <jgarzik@pobox.com> wrote:
> > Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> > >Linux in a binary world
> > 
> > You forgot the effect of binary-only on non-x86 arches...
> 
> Um, let's write an binary emulator for those archs. It did work for
> Alphas executing i386 code, so it'd work for PPC, too :-)

And a few years later the PPC arch is also dead?

SCNR,
	Bernd
-- 
Firmix Software GmbH                   http://www.firmix.at/
mobil: +43 664 4416156                 fax: +43 1 7890849-55
          Embedded Linux Development and Services




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-05 10:52 Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario Arjan van de Ven
                   ` (3 preceding siblings ...)
  2005-12-05 18:26 ` Andrew Walrond
@ 2005-12-05 23:24 ` Matthieu CASTET
  2005-12-06 13:28   ` Ralf Baechle
  2005-12-06  2:58 ` Andre Hedrick
                   ` (2 subsequent siblings)
  7 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Matthieu CASTET @ 2005-12-05 23:24 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: linux-kernel

Le Mon, 05 Dec 2005 11:52:32 +0100, Arjan van de Ven a écrit :

> Linux in a binary world
> 
> 
> What if.. what if the linux kernel developers tomorrow accept that
> binary modules are OK and are essential for the progress of linux. 
> 
[...]
> Now this scenario may sound unlikely to you. And thankfully the main
> assumption (the December 6th event) is extremely unlikely.  
> 
> However, and this unfortunately, several of the other "leaps" aren't
> that unlikely. In fact, some of these results are likely to happen
> regardless; witness the flamewars on lkml about breaking module API/ABI.
> Witness the ndiswrapper effect of vendors now saying "we support linux
> because ndiswrapper can use our windows driver". I hope they won't
> happen. Some of that hope will be idle hope, but I believe that the
> advantages of freedom in the end are strong enough to overcome the
> counter forces.
And some embedded companies provide the minimal source code to put 
in arch and everything else (ethernet, adsl, wifi, ...) is binaries
modules.


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-05 21:54       ` David Woodhouse
@ 2005-12-05 23:56         ` Tim Bird
  2005-12-06  0:10           ` Dave Airlie
                             ` (5 more replies)
  0 siblings, 6 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Tim Bird @ 2005-12-05 23:56 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: David Woodhouse; +Cc: arjan, andrew, linux-kernel

David Woodhouse wrote:
> I think it's time to recognise that there's no difference in licensing
> terms between EXPORT_SYMBOL() and EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL().

I disagree.  I think that has long since become the intent
of EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL().

If the GPL covers interface linkages (whether static or
dynamic) then EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL is redundant.  If it does
not, in all cases, then EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL is, as
an extension to GPL, therefore a GPL violation.

I believe there are cases where an interface could
be deemed not coverable by the GPL.  Putting
EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL around it would be an attempt
to extend GPL to where it otherwise might not reach.

DISCLAIMER: I'm not speaking for Sony here. Personally
I don't believe that most drivers are derivative works
of the operating systems they run with, and I don't
believe it helps Linux to assert that they are.
But, hey, it's not my kernel, and not my plan for
world domination. ;-)

To the larger argument about supporting binary drivers,
all Arjan manages to prove with his post is that,
if handled in the worst possible way, support for
binary drivers would be a disaster.  Who can disagree
with that?

(I'm really not trolling or trying to start a flame
war here.  It's just my 2 cents.)

Regards,
 -- Tim

=============================
Tim Bird
Architecture Group Chair, CE Linux Forum
Senior Staff Engineer, Sony Electronics
=============================


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-05 23:56         ` Tim Bird
@ 2005-12-06  0:10           ` Dave Airlie
  2005-12-06  0:23             ` Tim Bird
  2005-12-06  2:22             ` Gene Heskett
  2005-12-06  0:14           ` Bernd Petrovitsch
                             ` (4 subsequent siblings)
  5 siblings, 2 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Dave Airlie @ 2005-12-06  0:10 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Tim Bird; +Cc: David Woodhouse, arjan, andrew, linux-kernel

> To the larger argument about supporting binary drivers,
> all Arjan manages to prove with his post is that,
> if handled in the worst possible way, support for
> binary drivers would be a disaster.  Who can disagree
> with that?
>

And do you think that given the opportunity, any company is going
spend the extra money required to not do it in the worst possible
way?? Companies want to spend as little as possible on drivers, and
drop support as soon as it makes sense financially to do so, they
aren't going to come to the correct best possible way on their own, or
via consortia of companies ala CEL or OSDL, they require outside
pressure to make them change their mindset from the only example they
have which is developing Windows drivers..

Dave.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-05 23:56         ` Tim Bird
  2005-12-06  0:10           ` Dave Airlie
@ 2005-12-06  0:14           ` Bernd Petrovitsch
  2005-12-06  0:34           ` David Woodhouse
                             ` (3 subsequent siblings)
  5 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Bernd Petrovitsch @ 2005-12-06  0:14 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Tim Bird; +Cc: David Woodhouse, arjan, andrew, linux-kernel

On Mon, 2005-12-05 at 15:56 -0800, Tim Bird wrote:
[...]
> To the larger argument about supporting binary drivers,
> all Arjan manages to prove with his post is that,
> if handled in the worst possible way, support for
> binary drivers would be a disaster.  Who can disagree
> with that?

And it is the to-be-expected way for all companies/corporations/
commercial entities where none-techies are the decision makers (the
condition is a sufficient one but not a necessary one) - ethics and/or
fairness are pretty irrelevant there if there seems to a problem with
sales, stakeholders value, bonuses of management and especially the
deciders themselves etc.
Yes, that may be rude. Sorry, that is reality.

In one word: It will doubtless go that way because only short-term
"success" is relevant (i.e. just to get as much money as possible out of
it *now*) and the devil may care ....

	Bernd
-- 
Firmix Software GmbH                   http://www.firmix.at/
mobil: +43 664 4416156                 fax: +43 1 7890849-55
          Embedded Linux Development and Services




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  0:10           ` Dave Airlie
@ 2005-12-06  0:23             ` Tim Bird
  2005-12-06  0:26               ` Tim Bird
                                 ` (2 more replies)
  2005-12-06  2:22             ` Gene Heskett
  1 sibling, 3 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Tim Bird @ 2005-12-06  0:23 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Dave Airlie; +Cc: Bird, Tim, David Woodhouse, arjan, andrew, linux-kernel

Dave Airlie wrote:
>>To the larger argument about supporting binary drivers,
>>all Arjan manages to prove with his post is that,
>>if handled in the worst possible way, support for
>>binary drivers would be a disaster.  Who can disagree
>>with that?
>> 
> And do you think that given the opportunity, any company is going
> spend the extra money required to not do it in the worst possible
> way?? 

I meant "handled in the worst possible way by
the kernel developers".  It *is* possible to define
stable APIs and have them used successfully.

POSIX is not the greatest example, but it seems
to work OK.  I realize that drivers are more
tightly bound to the kernel than are libraries
or applications, but sheesh, this is not rocket
science.

=============================
Tim Bird
Architecture Group Chair, CE Linux Forum
Senior Staff Engineer, Sony Electronics
=============================


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  0:23             ` Tim Bird
@ 2005-12-06  0:26               ` Tim Bird
  2005-12-06  4:08               ` Greg KH
  2005-12-06  4:18               ` Linux " Al Viro
  2 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Tim Bird @ 2005-12-06  0:26 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Tim Bird; +Cc: Dave Airlie, David Woodhouse, arjan, andrew, linux-kernel

Tim Bird wrote:
> I meant "handled in the worst possible way by
> the kernel developers".  It *is* possible to define
> stable APIs and have them used successfully.
> 
> POSIX is not the greatest example, but it seems
> to work OK.
Oops.  I should have said "the syscalls supporting POSIX"
to refer to the kernel binary API for applications.

=============================
Tim Bird
Architecture Group Chair, CE Linux Forum
Senior Staff Engineer, Sony Electronics
=============================


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-05 23:56         ` Tim Bird
  2005-12-06  0:10           ` Dave Airlie
  2005-12-06  0:14           ` Bernd Petrovitsch
@ 2005-12-06  0:34           ` David Woodhouse
  2005-12-06  0:53           ` Andrea Arcangeli
                             ` (2 subsequent siblings)
  5 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: David Woodhouse @ 2005-12-06  0:34 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Tim Bird; +Cc: arjan, andrew, linux-kernel

On Mon, 2005-12-05 at 15:56 -0800, Tim Bird wrote:
> If the GPL covers interface linkages (whether static or
> dynamic) then EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL is redundant.  If it does
> not, in all cases, then EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL is, as
> an extension to GPL, therefore a GPL violation.

You seem to be agreeing with me to a certain extent. What I'm saying is
that there _can_ be no difference between EXPORT_SYMBOL() and
EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(). We might as well stick to one or the other.

As you say -- if the GPL covers modules, EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL is redundant.
If it does not, then EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL in itself is a GPL violation.

The point of EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL, however, is that it is a technical
restriction which needs to be circumvented in order to load a non-GPL
module. That does affect the outcome of a court case when the licence is
violated, and that's why I think we should it throughout.

However, if your lawyers promise you that the court won't rule that the
GPL covers modules, then you have nothing to fear from EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL
because (according to your lawyers) the court will rule that it means no
more than EXPORT_SYMBOL does. That's your risk to take; there's no
reason why we should use EXPORT_SYMBOL _anywhere_ until/unless a court
actually makes that ruling. 

-- 
dwmw2


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-05 23:56         ` Tim Bird
                             ` (2 preceding siblings ...)
  2005-12-06  0:34           ` David Woodhouse
@ 2005-12-06  0:53           ` Andrea Arcangeli
  2005-12-06  1:20             ` Tim Bird
  2005-12-06  4:12           ` Greg KH
  2005-12-07 14:30           ` Rik van Riel
  5 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Andrea Arcangeli @ 2005-12-06  0:53 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Tim Bird; +Cc: David Woodhouse, arjan, andrew, linux-kernel

On Mon, Dec 05, 2005 at 03:56:06PM -0800, Tim Bird wrote:
> If the GPL covers interface linkages (whether static or
> dynamic) then EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL is redundant.  If it does
> not, in all cases, then EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL is, as
> an extension to GPL, therefore a GPL violation.

The last time I spoke with Linus about this, what I understood can be
described in two points:

1) EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL is an hint: if you have to circumvent it, there are
high chances that you're creating a derivative of the linux kernel and
in turn there are high chances that you're illegal

2) The fact you're illegal or not, has nothing to do with the _GPL tag
in the exports, the illegal usage is when the module create a derivative
of the linux kernel.

Now I don't know for sure myself (I'm not a lawyer) what is a derivative
of the linux kernel (don't ask me), but the two above points are quite
clear to me. 

I always thought the _GPL tag could have no direct legal implications
and Linus confirmed it. The kernel is GPL so everyone can modify the
exports or re-export symbols as usual, the exports are GPL code too. The
guy who re-exports or remove a _GPL tag is just modifying a GPL code, so
he's ok.

The _GPL tag is useful as an hint to binary only vendors as as such it
makes perfect sense.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-05 12:18 ` William Lee Irwin III
  2005-12-05 13:07   ` Pekka Enberg
@ 2005-12-06  1:18   ` Andrea Arcangeli
  2005-12-05 14:31     ` Brian Gerst
                       ` (3 more replies)
  1 sibling, 4 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Andrea Arcangeli @ 2005-12-06  1:18 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: William Lee Irwin III; +Cc: Arjan van de Ven, linux-kernel

On Mon, Dec 05, 2005 at 04:18:51AM -0800, William Lee Irwin III wrote:
> The December 6 event is extraordinarily unlikely. What's vastly more
> likely is consistent "erosion" over time. First the 3D video drivers,
> then the wireless network drivers, then the fakeraid drivers, and so on.

I agree about the erosion.

I am convinced that the only way to stop the erosion is to totally stop
buying hardware that has only binary only drivers (unless you buy it to
create an open source driver or to reverse engineer the binary only
driver of course! ;).

For example if a laptop has an embedded wirless or 3d card not supported by
open source drivers, buy a laptop without any wireless card or without
3d, instead of buying one with the not-supported hardware without using
it (I can guarantee there are still laptops that requires no 3d
binary only drivers and no wirless cards drivers, even for the winmodems
you can choose the ones supported by alsa). We literally have to refuse
buying those cards with binary only kernel drivers.

Every time we buy a piece of hardware with binary only drivers we admit
that the binary only driver vendors are doing the right choice for their
stockholders. Only when we refuse to buy it, we can make a slight difference.
When we don't buy hardware without open source drivers, we send the
message to the shareholders that the management is causing them a loss.

It's market forces controlling which drivers are open sources and which
aren't (the risk of being sued and the cost of the laywers is only part
of the more complex equation), and the customers have an huge strength
in controlling those forces (we effectively control 50% of it).

The fact Arjan got the "nvidia fanboy" complaining, is the sign that
some people just don't care. This understandable for a 3d kind of
product which is 90% for entertainment (nobody loses money when it
crashes), and we generally can't expect everyone to care about the long
term kernel development.

But at least for all more business oriented usages of linux, linux users
should understand the erosion they create by funding companies that
requires binary only drivers. 

Every time we buy an hardware with a binary only driver, we effectively
increase the erosion, or we give a sound reason to those company to keep
eroding.

I think messages like the one from Arjan are very positive to let people
understand the long term effect of binary only drivers, but this should
be combined with the strategy to use to reduce the erosion (i.e. not to
buy hardware that has binary only drivers).

Perhaps we should add a printk that points to an url on kernel.org
including Arjan's message every time a non-gpl module gets loaded by the
kernel. I think it's a matter of educating the customer too or they can
do mistakes, creating a blacklist would help too.

I don't believe in the breaking of the 3d drivers gratuitously, it
should be market forces deciding which drivers have to be open sources
and which not. But our side of the market (i.e. the buyers) must be
educated properly.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  0:53           ` Andrea Arcangeli
@ 2005-12-06  1:20             ` Tim Bird
  2005-12-06  1:35               ` Andrea Arcangeli
                                 ` (2 more replies)
  0 siblings, 3 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Tim Bird @ 2005-12-06  1:20 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Andrea Arcangeli; +Cc: David Woodhouse, arjan, andrew, linux-kernel

Andrea Arcangeli wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 05, 2005 at 03:56:06PM -0800, Tim Bird wrote:
> 
>>If the GPL covers interface linkages (whether static or
>>dynamic) then EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL is redundant.  If it does
>>not, in all cases, then EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL is, as
>>an extension to GPL, therefore a GPL violation.
> 
> The last time I spoke with Linus about this, what I understood can be
> described in two points:
> 
> 1) EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL is an hint: if you have to circumvent it, there are
> high chances that you're creating a derivative of the linux kernel and
> in turn there are high chances that you're illegal
> 
> 2) The fact you're illegal or not, has nothing to do with the _GPL tag
> in the exports, the illegal usage is when the module create a derivative
> of the linux kernel.
> 
> Now I don't know for sure myself (I'm not a lawyer) what is a derivative
> of the linux kernel (don't ask me), but the two above points are quite
> clear to me. 

This interpretation puts kernel developers in the
position of making the legal decision about which
interfaces cause derivate-work risk and which
do not.  That's hardly a recipe for legal clarity.
(Not that legal clarity is a goal of Linux
kernel development... :-)
Different developers are likely to have
different viewpoints on which interfaces pose risks.
I guess Linus gets the last call (as usual),
so there's some possibility of some amount
of uniformity here.

Most kernel developers will naturally tend
towards making more symbols EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL,
whether there's valid legal basis for it or not.
(Please let me know if there's a lawyer somewhere
reviewing the insertion of EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPLs)
David currently suggests that *all* interfaces
be so designated.  I suspect he strongly believes
that any use of a kernel interface creates a
derivative work.  I have a different opinion.

...

> The _GPL tag is useful as an hint to binary only vendors as as such it
> makes perfect sense.
Well, if it makes sense to have developers giving out legal
advice, then I guess so.

=============================
Tim Bird
Architecture Group Chair, CE Linux Forum
Senior Staff Engineer, Sony Electronics
=============================


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  1:20             ` Tim Bird
@ 2005-12-06  1:35               ` Andrea Arcangeli
  2005-12-06  1:55                 ` Jeff Garzik
  2005-12-06  9:16               ` Xavier Bestel
  2005-12-06  9:26               ` Bernd Petrovitsch
  2 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Andrea Arcangeli @ 2005-12-06  1:35 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Tim Bird; +Cc: David Woodhouse, arjan, andrew, linux-kernel

On Mon, Dec 05, 2005 at 05:20:16PM -0800, Tim Bird wrote:
> This interpretation puts kernel developers in the
> position of making the legal decision about which

An hint can hardly defined as a "legal decision".

An hint _only_ means "be careful you _might_ be illegal".

"might be" is hardly a "legal deicision", infact it's not decision at
all.

It's like a "you should check your stuff to be sure you're ok".

This is the way I understood it at least...

> Different developers are likely to have
> different viewpoints on which interfaces pose risks.

The way I understood it, is that you may be breaking the GPL even if you
don't circumvent any _GPL tag. You've to check your stuff yourself, and
if you have troubles because of a _GPL tag, it means you must check it
even more closely because you got an explicit _warning_. A warning isn't
a "legal deicsion", it's just a warning.

> I guess Linus gets the last call (as usual),
> so there's some possibility of some amount
> of uniformity here.

agreed.

> Most kernel developers will naturally tend
> towards making more symbols EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL,
> whether there's valid legal basis for it or not.

Could be, but then those developers would be wrong. We're not required
to make a symbol as _GPL to make the module illegal. So we should be
reasonable.

> (Please let me know if there's a lawyer somewhere
> reviewing the insertion of EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPLs)

I don't think there is one, and there needs to be no one, because the
_GPL tag is not a legal decision, is an hint given from programmers to
lawyers. Programmers may be totally wrong, but we do our best to help on
the legal side too.

> David currently suggests that *all* interfaces
> be so designated.  I suspect he strongly believes
> that any use of a kernel interface creates a
> derivative work.  I have a different opinion.

This question I don't want to answer because I'm a programmer, this
requires a lawyer because this is the real _legal_decision_: what is a
derived work of the kernel is the only thing that  decides what is legal
and illegal.

> Well, if it makes sense to have developers giving out legal
> advice, then I guess so.

;) Of course I meant it makes perfect sense that it's _only_ an "hint".

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 11:44           ` Arjan van de Ven
@ 2005-12-06  1:43             ` Brian Gerst
  2005-12-06 14:09               ` linux-os (Dick Johnson)
                                 ` (6 more replies)
       [not found]             ` <6f6293f10512060404x57cfb97dqaa469f2701cd2528@mail.gmail.com>
  1 sibling, 7 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Brian Gerst @ 2005-12-06  1:43 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Arjan van de Ven
  Cc: M., Andrea Arcangeli, William Lee Irwin III, linux-kernel

Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 12:07 +0100, M. wrote:
>>
>> On 12/6/05, Andrea Arcangeli <andrea@suse.de> wrote:
>>         On Mon, Dec 05, 2005 at 09:31:30AM -0500, Brian Gerst wrote:
>>         > The problem with this statement is that Linux users are a
>>         drop in the
>>         > bucket of sales for this hardware.  Boycotting doesn't cost
>>         the vendors
>>         > enough to make them care.  And this does nothing for people
>>         who are
>>         > converting over to Linux, and didn't buy hardware with that
>>         > consideration in mind.
>>         
>>         Effectively this is why 3d drivers are the only thing we
>>         litearlly lost 
>>         control of. But my email was general. I wasn't only speaking
>>         of 3d
>>         hardware.
>>         
>>         For 3d you're very well right, but once linux becomes
>>         mainstream in the
>>         desktop, things could change.
>>
>> Without proper hardware support linux is not going to become
>> mainstream in the desktop area. In fact It's adopted in offices, by
>> governments and schools for security, reliability and openoffirce.org
>> (low $$). 
> 
> but... "proper hardware support" can be open source, that's the whole
> point! Everyone considering binary only support "full" causes the entire
> problem of not being able to run without binary modules anymore, which
> in turn means you're either stuck with enterprise distro kernels, or
> linux is stuck with a kernel that can't be developed on anymore in a 2.7
> style series.
> 
> Nobody is arguing that hardware shouldn't be supported, to the contrary.
> I and others are arguing that short term binary only "support" isn't
> real support in the long term, and in both the long and short term leads
> to a significant reduction in choice. Note: NVidia right now is nice
> enough to do the blob+glue layer thing. Many others don't, they only
> provide modules for certain enterprise distros. Now those schools and
> governments of course run those enterprise distros... but what does that
> gain in the end? Security? It doesn't; several of these binary modules
> actually introduce security holes (the most famous one is an old 3D
> driver of a company I won't name that had a "make me root" ioctl).
> Price? Well those enterprise distribution companies need to make money
> somehow... so while the price may be lower... you're stuck to them
> again..
> 
>> So , without some sort of effort from kernel developers, things
>> arent going to change.
> 
> I would turn this around; without some sort of effort from the USERS,
> things aren't going to change. As long as USERS don't use their purchase
> power to urge vendors that linux and open source are important, nothing
> is going to improve. Going binary is not a long term improvement! It's
> more like a quick shot of heroin that makes you feel better today,
> rather than going to a psychiatrist who helps you out of your depression
> for the rest of your life.

Once again I'd like to point out that user's purchase power means jack 
when they only have two choices for video:  ATI and Nvidia.  You can't 
walk into a computer store and find anything else (I don't count 
integrated video on the motherboard as a solution, since only Intel 
boards have it, sorry AMD users).  Even over the web it's hard to find 
anything else.  I'm not trying to defend closed source here, but you 
people just have to face the reality that trying to use the market to 
get our way is just not going to work with video.  The only way forward 
is reverse engineering.  We aren't going to get help from the vendors so 
we have to help ourselves.

--
				Brian Gerst

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  1:35               ` Andrea Arcangeli
@ 2005-12-06  1:55                 ` Jeff Garzik
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Jeff Garzik @ 2005-12-06  1:55 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Andrea Arcangeli; +Cc: Tim Bird, David Woodhouse, arjan, andrew, linux-kernel

Andrea Arcangeli wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 05, 2005 at 05:20:16PM -0800, Tim Bird wrote:
> 
>>This interpretation puts kernel developers in the
>>position of making the legal decision about which
> 
> 
> An hint can hardly defined as a "legal decision".
> 
> An hint _only_ means "be careful you _might_ be illegal".
> 
> "might be" is hardly a "legal deicision", infact it's not decision at
> all.

Correct.  It's largely a demonstration of "intent" -- which is both a 
legal and a common sense concept.  It's not a legally binding <anything>.

IANAL, of course.

	Jeff




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  0:10           ` Dave Airlie
  2005-12-06  0:23             ` Tim Bird
@ 2005-12-06  2:22             ` Gene Heskett
  2005-12-06  3:56               ` Zwane Mwaikambo
  2005-12-06 11:38               ` Jean-Christian de Rivaz
  1 sibling, 2 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Gene Heskett @ 2005-12-06  2:22 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: linux-kernel

On Monday 05 December 2005 19:10, Dave Airlie wrote:
>> To the larger argument about supporting binary drivers,
>> all Arjan manages to prove with his post is that,
>> if handled in the worst possible way, support for
>> binary drivers would be a disaster.  Who can disagree
>> with that?
>
>And do you think that given the opportunity, any company is going
>spend the extra money required to not do it in the worst possible
>way?? Companies want to spend as little as possible on drivers, and
>drop support as soon as it makes sense financially to do so, they
>aren't going to come to the correct best possible way on their own, or
>via consortia of companies ala CEL or OSDL, they require outside
>pressure to make them change their mindset from the only example they
>have which is developing Windows drivers..
>
Which is the best reason in the world to buy and use, the open source 
video card now under development, and I hear its less than 3-4 months 
from production status now, and at a competitive, sub $150 USD price.

If 50% of nvidia's currant linux market share were to dissappear a month 
after this card becomes available for purchase by those whom one might 
categorize as believers, I'd think that would send a message loud enough 
to be heard.

Particularly if windows drivers are available, open sourced, and 
installable on a winderz box using the normal install wizard, and 
promoted as such to the joe six-packs of the world.  At the right price, 
that would send an even louder message to both nvidia and ati, who so 
far, seems to be all hat & no cattle.  While the drivers in x.orgs code 
seem to be working fairly well, and absolutely stable, I'm sure there 
are hardware things in this 9200SE I have here that are not being used 
by x.org's code.  It works well enough to play tux-racer, but not well, 
keyboard response acts like the machine is being hogged by the video.

>Dave.
>-
>To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel"
> in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
>More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
>Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/

-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
99.36% setiathome rank, not too shabby for a WV hillbilly
Yahoo.com and AOL/TW attorneys please note, additions to the above
message by Gene Heskett are:
Copyright 2005 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-05 10:52 Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario Arjan van de Ven
                   ` (4 preceding siblings ...)
  2005-12-05 23:24 ` Matthieu CASTET
@ 2005-12-06  2:58 ` Andre Hedrick
  2005-12-06 13:13 ` Rudolf Randal
  2005-12-06 16:16 ` Jon Smirl
  7 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Andre Hedrick @ 2005-12-06  2:58 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Arjan van de Ven; +Cc: linux-kernel


Hi Arjan,

You know I like to chime in from time to time on this subject, mostly for
fun.

Inside the your position, many (non-linux people) have seen a position
which appears to be acceptable when added with the classic "IFF" or
"If and only IF" conditionals.

Binary Blob + source glue layer == psuedo module.

The arguement implies this is okay in theory but practice has proven it
falls apart.  However, the remander represents a snap back direction to
the otherside.  This make one wonder if server hardware direction goes
this way regardless of the opensource ideas, what really prevents the
hardware vendors from abandoning Linux.  Does anyone really know what the
actual percentage is for a given company's topline v/s bottom line revenue
broken down as a ratio of open source customers revenue/totals v/s other
customers revenue/totals.

If there was some way to obtain such information, this could lead credence
or negate the arguement about open source drivers.

Please know the comments are about "open source" only and does not take a
position on any given license associated to the work.

Cheers,

Andre

PS this is for the arena of ideas and not material to flame.

On Mon, 5 Dec 2005, Arjan van de Ven wrote:

> Linux in a binary world
> 
> 
> What if.. what if the linux kernel developers tomorrow accept that
> binary modules are OK and are essential for the progress of linux. 
> 
> a hypothetical doomsday scenario by Arjan van de Ven
> 
> the primary assumption in this scenario is obviously not going to
> happen, but all assumptions that follow are based things that are true
> in some form or another, but of course the names of the "innocent" have
> been omitted.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On December 6th, 2005 the kernel developers en mass decide that binary
> modules are legally fine and also essential for the progress of linux,
> and are as such a desirable thing. At first, the development process of
> the linux kernel doesn't change much other than a bunch more symbols
> getting exported, and EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL removed.
> 
> Within 3 weeks, distributions like Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SuSE's
> SLES distribution start to include a wide variety of binary modules on
> their installation CDs. Debian renounces this and stays pure to the
> cause, as do other open distributions like Fedora Core and openSuSE. 
> 
> The enterprise distros don't just NVidias and ATIs modules, but include
> all the OEM vendor "fakeraid" modules and the various wireless,
> winmodem, windsl and TCP-offloading modules as well,. However, unlike
> NVidia and ATI, most of the binary driver vendors do not provide their
> drivers in a "glue layer" source form, they provide only the final
> binaries.
> 
> Several hardware vendors that have been friendly to open source so far,
> see their competitors ship only binary drivers, and internally they
> start to see pressure to also keep the IP private, and they know that
> they haven't used some features of the hardware because their legal
> department didn't want that IP in the public. As a result they perceive
> their competitors binary drivers to be at a theoretical advantage, or at
> least their own drivers could be at an advantage if they were also
> closed, because they then can use those few extra features to be ahead
> of the competition. By February 1st 2006, about half the hardware
> vendors have refocused their internal linux driver efforts to create
> value adds in the binary drivers they will release in addition to the
> open drivers that already exist. Some vendors even openly stopped
> supporting the open drivers because they don't have enough resources
> to do both.
> 
> March 1st. All the new server lines from the top tier hardware vendors
> come out with the next generation storage and network hardware. This
> hardware comes with binary drivers for the last 2 versions of RHEL and
> SLES distributions, and these drivers are already integrated into the
> February refreshes of these distributions. One of the storage vendors
> releases their driver in a .o + glue layer format, the others doesn't
> bother and only releases binaries for these two distributions. Two of
> the network card manufacturers release an update for their open source
> driver to minimally support the new cards, the others don't. Consumer
> hardware is largely unaffected; most consumer chipsets standardize on
> AHCI for SATA storage and keep the existing feature sets in networking
> chipsets.
> 
> April 1st. 2 of the consumer chipset makers have upgraded their chipsets
> to include a new and exciting audio feature that enables enhanced DVD
> playback, but unfortunately this caused them to deviate from the
> 'standard' i810 audio hardware interface. One of them releases a binary
> driver for a handful of distributions, the other doesn't consider linux
> relevant for the desktop and hasn't bothered to do a linux driver yet.
> 
> May 1st All of the server class hardware you can buy requires at least
> one but usually 2 or 3 binary modules to operate. While some of these
> modules are available in blob+glue form, several are only available for
> RHEL3, RHEL4 and SLES9 and sometimes the newly released SLES10. Linux
> users will have the choice of 4 kernels for these servers at this time,
> but no hope to run a kernel.org kernel on these servers. The Ubuntu
> people are very upset and are trying hard, with varying success, to get
> drivers available for their distribution. Due to this lobby success,
> about 50% of the servers can be used with the Ubuntu kernel as well.
> 
> June 1st. A huge flamewar, the fourth on this topic since January,
> happens on the linux-kernel mailing list. Users and some developers are
> demanding that the kernel.org kernel adopts either the existing RHEL or
> the SLES module ABI. Investigation shows that this is not possible, and
> the thread turns into a discussion on designing a new ABI versus
> freezing the existing one. Many kernel developers feel that the existing
> ad-hoc ABI is not suitable for freezing and that a new ABI and API,
> designed such that it can be kept stable more easily is the way to go,
> while others say that this takes too much time and then won't help for
> the next 2 years until RHEL and SLES have adopted this ABI, and at least
> demand an immediate freeze of the kernel.org ABI so that the upcoming
> RHEL5 release maybe uses it, and thus gets drivers written for it. Users
> generally use RHEL or SLES for production servers, and clones like
> CENTOS which have released binary compatible kernels.
> 
> July 1st. It's increasingly hard to run linux without binary modules on
> most new consumer PCs. While a year earlier people would have to give up
> 3D acceleration for this often, now even 2D doesn't work without binary
> drivers, nor does networking (both fixed wire or wireless) or sound. For
> half the machines there is not enough linux support available at all,
> while 20% use ndiswrapper like translation layers to run the Windows
> sound and networking drivers. The Debian project, unable to run on most
> machines now, is losing massive amounts of users to Ubuntu and
> Ubuntu-Debian hybrids. Debian-legal and various other project lists are
> impossible to read by people not interested in this particular
> flame-topic. Most of the vendors who kept their open source drivers at
> least somewhat updated have basically stopped doing so.
> 
> July 14th. Linus declares the kernel ABI stable but also splits off a
> 2.7 kernel and declares that the 2.8 kernel will have a different ABI.
> In practice, only people who held on to their old machines can assist in
> the 2.7 development, since none of the vendor drivers, not even the ones
> who still have a blob+glue construct care about the 'too rapid' moving
> development tree. 
> 
> August 21st. A serious security flaw is found in the 2.6 series, which
> turns out to be a design flaw in a key sysfs API. Fixing this flaw would
> require to break the module ABI and practically all modules out there,
> while not fixing this flaw leaves a potential roothole open. A quick fix
> is made available under a CONFIG_ option, but users who need binary
> drivers have no choice but leave their systems vulnerable. Flamewars on
> lkml flare up again that say Linus made a mistake in freezing the
> existing ABI rather than creating a new one designed to be frozen. 2.7
> development has mostly stagnated and a patch is proposed to have 2.7
> have the 2.6 ABI again, reverting several key VM subsystem improvements
> and Ingo's realtime patches.
> 
> August 26th. A precooked exploit for the security hole hits bugtraq, and
> has been sighted in the wild as used by various rootkits. A php exploit
> uses it to go from the httpd user to root. Users are putting pressure on
> module vendors to release modules for the new ABI, and several actually
> do so in the next three weeks. Others, mostly in the consumer area, say
> that the hardware in question is no longer sold and that they aren't
> going to spend any time or effort on drivers for it.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Now this scenario may sound unlikely to you. And thankfully the main
> assumption (the December 6th event) is extremely unlikely.  
> 
> However, and this unfortunately, several of the other "leaps" aren't
> that unlikely. In fact, some of these results are likely to happen
> regardless; witness the flamewars on lkml about breaking module API/ABI.
> Witness the ndiswrapper effect of vendors now saying "we support linux
> because ndiswrapper can use our windows driver". I hope they won't
> happen. Some of that hope will be idle hope, but I believe that the
> advantages of freedom in the end are strong enough to overcome the
> counter forces. 
> 
> 
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/
> 


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-05 14:31     ` Brian Gerst
@ 2005-12-06  3:08       ` Andrea Arcangeli
  2005-12-05 16:23         ` Brian Gerst
                           ` (2 more replies)
  2005-12-06  9:07       ` Dirk Steuwer
                         ` (3 subsequent siblings)
  4 siblings, 3 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Andrea Arcangeli @ 2005-12-06  3:08 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Brian Gerst; +Cc: William Lee Irwin III, Arjan van de Ven, linux-kernel

On Mon, Dec 05, 2005 at 09:31:30AM -0500, Brian Gerst wrote:
> The problem with this statement is that Linux users are a drop in the 
> bucket of sales for this hardware.  Boycotting doesn't cost the vendors 
> enough to make them care.  And this does nothing for people who are 
> converting over to Linux, and didn't buy hardware with that 
> consideration in mind.

Effectively this is why 3d drivers are the only thing we litearlly lost
control of. But my email was general. I wasn't only speaking of 3d
hardware.

For 3d you're very well right, but once linux becomes mainstream in the
desktop, things could change.

Also note, I've some 3d on my laptop but I need no binary only drivers
for it, so there's some option.

Currently in KLive I can see there are about 44% of the users with the
nvidia driver loaded (once I have time to work on klive again, I'll
make the new data browsable on the web, I had to query the db by hand to
see it right now, ironically there are about 80 sessions where the
_only_ driver loaded is the nvidia one and everything else is static ;).

> The only way to break the stalemate is to reverse engineer drivers. 
> Turning the screws tighter isn't going to make open drivers magically 
> appear.  More likely, the vendors will abandon Linux as being too 
> hostile and/or too costly to support, leaving everybody back at square one.

Let's not forget they make money selling the hardware, the binary only
driver is free. And releasing an open source driver if something will
decrease their maintainance costs. The only thing this binary only
driver does is to avoid them _risks_, but they gain no money by keeping
it binary only. So the day they will be losing money by keeping the
driver binary only, I expect they may open it. They simply have no
reason to do it right now.

However this will only work out if we exercise our buyer rights (again
in general). To make the counter example, if we would suddently start to
prefer hardware with binary only drivers, then the doomsay scenario may
materialize with quick erosion.

In the meantime I don't like gratuitous breakages, I prefer that they
open it because it makes sense for them. Breaking it gratuitously is
what could make linux hostile and too costly to support IMHO.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  2:22             ` Gene Heskett
@ 2005-12-06  3:56               ` Zwane Mwaikambo
  2005-12-06  4:27                 ` Gene Heskett
                                   ` (3 more replies)
  2005-12-06 11:38               ` Jean-Christian de Rivaz
  1 sibling, 4 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Zwane Mwaikambo @ 2005-12-06  3:56 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Gene Heskett; +Cc: linux-kernel

On Mon, 5 Dec 2005, Gene Heskett wrote:

> Which is the best reason in the world to buy and use, the open source 
> video card now under development, and I hear its less than 3-4 months 
> from production status now, and at a competitive, sub $150 USD price.
> 
> If 50% of nvidia's currant linux market share were to dissappear a month 
> after this card becomes available for purchase by those whom one might 
> categorize as believers, I'd think that would send a message loud enough 
> to be heard.
> 
> Particularly if windows drivers are available, open sourced, and 
> installable on a winderz box using the normal install wizard, and 
> promoted as such to the joe six-packs of the world.  At the right price, 
> that would send an even louder message to both nvidia and ati

Do you think this opensource hardware could keep up with nvidia and ati 
hardware development? Joe sixpack is all about the fastest hardware.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  0:23             ` Tim Bird
  2005-12-06  0:26               ` Tim Bird
@ 2005-12-06  4:08               ` Greg KH
  2005-12-06  6:07                 ` Willy Tarreau
  2005-12-06  7:58                 ` Coywolf Qi Hunt
  2005-12-06  4:18               ` Linux " Al Viro
  2 siblings, 2 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Greg KH @ 2005-12-06  4:08 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Tim Bird; +Cc: Dave Airlie, David Woodhouse, arjan, andrew, linux-kernel

On Mon, Dec 05, 2005 at 04:23:57PM -0800, Tim Bird wrote:
> Dave Airlie wrote:
> >>To the larger argument about supporting binary drivers,
> >>all Arjan manages to prove with his post is that,
> >>if handled in the worst possible way, support for
> >>binary drivers would be a disaster.  Who can disagree
> >>with that?
> >> 
> > And do you think that given the opportunity, any company is going
> > spend the extra money required to not do it in the worst possible
> > way?? 
> 
> I meant "handled in the worst possible way by
> the kernel developers".  It *is* possible to define
> stable APIs and have them used successfully.
> 
> POSIX is not the greatest example, but it seems
> to work OK.  I realize that drivers are more
> tightly bound to the kernel than are libraries
> or applications, but sheesh, this is not rocket
> science.

For people to think that the kernel developers are just "too dumb" to
make a stable kernel api (and yes, I've had people accuse me of this
many times to my face[1]) shows a total lack of understanding as to
_why_ we change the in-kernel api all the time.  Please see
Documentation/stable_api_nonsense.txt for details on this.

thanks,

greg k-h

[1] My usual response is, "If we are so dumb, why are you using the kernel
    made by us?", which usually stops the conversation right there.


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-05 23:56         ` Tim Bird
                             ` (3 preceding siblings ...)
  2005-12-06  0:53           ` Andrea Arcangeli
@ 2005-12-06  4:12           ` Greg KH
  2005-12-06  4:18             ` Michael Poole
  2005-12-06 18:19             ` Theodore Ts'o
  2005-12-07 14:30           ` Rik van Riel
  5 siblings, 2 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Greg KH @ 2005-12-06  4:12 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Tim Bird; +Cc: David Woodhouse, arjan, andrew, linux-kernel

On Mon, Dec 05, 2005 at 03:56:06PM -0800, Tim Bird wrote:
> DISCLAIMER: I'm not speaking for Sony here. Personally
> I don't believe that most drivers are derivative works
> of the operating systems they run with, and I don't
> believe it helps Linux to assert that they are.
> But, hey, it's not my kernel, and not my plan for
> world domination. ;-)

Why do people bring up the "derivative works" issue all the time.  Are
they so blind to the very simple "linking" issue that all kernel modules
do when they are loaded into the kernel?

That's the much simpler reason for why numerous IP lawyers of big
companies that do Linux work feel that closed source Linux kernel
modules are not legal.

thanks,

greg k-h

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  4:12           ` Greg KH
@ 2005-12-06  4:18             ` Michael Poole
  2005-12-06 17:21               ` Benjamin LaHaise
  2005-12-07 14:25               ` Rik van Riel
  2005-12-06 18:19             ` Theodore Ts'o
  1 sibling, 2 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Michael Poole @ 2005-12-06  4:18 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Greg KH; +Cc: linux-kernel

Greg KH <greg@kroah.com> writes:

> On Mon, Dec 05, 2005 at 03:56:06PM -0800, Tim Bird wrote:
> > DISCLAIMER: I'm not speaking for Sony here. Personally
> > I don't believe that most drivers are derivative works
> > of the operating systems they run with, and I don't
> > believe it helps Linux to assert that they are.
> > But, hey, it's not my kernel, and not my plan for
> > world domination. ;-)
> 
> Why do people bring up the "derivative works" issue all the time.  Are
> they so blind to the very simple "linking" issue that all kernel modules
> do when they are loaded into the kernel?

Most likely people bring up the "derivative works" issue because
that's what the GPL says it affects.  The FSF contends that linking
creates a derivative work, but is curiously quiet when people ask for
statutory or case law to support that claim.

Besides, if the act of linking is what makes the derivative work,
there is no problem: The GPL allows a user to make any modifications
or combinations or derivatives whatsoever, and only imposes
requirements when the result is distributed.  The linking of the two
works occurs only on the end user's machine.

Michael Poole

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  0:23             ` Tim Bird
  2005-12-06  0:26               ` Tim Bird
  2005-12-06  4:08               ` Greg KH
@ 2005-12-06  4:18               ` Al Viro
  2 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Al Viro @ 2005-12-06  4:18 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Tim Bird; +Cc: Dave Airlie, David Woodhouse, arjan, andrew, linux-kernel

On Mon, Dec 05, 2005 at 04:23:57PM -0800, Tim Bird wrote:
> I meant "handled in the worst possible way by
> the kernel developers".  It *is* possible to define
> stable APIs and have them used successfully.
> 
> POSIX is not the greatest example, but it seems
> to work OK.  I realize that drivers are more
> tightly bound to the kernel than are libraries
> or applications, but sheesh, this is not rocket
> science.

You do realize that any attempt to create a stable API (which would
reduce the amount of exported symbols by factor of 50 to start with)
will have the parties currently advocating interface stability screaming
bloody murder?

Who do you think had been responsible for current mess?  The people
who kept adding random exports with no rationale beyond "it's needed
for our code", that's who...

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  3:56               ` Zwane Mwaikambo
@ 2005-12-06  4:27                 ` Gene Heskett
  2005-12-06 18:33                 ` Jesper Juhl
                                   ` (2 subsequent siblings)
  3 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Gene Heskett @ 2005-12-06  4:27 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: linux-kernel

On Monday 05 December 2005 22:56, Zwane Mwaikambo wrote:
>On Mon, 5 Dec 2005, Gene Heskett wrote:
>> Which is the best reason in the world to buy and use, the open source
>> video card now under development, and I hear its less than 3-4 months
>> from production status now, and at a competitive, sub $150 USD price.
>>
>> If 50% of nvidia's currant linux market share were to dissappear a
>> month after this card becomes available for purchase by those whom
>> one might categorize as believers, I'd think that would send a
>> message loud enough to be heard.
>>
>> Particularly if windows drivers are available, open sourced, and
>> installable on a winderz box using the normal install wizard, and
>> promoted as such to the joe six-packs of the world.  At the right
>> price, that would send an even louder message to both nvidia and ati
>
>Do you think this opensource hardware could keep up with nvidia and ati
>hardware development? Joe sixpack is all about the fastest hardware.

That I've no knowledge of.  The developers are claiming pretty decent 
performance from the breadboards now, in the top 85% I'd guess, but go 
check their site for clarification on that.  As to keeping up with new 
hardware, if the sales support it, then even newer ones will always be 
in the pipeline.  The key to success is as always, sales propaganda in 
Joe Six-packs face, and that, no surprise, costs money.  So when it is 
released, support it if you want to keep it alive.  To me, thats a no 
brainer.  But who am I but an old fart on SS...  If I can afford it, 
certainly lots of you younger folks can too.  Putting our money where 
our mouth is makes perfect sense to me and I'll do it at least once.  
Maybe 3 times as I have 3 boxes here.


-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
99.36% setiathome rank, not too shabby for a WV hillbilly
Yahoo.com and AOL/TW attorneys please note, additions to the above
message by Gene Heskett are:
Copyright 2005 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  4:08               ` Greg KH
@ 2005-12-06  6:07                 ` Willy Tarreau
  2005-12-06  7:06                   ` Neil Brown
                                     ` (2 more replies)
  2005-12-06  7:58                 ` Coywolf Qi Hunt
  1 sibling, 3 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Willy Tarreau @ 2005-12-06  6:07 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Greg KH
  Cc: Tim Bird, Dave Airlie, David Woodhouse, arjan, andrew, linux-kernel

On Mon, Dec 05, 2005 at 08:08:20PM -0800, Greg KH wrote:
 
> For people to think that the kernel developers are just "too dumb" to
> make a stable kernel api (and yes, I've had people accuse me of this
> many times to my face[1]) shows a total lack of understanding as to
> _why_ we change the in-kernel api all the time.  Please see
> Documentation/stable_api_nonsense.txt for details on this.

It's not about being dumb, but this problem is -I think- what prevents
some companies from releasing drivers for their hardware (when they
don't consider that opening it will give their IP away). I've played
several times with opensource drivers for ADSL modems, LCD modules,
watchdogs, ethernet adapters, IDE drivers, etc... and their problem
was that what worked well in 2.4.21 did not even build in 2.4.22
and became difficult to fix starting with 2.4.23. Most of those
small companies who propose a Linux driver simply start by paying
a student during summer for porting their windows/sco/whatever
driver to linux. They think the job is done when he leaves.
Unfortunately, they receive complaints 3 months later from users
because the driver is broken and does not build. They don't have
the resources to keep a permanent developer on it, and they
quickly understand that Linux is just a "geek OS" and that it's
the last time they release any driver.

Of course, you'll tell me that they can write the driver for
the major stable distros (RHEL, SLES, ...). But when they
don't really understand what Linux is, do you believe it's the
student who will tell them "I should write it for RHEL" ? No.
The student will decide "I will write it for vanilla kernel
and test it on my Debian because I hate proprietary systems".

Anyway, those who write drivers for RHEL have no problem
keeping them closed because their users generally don't
expect to read the sources.

> thanks,
> 
> greg k-h
> 
> [1] My usual response is, "If we are so dumb, why are you using the kernel
>     made by us?", which usually stops the conversation right there.

I've already heard a funny response to this : "Usually I use *BSD, but
right now for an unknown reason, it does not install on this strange
machine, so I was FORCED to install Linux, but I will remove it once
I can fix my BSD" :-) It's the same as people who complain about windows
all the day and use it all the day.

Regards,
Willy


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-05 17:29   ` Jan-Benedict Glaw
  2005-12-05 22:52     ` Bernd Petrovitsch
@ 2005-12-06  6:28     ` Rob Landley
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Rob Landley @ 2005-12-06  6:28 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jan-Benedict Glaw; +Cc: linux-kernel

On Monday 05 December 2005 11:29, Jan-Benedict Glaw wrote:
> On Mon, 2005-12-05 12:18:34 -0500, Jeff Garzik <jgarzik@pobox.com> wrote:
> > Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> > >Linux in a binary world
> >
> > You forgot the effect of binary-only on non-x86 arches...
>
> Um, let's write an binary emulator for those archs. It did work for
> Alphas executing i386 code, so it'd work for PPC, too :-)

Fabrice Bellard beat you to it, QEMU, and yes it's GPL.

Trying to bolt it to the kernel would deeply suck.

Rob
-- 
Steve Ballmer: Innovation!  Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word.
I do not think it means what you think it means.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  6:07                 ` Willy Tarreau
@ 2005-12-06  7:06                   ` Neil Brown
  2005-12-06  8:13                   ` David Woodhouse
  2005-12-06 16:47                   ` Greg KH
  2 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Neil Brown @ 2005-12-06  7:06 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Willy Tarreau
  Cc: Greg KH, Tim Bird, Dave Airlie, David Woodhouse, arjan, andrew,
	linux-kernel

On Tuesday December 6, willy@w.ods.org wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 05, 2005 at 08:08:20PM -0800, Greg KH wrote:
>  
> > For people to think that the kernel developers are just "too dumb" to
> > make a stable kernel api (and yes, I've had people accuse me of this
> > many times to my face[1]) shows a total lack of understanding as to
> > _why_ we change the in-kernel api all the time.  Please see
> > Documentation/stable_api_nonsense.txt for details on this.
> 
> It's not about being dumb, but this problem is -I think- what prevents
> some companies from releasing drivers for their hardware (when they
> don't consider that opening it will give their IP away). I've played
> several times with opensource drivers for ADSL modems, LCD modules,
> watchdogs, ethernet adapters, IDE drivers, etc... and their problem
> was that what worked well in 2.4.21 did not even build in 2.4.22
> and became difficult to fix starting with 2.4.23. Most of those
> small companies who propose a Linux driver simply start by paying
> a student during summer for porting their windows/sco/whatever
> driver to linux. They think the job is done when he leaves.
> Unfortunately, they receive complaints 3 months later from users
> because the driver is broken and does not build. They don't have
> the resources to keep a permanent developer on it, and they
> quickly understand that Linux is just a "geek OS" and that it's
> the last time they release any driver.
> 
> Of course, you'll tell me that they can write the driver for
> the major stable distros (RHEL, SLES, ...). 

I won't tell you that.
I'd say that with a linux driver, the job isn't done it "works", but
rather the job is done when it "is merged".

Once it is merged, it will mostly be updated along with the rest of
the kernel, and if it breaks silently, there is probably someone
available who can fix it.

I think we should frown on out-of-tree drivers nearly as much as
closed-source drivers.

NeilBrown

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  4:08               ` Greg KH
  2005-12-06  6:07                 ` Willy Tarreau
@ 2005-12-06  7:58                 ` Coywolf Qi Hunt
  2005-12-06 16:11                   ` Greg KH
  2005-12-06 18:56                   ` Linux " Luke-Jr
  1 sibling, 2 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Coywolf Qi Hunt @ 2005-12-06  7:58 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Greg KH
  Cc: Tim Bird, Dave Airlie, David Woodhouse, arjan, andrew, linux-kernel

2005/12/6, Greg KH <greg@kroah.com>:
> On Mon, Dec 05, 2005 at 04:23:57PM -0800, Tim Bird wrote:
> > Dave Airlie wrote:
> > >>To the larger argument about supporting binary drivers,
> > >>all Arjan manages to prove with his post is that,
> > >>if handled in the worst possible way, support for
> > >>binary drivers would be a disaster.  Who can disagree
> > >>with that?
> > >>
> > > And do you think that given the opportunity, any company is going
> > > spend the extra money required to not do it in the worst possible
> > > way??
> >
> > I meant "handled in the worst possible way by
> > the kernel developers".  It *is* possible to define
> > stable APIs and have them used successfully.
> >
> > POSIX is not the greatest example, but it seems
> > to work OK.  I realize that drivers are more
> > tightly bound to the kernel than are libraries
> > or applications, but sheesh, this is not rocket
> > science.
>
> For people to think that the kernel developers are just "too dumb" to
> make a stable kernel api (and yes, I've had people accuse me of this
> many times to my face[1]) shows a total lack of understanding as to
> _why_ we change the in-kernel api all the time.  Please see
> Documentation/stable_api_nonsense.txt for details on this.
>
> thanks,
>
> greg k-h
>
> [1] My usual response is, "If we are so dumb, why are you using the kernel
>     made by us?", which usually stops the conversation right there.

Your response is nonsense. It has the same logic as saying "If
proprietary software is wrong, why are you using it?".
Everybody are using proprietary software, aren't they?

If the pattern goes in A->B .... ->A, then the developers are really dumb.
--
Coywolf Qi Hunt
http://sosdg.org/~coywolf/

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  6:07                 ` Willy Tarreau
  2005-12-06  7:06                   ` Neil Brown
@ 2005-12-06  8:13                   ` David Woodhouse
  2005-12-06  9:10                     ` Bernd Petrovitsch
  2005-12-06 16:47                   ` Greg KH
  2 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: David Woodhouse @ 2005-12-06  8:13 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Willy Tarreau; +Cc: Greg KH, Tim Bird, Dave Airlie, arjan, andrew, linux-kernel

On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 07:07 +0100, Willy Tarreau wrote:
> Most of those small companies who propose a Linux driver simply start
> by paying a student during summer for porting their
> windows/sco/whatever driver to linux. They think the job is done when
> he leaves. Unfortunately, they receive complaints 3 months later from
> users because the driver is broken and does not build. They don't have
> the resources to keep a permanent developer on it, and they quickly
> understand that Linux is just a "geek OS" and that it's the last time
> they release any driver.

If they hired someone who did a _proper_ job -- writing a fully portable
and maintainable driver which got merged into Linus' kernel, then this
scenario doesn't make much sense. In-kernel code does generally get
maintained as interfaces change.

Of course, maintaining a driver _outside_ the kernel tree is a
never-ending task -- but why would anybody ever want to do that?

-- 
dwmw2



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  1:18   ` Andrea Arcangeli
  2005-12-05 14:31     ` Brian Gerst
@ 2005-12-06  8:29     ` Arjan van de Ven
  2005-12-07 18:39       ` Rik van Riel
  2005-12-06 12:26     ` Denis Vlasenko
  2005-12-06 17:23     ` Jon Masters
  3 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Arjan van de Ven @ 2005-12-06  8:29 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Andrea Arcangeli; +Cc: William Lee Irwin III, linux-kernel

On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 02:18 +0100, Andrea Arcangeli wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 05, 2005 at 04:18:51AM -0800, William Lee Irwin III wrote:
> > The December 6 event is extraordinarily unlikely. What's vastly more
> > likely is consistent "erosion" over time. First the 3D video drivers,
> > then the wireless network drivers, then the fakeraid drivers, and so on.
> 
> I agree about the erosion.
> 
> I am convinced that the only way to stop the erosion is to totally stop
> buying hardware that has only binary only drivers (unless you buy it to
> create an open source driver or to reverse engineer the binary only
> driver of course! ;).

this only works if more people than "just Andrea and Arjan" do it
though.

> 
> For example if a laptop has an embedded wirless or 3d card not supported by
> open source drivers, buy a laptop without any wireless card or without
> 3d, instead of buying one with the not-supported hardware without using
> it (I can guarantee there are still laptops that requires no 3d
> binary only drivers and no wirless cards drivers, even for the winmodems
> you can choose the ones supported by alsa). We literally have to refuse
> buying those cards with binary only kernel drivers.

I fully agree; I bought a centrino based laptop recently (from Dell),
because Intel did a most excellent job of getting all the parts I use
supported fully. That was actually my primary purchase criterium.
Several other vendors didn't get my sale because they had no decent
supported laptop. (eg ati or nvidia video or some at-the-time driverless
wireless)


> The fact Arjan got the "nvidia fanboy" complaining, is the  sign that
> some people just don't care. This understandable for a 3d kind of
> product which is 90% for entertainment (nobody loses money when it
> crashes), and we generally can't expect everyone to care about the long
> term kernel development.

lately a trend started where linux users consider it normal to use
binary drivers. Not only for 3D, but for everything. To the point where
in discussions about the gpl bcm43xx driver in development they feel
it's useful to chime in by saying "just use ndiswrapper instead", in
fact that's the standard answer on mailinglist on ANY wireless issue
nowadays it seems. There is an atmosphere that it's the duty of the
kernel developers to keep nvidia and ndiswrapper and all other binary
drivers working, anyone who even suggests different is a fundamentalist
GPL terrorist. (if you think that I'm overreacting, just for fun read
the forum on heise.de about this mail/article; this article apparently
is very fundamentalist). Nowadays people get upset and start calling
names if you point then at the nvidia forums instead of given them the
exact answer they want on $whatevermailinglist. 

So while I fully agree with your "we shouldn't buy the unsupported
hardware" I fear that that no longer is happening in practice, not even
on the server side anymore, where some of the linux-friendly hardware
vendors now sell machines which require binary only modules to run and
call it fully linux certified and don't even mention anywhere that it
needs such modules, or that those modules are only available for RHEL or
SLES.

Greetings,
   Arjan van de Ven




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-05 14:31     ` Brian Gerst
  2005-12-06  3:08       ` Andrea Arcangeli
@ 2005-12-06  9:07       ` Dirk Steuwer
  2005-12-06 10:46         ` Sander
  2005-12-09  5:49         ` Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario Miles Bader
  2005-12-06 15:17       ` Pavel Machek
                         ` (2 subsequent siblings)
  4 siblings, 2 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Dirk Steuwer @ 2005-12-06  9:07 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: linux-kernel

Brian Gerst <bgerst <at> didntduck.org> writes:

> The problem with this statement is that Linux users are a drop in the 
> bucket of sales for this hardware.  Boycotting doesn't cost the vendors 
> enough to make them care.  And this does nothing for people who are 
> converting over to Linux, and didn't buy hardware with that 
> consideration in mind.
> 
> The only way to break the stalemate is to reverse engineer drivers. 
> Turning the screws tighter isn't going to make open drivers magically 
> appear.  More likely, the vendors will abandon Linux as being too 
> hostile and/or too costly to support, leaving everybody back at square one.
> 
> --
> 				Brian Gerst
> 


I see binary drivers as a problem, too.
How does a customer find out, if a piece of Hardware works in the free software
world? Yes there are a few places, where you find a hardware compatibility list,
but these are scattered and often incomplete. And they only include hardware
that someone thinks is working, added a couple of month after sales launch.

The only solution is to create pressure on these companies, as suggested.
Ideally, there should be a label "designed for Linux" (or "designed for free
software" (maybe getting the bsd people on board as well?)) straight on the box.
So customers that start to care about linux, can see this right away and make
the right choice, when buying hardware. 
And because the driver is already included/licensed before the product makes it
into the shelves, its a plug and play scenario for the customer. They don't need
to worry about drivers at all. Stick it in and it just works(tm).
This would be a real value added in favor of linux for the customer and could
create some real pressure on companies with binary only drivers. 


Which Authority would be best to release such a Label?

Regards,
Dirk


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  8:13                   ` David Woodhouse
@ 2005-12-06  9:10                     ` Bernd Petrovitsch
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Bernd Petrovitsch @ 2005-12-06  9:10 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: David Woodhouse
  Cc: Willy Tarreau, Greg KH, Tim Bird, Dave Airlie, arjan, andrew,
	linux-kernel

On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 08:13 +0000, David Woodhouse wrote:
> On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 07:07 +0100, Willy Tarreau wrote:
> > Most of those small companies who propose a Linux driver simply start
> > by paying a student during summer for porting their
> > windows/sco/whatever driver to linux. They think the job is done when
> > he leaves. Unfortunately, they receive complaints 3 months later from
> > users because the driver is broken and does not build. They don't have
> > the resources to keep a permanent developer on it, and they quickly
> > understand that Linux is just a "geek OS" and that it's the last time
> > they release any driver.
> 
> If they hired someone who did a _proper_ job -- writing a fully portable
> and maintainable driver which got merged into Linus' kernel, then this

Then you have to motivate the management that it the initial development
cost is (roughly) doubled because of the process to get it accepted into
the kernel (instead of having a bloated converted driver from $OTHER_OS
which works just now somehow). And they didn't realize that bitrotting
is much faster in the free world then in the old-economy (i.e. Win*).

> scenario doesn't make much sense. In-kernel code does generally get
> maintained as interfaces change.

Yes, most of them (until the maintainer vanishes and after a year of
not-compiling-since-no-one-apparently-cares a patch to delete it is
submitted).

> Of course, maintaining a driver _outside_ the kernel tree is a
> never-ending task -- but why would anybody ever want to do that?

-) Because it was never accepted (yes, there are lots of reasons here -
   some are more valid, some are less valid as seen by the
   company/management financinf this)?
-) Because the have drivers + user-space libs for several OSes and want
   to keep them as similar and working together as possible?
-) __________________

And probably a few more (sane reasons, not insane reasons).

	Bernd
-- 
Firmix Software GmbH                   http://www.firmix.at/
mobil: +43 664 4416156                 fax: +43 1 7890849-55
          Embedded Linux Development and Services


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  1:20             ` Tim Bird
  2005-12-06  1:35               ` Andrea Arcangeli
@ 2005-12-06  9:16               ` Xavier Bestel
  2005-12-06  9:26               ` Bernd Petrovitsch
  2 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Xavier Bestel @ 2005-12-06  9:16 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Tim Bird; +Cc: Andrea Arcangeli, David Woodhouse, arjan, andrew, linux-kernel

On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 02:20, Tim Bird wrote:

> > The _GPL tag is useful as an hint to binary only vendors as as such it
> > makes perfect sense.
> Well, if it makes sense to have developers giving out legal
> advice, then I guess so.

You seem to imply that kernel developers have no legitimity to give a
hint on how to use what *they* created.



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* [OT] Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-05 18:34   ` Arjan van de Ven
  2005-12-05 19:41     ` jmerkey
@ 2005-12-06  9:26     ` Alexander E. Patrakov
  2005-12-06 16:27     ` Simon Oosthoek
  2 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Alexander E. Patrakov @ 2005-12-06  9:26 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Arjan van de Ven; +Cc: linux-kernel

Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> On Mon, 2005-12-05 at 18:26 +0000, Andrew Walrond wrote:
> 
>>On Monday 05 December 2005 10:52, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
>>
>>>a hypothetical doomsday scenario by Arjan van de Ven
>>>
>>
>>Can I ask what prompted your post?
> 
> 
> I got one too many hatemails from a "nvidia fanboy" who blamed me for
> just about anything wrong in the world.... I fear that most of these
> people have no idea why open source drivers matter, or at least what the
> consequences are for not caring about drivers being open or not.

I guess that such people also use drivers without Microsoft's digital 
signature in Windows and don't understand where their bluescreens come 
from. So talking to them is a wasted effort.

-- 
Alexander E. Patrakov

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  1:20             ` Tim Bird
  2005-12-06  1:35               ` Andrea Arcangeli
  2005-12-06  9:16               ` Xavier Bestel
@ 2005-12-06  9:26               ` Bernd Petrovitsch
  2005-12-06  9:56                 ` David Woodhouse
  2 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Bernd Petrovitsch @ 2005-12-06  9:26 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Tim Bird; +Cc: Andrea Arcangeli, David Woodhouse, arjan, andrew, linux-kernel

On Mon, 2005-12-05 at 17:20 -0800, Tim Bird wrote:
> Andrea Arcangeli wrote:
> >[...]
> > The _GPL tag is useful as an hint to binary only vendors as as such it
> > makes perfect sense.
> Well, if it makes sense to have developers giving out legal
> advice, then I guess so.

Lots of patent attorneys and average law persons gives advices on
technical stuff (where they effectively have no idea what's really going
on) so it *must* be legitimate the other way 'round.

	Bernd
-- 
Firmix Software GmbH                   http://www.firmix.at/
mobil: +43 664 4416156                 fax: +43 1 7890849-55
          Embedded Linux Development and Services


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  9:26               ` Bernd Petrovitsch
@ 2005-12-06  9:56                 ` David Woodhouse
  2005-12-06 10:09                   ` Jeff Garzik
  2005-12-06 14:50                   ` Andrea Arcangeli
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: David Woodhouse @ 2005-12-06  9:56 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Bernd Petrovitsch; +Cc: Tim Bird, Andrea Arcangeli, arjan, andrew, linux-kernel

On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 10:26 +0100, Bernd Petrovitsch wrote:
> Lots of patent attorneys and average law persons gives advices on
> technical stuff (where they effectively have no idea what's really
> going on) so it *must* be legitimate the other way 'round.

I think Tim's right to suggest that we shouldn't be giving that kind of
advice. Especially when we are so inconsistent about it, and when our
opinion is irrelevant.

If your lawyers advise you that using a given symbol from your
binary-only module was OK when it was exported with EXPORT_SYMBOL, then
that situation _cannot_ change when we switch it to EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL;
we're simply not _allowed_ to impose additional restrictions. The only
thing that changes is the _amount_ of trouble you are in if the court
disagrees with your lawyers, because now you've actively circumvented a
technical protection measure in order to violate our copyright.

That protection is the only real difference between EXPORT_SYMBOL() and
EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(), once you realise that it can't change the legal
status of the export in question, and you discount the 'advice' which we
shouldn't be giving anyway.

Since the protection of EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL() is only relevant if you are
actually found to be in violation of the licence, we might as well be
using it for all symbols. If you fervently believe that binary-only
modules are legal, you can still go ahead and use them. It's just that
you'd better be _very_ sure of yourself before you do so, because if you
_do_ lose in court you'll be getting more than a slap on the wrist.

By switching in the opposite direction, Linus is actively weakening our
position, and I object very strongly to that.

-- 
dwmw2



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  9:56                 ` David Woodhouse
@ 2005-12-06 10:09                   ` Jeff Garzik
  2005-12-06 14:50                   ` Andrea Arcangeli
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Jeff Garzik @ 2005-12-06 10:09 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: David Woodhouse
  Cc: Bernd Petrovitsch, Tim Bird, Andrea Arcangeli, arjan, andrew,
	linux-kernel

David Woodhouse wrote:
> Since the protection of EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL() is only relevant if you are
> actually found to be in violation of the licence, we might as well be
> using it for all symbols. If you fervently believe that binary-only
> modules are legal, you can still go ahead and use them. It's just that
> you'd better be _very_ sure of yourself before you do so, because if you
> _do_ lose in court you'll be getting more than a slap on the wrist.
> 
> By switching in the opposite direction, Linus is actively weakening our
> position, and I object very strongly to that.


Linus made a pragmatic technical decision for the benefit of a bunch of 
Linux users, a decision I support despite the fact that NVIDIA are a 
bunch of sillyheads.

Realistically, no position was weakened, nothing new happened.

In the context of the larger thread, the doomsday scenario is highly 
unlikely because of positive engineering attributes of open source. 
Smart companies want open source drivers not because people snipe at 
them verbally and legally, but because the process produces superior 
engineering in the end.

	Jeff



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  3:08       ` Andrea Arcangeli
  2005-12-05 16:23         ` Brian Gerst
@ 2005-12-06 10:42         ` Sander
       [not found]         ` <f0cc38560512060307m2ccc6db8xd9180c2a1a926c5c@mail.gmail.com>
  2 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Sander @ 2005-12-06 10:42 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Andrea Arcangeli
  Cc: Brian Gerst, William Lee Irwin III, Arjan van de Ven, linux-kernel

Andrea Arcangeli wrote (ao):
> Let's not forget they make money selling the hardware, the binary only
> driver is free.

The driver is not free. You paid for it when you bought the card. The
driver is just as free as the tires on the car you just bought.

-- 
Humilis IT Services and Solutions
http://www.humilis.net

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  9:07       ` Dirk Steuwer
@ 2005-12-06 10:46         ` Sander
  2005-12-06 16:41           ` Dirk Steuwer
  2005-12-09  5:49         ` Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario Miles Bader
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Sander @ 2005-12-06 10:46 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Dirk Steuwer; +Cc: linux-kernel

Dirk Steuwer wrote (ao):
> The only solution is to create pressure on these companies, as suggested.
> Ideally, there should be a label "designed for Linux" (or "designed for free
> software" (maybe getting the bsd people on board as well?)) straight on the box.
> So customers that start to care about linux, can see this right away and make
> the right choice, when buying hardware. 

Quite a few companies state on their site that their hardware is
supported in Linux if it is.

And I've never bought any computer equipment in a shop. Always online,
where there is no such thing as a box anyway :-)

-- 
Humilis IT Services and Solutions
http://www.humilis.net

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-05 18:44     ` Alistair John Strachan
  2005-12-05 19:47       ` Gene Heskett
@ 2005-12-06 10:51       ` Luke-Jr
  2005-12-06 12:29         ` Ralf Baechle
  2005-12-07  0:01       ` William Lee Irwin III
  2 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Luke-Jr @ 2005-12-06 10:51 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Linux Kernel Mailing List

On Monday 05 December 2005 18:44, Alistair John Strachan wrote:
> When this happens, vendors will just have to solve all the IP nonsense
> associated with their hardware, or design hardware to be more dependent on
> firmware so that largely open source drivers are more feasible for them.

That just moves the problem. Now, there is yet even more concern that they 
should release source for the firmware.
-- 
Luke-Jr
Developer, Utopios
http://utopios.org/

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  2:22             ` Gene Heskett
  2005-12-06  3:56               ` Zwane Mwaikambo
@ 2005-12-06 11:38               ` Jean-Christian de Rivaz
  2005-12-06 19:12                 ` Jesper Juhl
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Jean-Christian de Rivaz @ 2005-12-06 11:38 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Gene Heskett; +Cc: linux-kernel

Gene Heskett a écrit :

> Which is the best reason in the world to buy and use, the open source 
> video card now under development, and I hear its less than 3-4 months 
> from production status now, and at a competitive, sub $150 USD price.

Can you post a link about this open source video card ? I strongly wants 
to support this kind of project. It's clear for me: this is the only way 
to solve the problem in the long term.

Thanks,
-- 
Jean-Christian de Rivaz

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
       [not found]         ` <f0cc38560512060307m2ccc6db8xd9180c2a1a926c5c@mail.gmail.com>
@ 2005-12-06 11:44           ` Arjan van de Ven
  2005-12-06  1:43             ` Brian Gerst
       [not found]             ` <6f6293f10512060404x57cfb97dqaa469f2701cd2528@mail.gmail.com>
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Arjan van de Ven @ 2005-12-06 11:44 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: M.; +Cc: Andrea Arcangeli, Brian Gerst, William Lee Irwin III, linux-kernel

On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 12:07 +0100, M. wrote:
> 
> 
> On 12/6/05, Andrea Arcangeli <andrea@suse.de> wrote:
>         On Mon, Dec 05, 2005 at 09:31:30AM -0500, Brian Gerst wrote:
>         > The problem with this statement is that Linux users are a
>         drop in the
>         > bucket of sales for this hardware.  Boycotting doesn't cost
>         the vendors
>         > enough to make them care.  And this does nothing for people
>         who are
>         > converting over to Linux, and didn't buy hardware with that
>         > consideration in mind.
>         
>         Effectively this is why 3d drivers are the only thing we
>         litearlly lost 
>         control of. But my email was general. I wasn't only speaking
>         of 3d
>         hardware.
>         
>         For 3d you're very well right, but once linux becomes
>         mainstream in the
>         desktop, things could change.
> 
> Without proper hardware support linux is not going to become
> mainstream in the desktop area. In fact It's adopted in offices, by
> governments and schools for security, reliability and openoffirce.org
> (low $$). 

but... "proper hardware support" can be open source, that's the whole
point! Everyone considering binary only support "full" causes the entire
problem of not being able to run without binary modules anymore, which
in turn means you're either stuck with enterprise distro kernels, or
linux is stuck with a kernel that can't be developed on anymore in a 2.7
style series.

Nobody is arguing that hardware shouldn't be supported, to the contrary.
I and others are arguing that short term binary only "support" isn't
real support in the long term, and in both the long and short term leads
to a significant reduction in choice. Note: NVidia right now is nice
enough to do the blob+glue layer thing. Many others don't, they only
provide modules for certain enterprise distros. Now those schools and
governments of course run those enterprise distros... but what does that
gain in the end? Security? It doesn't; several of these binary modules
actually introduce security holes (the most famous one is an old 3D
driver of a company I won't name that had a "make me root" ioctl).
Price? Well those enterprise distribution companies need to make money
somehow... so while the price may be lower... you're stuck to them
again..

> So , without some sort of effort from kernel developers, things
> arent going to change.

I would turn this around; without some sort of effort from the USERS,
things aren't going to change. As long as USERS don't use their purchase
power to urge vendors that linux and open source are important, nothing
is going to improve. Going binary is not a long term improvement! It's
more like a quick shot of heroin that makes you feel better today,
rather than going to a psychiatrist who helps you out of your depression
for the rest of your life.

> There could be, for example, a limited but stable API for
> external/binary stuff. This could force hardware vendors to lately use
> the current API for better performance and thus releasing drivers with
> an open layer a la NVIDA & c. or even opensource.

doesn't work; such a limited api wouldn't be used by the majority of
those modules, simply because most of them want to touch internals for
some reason (probably lack of judgement and just because they can, but
still)



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
       [not found]             ` <6f6293f10512060404x57cfb97dqaa469f2701cd2528@mail.gmail.com>
@ 2005-12-06 12:11               ` Arjan van de Ven
  2005-12-06 15:09               ` Andrea Arcangeli
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Arjan van de Ven @ 2005-12-06 12:11 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Felipe Alfaro Solana
  Cc: M., Andrea Arcangeli, Brian Gerst, William Lee Irwin III, linux-kernel

On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 13:04 +0100, Felipe Alfaro Solana wrote:
> > I would turn this around; without some sort of effort from the USERS,
> > things aren't going to change. As long as USERS don't use their
> > purchase power to urge vendors that linux and open source are
> > important, nothing is going to improve.
> 
> I do always choose Linux-compatible hardware for my boxes. However, we
> are still a small community, so I see it complicated using our power
> to change vendor's minds.

it worked in the past.. and the linux community got bigger. lots bigger.
Now the hard part is getting the "newcomers" care about this and also
help to convince the vendors, rather than blindly accepting that
ndiswrapper and nvidia blobs are the right way.



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  1:18   ` Andrea Arcangeli
  2005-12-05 14:31     ` Brian Gerst
  2005-12-06  8:29     ` Arjan van de Ven
@ 2005-12-06 12:26     ` Denis Vlasenko
  2005-12-06 15:36       ` Hannu Savolainen
  2005-12-07 20:10       ` Geert Uytterhoeven
  2005-12-06 17:23     ` Jon Masters
  3 siblings, 2 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Denis Vlasenko @ 2005-12-06 12:26 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Andrea Arcangeli; +Cc: William Lee Irwin III, Arjan van de Ven, linux-kernel

On Tuesday 06 December 2005 03:18, Andrea Arcangeli wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 05, 2005 at 04:18:51AM -0800, William Lee Irwin III wrote:
> > The December 6 event is extraordinarily unlikely. What's vastly more
> > likely is consistent "erosion" over time. First the 3D video drivers,
> > then the wireless network drivers, then the fakeraid drivers, and so on.
> 
> I agree about the erosion.
> 
> I am convinced that the only way to stop the erosion is to totally stop
> buying hardware that has only binary only drivers (unless you buy it to
> create an open source driver or to reverse engineer the binary only
> driver of course! ;).

I'm afraid there is not enough Linux users in desktop/laptop market
for vendors to notice.

How about refusing binary-only modules instead? I mean, maybe
if Linux will stop being lax about GPL requirements on modules.
--
vda

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 10:51       ` Luke-Jr
@ 2005-12-06 12:29         ` Ralf Baechle
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Ralf Baechle @ 2005-12-06 12:29 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Luke-Jr; +Cc: Linux Kernel Mailing List

On Tue, Dec 06, 2005 at 10:51:39AM +0000, Luke-Jr wrote:

> On Monday 05 December 2005 18:44, Alistair John Strachan wrote:
> > When this happens, vendors will just have to solve all the IP nonsense
> > associated with their hardware, or design hardware to be more dependent on
> > firmware so that largely open source drivers are more feasible for them.
> 
> That just moves the problem. Now, there is yet even more concern that they 
> should release source for the firmware.

ACPI is a demonstration why firmware is not the answer.

  Ralf

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-05 10:52 Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario Arjan van de Ven
                   ` (5 preceding siblings ...)
  2005-12-06  2:58 ` Andre Hedrick
@ 2005-12-06 13:13 ` Rudolf Randal
  2005-12-06 15:09   ` Mark Lord
  2005-12-06 16:16 ` Jon Smirl
  7 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Rudolf Randal @ 2005-12-06 13:13 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Arjan van de Ven; +Cc: linux-kernel

I believe the only real thing to do is release all new kernels under a
new license called GPL_HARD - with a clause that would make all
linking to the kernel illegal if not in open source. Any vendor who
doesnt comply could be arrested and flown off to a detention camp on
some remote island without the right to legal council. We could borrow
some old planes from the US postal service..
These vendors could be interrogated until they reveil their
specifications for their hardware.
I vote for hard interrogation - if they wont tell they could be forced
to wear tux-outfits and listen to badly ripped mp3´s until they talk.
These vendors constitutes an axes of evil and are a real threat to the
security on a lot of machines.
To all vendors - you are either with us or against us!



--
Rudolf Randal - Hässleholmsgatan 3B lgh 503 - 214 43 Malmö - Sweden -
Phone: +46 (0)76 234 05 77

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-05 23:24 ` Matthieu CASTET
@ 2005-12-06 13:28   ` Ralf Baechle
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Ralf Baechle @ 2005-12-06 13:28 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Matthieu CASTET; +Cc: linux-kernel

On Tue, Dec 06, 2005 at 12:24:42AM +0100, Matthieu CASTET wrote:

> > What if.. what if the linux kernel developers tomorrow accept that
> > binary modules are OK and are essential for the progress of linux. 
> > 
> [...]
> > Now this scenario may sound unlikely to you. And thankfully the main
> > assumption (the December 6th event) is extremely unlikely.  
> > 
> > However, and this unfortunately, several of the other "leaps" aren't
> > that unlikely. In fact, some of these results are likely to happen
> > regardless; witness the flamewars on lkml about breaking module API/ABI.
> > Witness the ndiswrapper effect of vendors now saying "we support linux
> > because ndiswrapper can use our windows driver". I hope they won't
> > happen. Some of that hope will be idle hope, but I believe that the
> > advantages of freedom in the end are strong enough to overcome the
> > counter forces.
> And some embedded companies provide the minimal source code to put 
> in arch and everything else (ethernet, adsl, wifi, ...) is binaries
> modules.

Provide a one time source drop to show what good GPL citizen they are,
then let it rot away making sure the average user will have to pay their
bill ...

  Ralf

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  1:43             ` Brian Gerst
@ 2005-12-06 14:09               ` linux-os (Dick Johnson)
  2005-12-14 16:33                 ` Eric W. Biederman
  2005-12-06 14:13               ` Rudolf Randal
                                 ` (5 subsequent siblings)
  6 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: linux-os (Dick Johnson) @ 2005-12-06 14:09 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Brian Gerst
  Cc: Arjan van de Ven, M.,
	Andrea Arcangeli, William Lee Irwin III, linux-kernel


On Mon, 5 Dec 2005, Brian Gerst wrote:

> Arjan van de Ven wrote:
>> On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 12:07 +0100, M. wrote:
>>>
>>> On 12/6/05, Andrea Arcangeli <andrea@suse.de> wrote:
>>>         On Mon, Dec 05, 2005 at 09:31:30AM -0500, Brian Gerst wrote:
>>>        > The problem with this statement is that Linux users are a
>>>         drop in the
>>>        > bucket of sales for this hardware.  Boycotting doesn't cost
>>>         the vendors
>>>        > enough to make them care.  And this does nothing for people
>>>         who are
>>>        > converting over to Linux, and didn't buy hardware with that
>>>        > consideration in mind.
>>>
>>>         Effectively this is why 3d drivers are the only thing we
>>>         litearlly lost
>>>         control of. But my email was general. I wasn't only speaking
>>>         of 3d
>>>         hardware.
>>>
>>>         For 3d you're very well right, but once linux becomes
>>>         mainstream in the
>>>         desktop, things could change.
>>>
>>> Without proper hardware support linux is not going to become
>>> mainstream in the desktop area. In fact It's adopted in offices, by
>>> governments and schools for security, reliability and openoffirce.org
>>> (low $$).
>>
>> but... "proper hardware support" can be open source, that's the whole
>> point! Everyone considering binary only support "full" causes the entire
>> problem of not being able to run without binary modules anymore, which
>> in turn means you're either stuck with enterprise distro kernels, or
>> linux is stuck with a kernel that can't be developed on anymore in a 2.7
>> style series.
>>
>> Nobody is arguing that hardware shouldn't be supported, to the contrary.
>> I and others are arguing that short term binary only "support" isn't
>> real support in the long term, and in both the long and short term leads
>> to a significant reduction in choice. Note: NVidia right now is nice
>> enough to do the blob+glue layer thing. Many others don't, they only
>> provide modules for certain enterprise distros. Now those schools and
>> governments of course run those enterprise distros... but what does that
>> gain in the end? Security? It doesn't; several of these binary modules
>> actually introduce security holes (the most famous one is an old 3D
>> driver of a company I won't name that had a "make me root" ioctl).
>> Price? Well those enterprise distribution companies need to make money
>> somehow... so while the price may be lower... you're stuck to them
>> again..
>>
>>> So , without some sort of effort from kernel developers, things
>>> arent going to change.
>>
>> I would turn this around; without some sort of effort from the USERS,
>> things aren't going to change. As long as USERS don't use their purchase
>> power to urge vendors that linux and open source are important, nothing
>> is going to improve. Going binary is not a long term improvement! It's
>> more like a quick shot of heroin that makes you feel better today,
>> rather than going to a psychiatrist who helps you out of your depression
>> for the rest of your life.
>
> Once again I'd like to point out that user's purchase power means jack
> when they only have two choices for video:  ATI and Nvidia.  You can't
> walk into a computer store and find anything else (I don't count
> integrated video on the motherboard as a solution, since only Intel
> boards have it, sorry AMD users).  Even over the web it's hard to find
> anything else.  I'm not trying to defend closed source here, but you
> people just have to face the reality that trying to use the market to
> get our way is just not going to work with video.  The only way forward
> is reverse engineering.  We aren't going to get help from the vendors so
> we have to help ourselves.
>
> --
> 				Brian Gerst

When the linux-BIOS group started, few knew where to start. Then,
mysteriously, there was a complete directory tree of a well-known
BIOS that appeared on the web. That was a start.

Want video drivers? I would suggest starting a Linux-video group.
Start with a few hacks of some reverse-engineered stuff then I
guess some help will mysteriously appear, especially if the
blob/glue stuff is done in that group, too. A video board company
doesn't care about operating systems! They care about selling
boards. The easier it is to relate to their video hardware, the
more likely help will be forthcoming.

Also, you are still likely to have a blob/glue system because
the blob is the stuff that needs to be uploaded to the FPGA upon
startup! Although serial eproms are cheap, few PC/Board vendors
will spend the money to put the blob on the board where it belongs.
So, usually it needs to be bit-banged into the device upon startup.

Cheers,
Dick Johnson
Penguin : Linux version 2.6.13.4 on an i686 machine (5589.44 BogoMips).
Warning : 98.36% of all statistics are fiction.
.

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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  1:43             ` Brian Gerst
  2005-12-06 14:09               ` linux-os (Dick Johnson)
@ 2005-12-06 14:13               ` Rudolf Randal
  2005-12-06 14:49               ` Arjan van de Ven
                                 ` (4 subsequent siblings)
  6 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Rudolf Randal @ 2005-12-06 14:13 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Brian Gerst; +Cc: linux-kernel

On 12/6/05, Brian Gerst <bgerst@didntduck.org> wrote:
> Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> > On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 12:07 +0100, M. wrote:
> >>
> >> On 12/6/05, Andrea Arcangeli <andrea@suse.de> wrote:
> >>         On Mon, Dec 05, 2005 at 09:31:30AM -0500, Brian Gerst wrote:
> >>         > The problem with this statement is that Linux users are a
> >>         drop in the
> >>         > bucket of sales for this hardware.  Boycotting doesn't cost
> >>         the vendors
> >>         > enough to make them care.  And this does nothing for people
> >>         who are
> >>         > converting over to Linux, and didn't buy hardware with that
> >>         > consideration in mind.
> >>
> >>         Effectively this is why 3d drivers are the only thing we
> >>         litearlly lost
> >>         control of. But my email was general. I wasn't only speaking
> >>         of 3d
> >>         hardware.
> >>
> >>         For 3d you're very well right, but once linux becomes
> >>         mainstream in the
> >>         desktop, things could change.
> >>
> >> Without proper hardware support linux is not going to become
> >> mainstream in the desktop area. In fact It's adopted in offices, by
> >> governments and schools for security, reliability and openoffirce.org
> >> (low $$).
> >
> > but... "proper hardware support" can be open source, that's the whole
> > point! Everyone considering binary only support "full" causes the entire
> > problem of not being able to run without binary modules anymore, which
> > in turn means you're either stuck with enterprise distro kernels, or
> > linux is stuck with a kernel that can't be developed on anymore in a 2.7
> > style series.
> >
> > Nobody is arguing that hardware shouldn't be supported, to the contrary.
> > I and others are arguing that short term binary only "support" isn't
> > real support in the long term, and in both the long and short term leads
> > to a significant reduction in choice. Note: NVidia right now is nice
> > enough to do the blob+glue layer thing. Many others don't, they only
> > provide modules for certain enterprise distros. Now those schools and
> > governments of course run those enterprise distros... but what does that
> > gain in the end? Security? It doesn't; several of these binary modules
> > actually introduce security holes (the most famous one is an old 3D
> > driver of a company I won't name that had a "make me root" ioctl).
> > Price? Well those enterprise distribution companies need to make money
> > somehow... so while the price may be lower... you're stuck to them
> > again..
> >
> >> So , without some sort of effort from kernel developers, things
> >> arent going to change.
> >
> > I would turn this around; without some sort of effort from the USERS,
> > things aren't going to change. As long as USERS don't use their purchase
> > power to urge vendors that linux and open source are important, nothing
> > is going to improve. Going binary is not a long term improvement! It's
> > more like a quick shot of heroin that makes you feel better today,
> > rather than going to a psychiatrist who helps you out of your depression
> > for the rest of your life.
>
> Once again I'd like to point out that user's purchase power means jack
> when they only have two choices for video:  ATI and Nvidia.  You can't
> walk into a computer store and find anything else (I don't count
> integrated video on the motherboard as a solution, since only Intel
> boards have it, sorry AMD users).  Even over the web it's hard to find
> anything else.  I'm not trying to defend closed source here, but you
> people just have to face the reality that trying to use the market to
> get our way is just not going to work with video.  The only way forward
> is reverse engineering.  We aren't going to get help from the vendors so
> we have to help ourselves.
>

Well - reverse engineering isnt gonna get any easier over time .. as
hardware gets more complex and bus speed increases it will become more
and more impossible to do any probing?. There also isnt any way to
ensure that vendors wont go down the m$ way as on the xbox or xbox360
and encrypt data between chips to protect their IP.
Most likely that will prevent the reversely engineered driver from
getting out in time before the next generation of hardware arrives ?





--
Rudolf Randal - Hässleholmsgatan 3B lgh 503 - 214 43 Malmö - Sweden -
Phone: +46 (0)76 234 05 77

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  1:43             ` Brian Gerst
  2005-12-06 14:09               ` linux-os (Dick Johnson)
  2005-12-06 14:13               ` Rudolf Randal
@ 2005-12-06 14:49               ` Arjan van de Ven
  2005-12-06 21:39                 ` Nicolas Mailhot
  2005-12-07  7:02                 ` Luke-Jr
  2005-12-06 15:16               ` Andrea Arcangeli
                                 ` (3 subsequent siblings)
  6 siblings, 2 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Arjan van de Ven @ 2005-12-06 14:49 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Brian Gerst; +Cc: M., Andrea Arcangeli, William Lee Irwin III, linux-kernel

> Once again I'd like to point out that user's purchase power means jack 
> when they only have two choices for video:  ATI and Nvidia.  You can't 
> walk into a computer store and find anything else (I don't count 
> integrated video on the motherboard as a solution, since only Intel 
> boards have it, sorry AMD users).  Even over the web it's hard to find 
> anything else. 

(resending this since it seems the other mail didn't get anywhere)

Sure. But that doesn't mean there is no purchase power. HP, Dell and IBM
and co DO have purchasing power over NVidia and ATI. If they tell ATI or
NVidia to either go open source (unlikely) or rearchitect their drivers
to do the "hot IP" in userspace, it will happen. And YOU can influence
Dell and HP and IBM again. By complaining to their sales people. By
letting them know binary modules aren't going to cut it. Not just for
video, but for EVERYTHING. Once the Dell/HP/IBM sales people hear enough
of "binary isn't good enough", the message will get through, and those
vendors in turn will crank up the pressure. 

And enough people have influence when at work a linux desktop is
purchased (assumption I make here is that that's not going to be used
for 3D games), at such occasions you CAN influence the vendors and let
them know that the "binary" cards aren't an option. 

There are lots of opportunities to put pressure on vendors, either
direct or indirect. Nvidia has a support department. If they get enough
calls / letters about their solution not being good enough, they're more
likely to consider the rearchtect solution. 

On the other hand, if everyone just accepts it and praises them for
being a good citizen.. things will never change, and wireless is next.
Then audio. Then SATA. Then USB sticks. Then Networking.




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  9:56                 ` David Woodhouse
  2005-12-06 10:09                   ` Jeff Garzik
@ 2005-12-06 14:50                   ` Andrea Arcangeli
  2005-12-06 15:25                     ` David Woodhouse
  2005-12-06 19:20                     ` Jeff Garzik
  1 sibling, 2 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Andrea Arcangeli @ 2005-12-06 14:50 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: David Woodhouse; +Cc: Bernd Petrovitsch, Tim Bird, arjan, andrew, linux-kernel

On Tue, Dec 06, 2005 at 09:56:43AM +0000, David Woodhouse wrote:
> [..] we might as well be
> using it for all symbols [..]

Cool, so if we use it for all symbols it will add zero information to
the kernel. Which means it's exactly the same as if we nuke _GPL tag
completely and we remove it from all symbols.

I always thought the _GPL tag isn't needed and can be removed, your
suggestion to add it to all symbols confirms it. Furthermore its
existence is a sort of proof that you can legally link the kernel with
non-GPL modules (which Greg disagrees with, I don't have an opinion, I
only know Linus said binary only drivers are ok as long as they don't
create a derivative of the kernel).

I don't think the GPL tag can make somebody more or less illegal, it's
just irrelevant. This is just a favour we make to those companies, and
that they may also not trust in the first place because we're not
lawyers in the first place.

> By switching in the opposite direction, Linus is actively weakening our
> position, and I object very strongly to that.

I think Linus is doing the right thing here, and he is avoiding what I
described in the previous email: that is breaking drivers gratuitously
is what could make linux hostile and too costly to support IMHO. We want
to be parnters with all hardware companies, but we want them to support
linux properly (not with binary only drivers), in a way that we can fix
it, port it to other archs, and so that we don't lose support for the
hardware while improving internal APIs.

Also note, that if we lose control on the development (the doomsday
scenario) everybody else loses control too, it's not like somebody can
bank on it and steal the control and profit from it and pay lots of
taxes to the US governament. Everybody will lose and wealth will be
destroyed globally and less taxes will be paid in all countries
worldwide. All those hardware companies compete against each other, so
each one will have control on a little tiny piece of the OS, so when a
bug triggers in the doomsday secnario, the thing will become
undebuggable for everyone (at best everyone can blame on each other when
there's random memory corruption). That again may be acceptable for a
desktop, but I doubt it's acceptable for servers.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 13:13 ` Rudolf Randal
@ 2005-12-06 15:09   ` Mark Lord
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Mark Lord @ 2005-12-06 15:09 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Rudolf Randal; +Cc: Arjan van de Ven, linux-kernel

Rudolf Randal wrote:
> I believe the only real thing to do is release all new kernels under a
> new license called GPL_HARD - with a clause that would make all

Nice theory, but thank (insert favourite deity here) that the GPL
protects us from this ever happening!

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
       [not found]             ` <6f6293f10512060404x57cfb97dqaa469f2701cd2528@mail.gmail.com>
  2005-12-06 12:11               ` Arjan van de Ven
@ 2005-12-06 15:09               ` Andrea Arcangeli
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Andrea Arcangeli @ 2005-12-06 15:09 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Felipe Alfaro Solana
  Cc: Arjan van de Ven, M., Brian Gerst, William Lee Irwin III, linux-kernel

On Tue, Dec 06, 2005 at 01:04:59PM +0100, Felipe Alfaro Solana wrote:
> are still a small community, so I see it complicated using our power
> to change vendor's minds.

Why not using the vendor that ships hardware that requires no binary
only driver?

I know there is the option to remove the embedded wireless card ;).
Better not to have it than to pay for it without using it. A bluetooth
usb dongle costs only a dozen dollars anyway.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  1:43             ` Brian Gerst
                                 ` (2 preceding siblings ...)
  2005-12-06 14:49               ` Arjan van de Ven
@ 2005-12-06 15:16               ` Andrea Arcangeli
  2005-12-06 15:30               ` Florian Weimer
                                 ` (2 subsequent siblings)
  6 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Andrea Arcangeli @ 2005-12-06 15:16 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Brian Gerst; +Cc: Arjan van de Ven, M., William Lee Irwin III, linux-kernel

On Mon, Dec 05, 2005 at 08:43:03PM -0500, Brian Gerst wrote:
> Once again I'd like to point out that user's purchase power means jack 
> when they only have two choices for video:  ATI and Nvidia.  You can't 
> walk into a computer store and find anything else (I don't count 

The single fact you looked to see if there was something else is a very
good thing. As wrote in the other email, with their binary only drivers
those companies are increasing their risk of introducing more
competition into the 3d space, they open up a niche. I know I wouldn't
take this risk if I was in them.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-05 14:31     ` Brian Gerst
  2005-12-06  3:08       ` Andrea Arcangeli
  2005-12-06  9:07       ` Dirk Steuwer
@ 2005-12-06 15:17       ` Pavel Machek
  2005-12-13  2:00         ` Rob Landley
  2005-12-07 15:06       ` Rik van Riel
  2005-12-08  7:14       ` Andrew McGregor
  4 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Pavel Machek @ 2005-12-06 15:17 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Brian Gerst
  Cc: Andrea Arcangeli, William Lee Irwin III, Arjan van de Ven, linux-kernel

Hi!

> >Every time we buy a piece of hardware with binary only drivers we admit
> >that the binary only driver vendors are doing the right choice for their
> >stockholders. Only when we refuse to buy it, we can make a slight 
> >difference.
> >When we don't buy hardware without open source drivers, we send the
> >message to the shareholders that the management is causing them a loss.
> 
> The problem with this statement is that Linux users are a drop in the 
> bucket of sales for this hardware.  Boycotting doesn't cost the vendors 
> enough to make them care.  And this does nothing for people who are 

Actually, yes it does cost them. If you refuse to buy $2000 notebook,
because its 3D graphics card ($100) is not supported properly... well
notebook vendor is going to put pressure on graphics card vendor.

And you don't have to be Linux user to refuse closed hardware. Having
option in future is always good.x

								Pavel
-- 
Thanks, Sharp!

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 14:50                   ` Andrea Arcangeli
@ 2005-12-06 15:25                     ` David Woodhouse
  2005-12-06 19:58                       ` Alan Cox
  2005-12-06 19:20                     ` Jeff Garzik
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: David Woodhouse @ 2005-12-06 15:25 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Andrea Arcangeli; +Cc: Bernd Petrovitsch, Tim Bird, arjan, andrew, linux-kernel

On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 15:50 +0100, Andrea Arcangeli wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 06, 2005 at 09:56:43AM +0000, David Woodhouse wrote:
> > [..] we might as well be using it for all symbols [..]
> 
> Cool, so if we use it for all symbols it will add zero information to
> the kernel. Which means it's exactly the same as if we nuke _GPL tag
> completely and we remove it from all symbols.
> 
> I always thought the _GPL tag isn't needed and can be removed, your
> suggestion to add it to all symbols confirms it. 

In terms of information, you're right -- there's no point in having both
of them.

However, the _GPL tag does mean that someone who wants to violate the
licence has to deliberately circumvent the protection, and cannot plead
ignorance. That does have an effect in court, albeit after the basic
question of guilt or innocence has been decided.

> Furthermore its existence is a sort of proof that you can legally link
> the kernel with non-GPL modules (which Greg disagrees with, I don't
> have an opinion, I only know Linus said binary only drivers are ok as
> long as they don't create a derivative of the kernel).

I happen to agree with Greg's opinion, and not with Linus'. But
obviously there is no 'right' answer until/unless it comes to court.

But yes -- its existence is indeed a 'sort of proof' that non-GPL
modules are at least _considered_ to be OK in some situations. I wish
we'd never invented EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL() in the first place -- it appears
to legitimise something which was never really OK in the first place,
and weakens our position when we take it to court.

> I don't think the GPL tag can make somebody more or less illegal, it's
> just irrelevant. This is just a favour we make to those companies, and
> that they may also not trust in the first place because we're not
> lawyers in the first place.

True -- that's what I've said many times. The point, however, is that
the GPL tag provides a measure of protection which the violator would
have to _deliberately_ circumvent. That doesn't directly affect the
licensing question, but it does change the _penalties_ which a court
would impose if a vendor of non-GPL'd modules who is found to be
violating the GPL.

Maybe a vendor will have deep pockets and a penchant for risk, and will
still be happy to bypass the protection afforded by EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL --
maybe with MODULE_LICENSE("GPL\0not really") or by other means. But the
_default_ would be that non-GPL modules  would not work, and having to
circumvent the protection would make them stop and think _very_ hard
before doing it.

> > By switching in the opposite direction, Linus is actively weakening our
> > position, and I object very strongly to that.
> 
> I think Linus is doing the right thing here, and he is avoiding what I
> described in the previous email:

He's also doing what you described in the email to which I'm reply --
reinforcing a 'sort of proof' that what they're doing is OK, by going
out of his way to accommodate them.

>  that is breaking drivers gratuitously is what could make linux
> hostile and too costly to support IMHO. 

Supporting Linux with binary-only drivers _is_ hostile and costly.

And it wouldn't be _broken_ -- they could still rebuild the kernel
without the checks, or make their module pretend to be licensed under
the GPL to bypass the EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL() protection. Of course, they'd
have to be _very_ sure of their lawyers' interpretation of the GPL if
they were going to do that.

By switching to EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL for everything, we put the onus upon
the vendors of such modules to be _very_ sure of themselves and the risk
they're taking before continuing to release such modules. I don't think
that's a bad thing.

> We want to be parnters with all hardware companies, but we want them
> to support linux properly (not with binary only drivers), in a way
> that we can fix it, port it to other archs, and so that we don't lose
> support for the hardware while improving internal APIs.

Allowing binary-only drivers only harms that goal, in the long term.

> Also note, that if we lose control on the development (the doomsday
> scenario) everybody else loses control too, it's not like somebody can
> bank on it and steal the control and profit from it and pay lots of
> taxes to the US governament. Everybody will lose and wealth will be
> destroyed globally and less taxes will be paid in all countries
> worldwide. All those hardware companies compete against each other, so
> each one will have control on a little tiny piece of the OS, so when a
> bug triggers in the doomsday secnario, the thing will become
> undebuggable for everyone (at best everyone can blame on each other when
> there's random memory corruption). That again may be acceptable for a
> desktop, but I doubt it's acceptable for servers.

I think we're digressing somewhat, but you seem to be agreeing that
binary-only modules are generally a bad thing. We have a tool available
to us to discourage their proliferation -- the licence under which the
kernel is released. That's the whole _point_ of the GPL, in fact.

So what's wrong with the suggestion that we make _use_ of that rather
than continuing to not only tolerate violations, but go out of our way
to aid and abet the violators?

-- 
dwmw2



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  1:43             ` Brian Gerst
                                 ` (3 preceding siblings ...)
  2005-12-06 15:16               ` Andrea Arcangeli
@ 2005-12-06 15:30               ` Florian Weimer
  2005-12-06 15:49                 ` Paweł Sikora
  2005-12-06 19:13               ` Jeff Garzik
  2005-12-06 21:00               ` Francois Romieu
  6 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Florian Weimer @ 2005-12-06 15:30 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Brian Gerst
  Cc: Arjan van de Ven, M.,
	Andrea Arcangeli, William Lee Irwin III, linux-kernel

* Brian Gerst:

> Once again I'd like to point out that user's purchase power means jack 
> when they only have two choices for video:  ATI and Nvidia.  You can't 
> walk into a computer store and find anything else (I don't count 
> integrated video on the motherboard as a solution, since only Intel 
> boards have it, sorry AMD users).  Even over the web it's hard to find 
> anything else.

What about Matrox cards?  Are there open drivers for accelerated 2D
operation?

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 12:26     ` Denis Vlasenko
@ 2005-12-06 15:36       ` Hannu Savolainen
  2005-12-06 18:51         ` Lee Revell
  2005-12-07 15:18         ` Avi Kivity
  2005-12-07 20:10       ` Geert Uytterhoeven
  1 sibling, 2 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Hannu Savolainen @ 2005-12-06 15:36 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: linux-kernel

On Tue, 6 Dec 2005, Denis Vlasenko wrote:

> How about refusing binary-only modules instead? I mean, maybe
> if Linux will stop being lax about GPL requirements on modules.
Or why not to include an embedded version of gcc/binutils in the kernel
LKM interface. In this way all drivers can only be distributed in source 
code which effectively makes all forms of binary only drivers impossible. 
After that all the EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL nonsense can be removed and a proper 
DDI layer can be implemented for Linux. This makes it possible to ship 
"outside the kernel build" drivers without a risk of major 
incompatibility problems in the next kernel version. No, I'm not 100% 
serious but just 50%.

Best regards,

Hannu
-----
Hannu Savolainen (hannu@opensound.com)
http://www.opensound.com (Open Sound System (OSS))
http://www.compusonic.fi (Finnish OSS pages)
OH2GLH QTH: Karkkila, Finland LOC: KP20CM

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 15:30               ` Florian Weimer
@ 2005-12-06 15:49                 ` Paweł Sikora
  2005-12-06 19:00                   ` Tomasz Torcz
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Paweł Sikora @ 2005-12-06 15:49 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: linux-kernel

Dnia wtorek, 6 grudnia 2005 16:30, Florian Weimer napisał:
> * Brian Gerst:
> > Once again I'd like to point out that user's purchase power means jack
> > when they only have two choices for video:  ATI and Nvidia.  You can't
> > walk into a computer store and find anything else (I don't count
> > integrated video on the motherboard as a solution, since only Intel
> > boards have it, sorry AMD users).  Even over the web it's hard to find
> > anything else.
>
> What about Matrox cards?  Are there open drivers for accelerated 2D
> operation?

Open 2D is nothing new. The OpenGL is a major part.
Matrox and XGI (e.g. Volari V3 based cards) have openGL parts closed.

-- 
to_be || !to_be == 1, to_be | ~to_be == -1

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  7:58                 ` Coywolf Qi Hunt
@ 2005-12-06 16:11                   ` Greg KH
  2005-12-07  1:38                     ` Coywolf Qi Hunt
  2005-12-06 18:56                   ` Linux " Luke-Jr
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Greg KH @ 2005-12-06 16:11 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Coywolf Qi Hunt
  Cc: Tim Bird, Dave Airlie, David Woodhouse, arjan, andrew, linux-kernel

On Tue, Dec 06, 2005 at 03:58:46PM +0800, Coywolf Qi Hunt wrote:
> > [1] My usual response is, "If we are so dumb, why are you using the kernel
> >     made by us?", which usually stops the conversation right there.
> 
> Your response is nonsense. It has the same logic as saying "If
> proprietary software is wrong, why are you using it?".
> Everybody are using proprietary software, aren't they?

Um, no, not at all.  The logic is, "you trust these developers enough to
want to run their code, controlling the most basic and secure portions
of your machines, yet you think they are incapable programmers?"

And no kernel developers are forcing anyone to use Linux.  If they don't
like it for whatever reasons, there are other alternatives...

thanks,

greg k-h

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-05 10:52 Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario Arjan van de Ven
                   ` (6 preceding siblings ...)
  2005-12-06 13:13 ` Rudolf Randal
@ 2005-12-06 16:16 ` Jon Smirl
  2005-12-06 16:32   ` Florian Weimer
  2005-12-07 21:46   ` Chase Venters
  7 siblings, 2 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Jon Smirl @ 2005-12-06 16:16 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Arjan van de Ven; +Cc: linux-kernel

On 12/5/05, Arjan van de Ven <arjan@infradead.org> wrote:
> Linux in a binary world

Why not start our own Linux doomsday? Give the closed source vendors
exactly what they fear the most, a patent lawsuit. Whining will get us
nowhere, hitting the vendor's revenue stream will get you anything you
want.

US patent infringement provides the giant sledgehammer of having a
court issue an injunction stopping the shipment of product that is in
litigation over patent infringement. Note that it does not have to be
proven that the the patents are valid. RIM is very close to having an
injunction issued against it even though it is likely that the patents
they are accused of violating will be found invalid.

The game plan is simple. IBM and Intel hold enough hardware patents to
take down any hardware company these choose. Donate one or two key
patents to the FSF with a rule that they can't be used against the
company that donated them. The FSF then moves for a patent
infringement injunction against ATI, NVidia or other closed source
vendor.

The target company gets a choice:

1) open source the drivers and hardware. As a sweetener contribute a
patent to the pool and aim the FSF at the next domino. In exchange the
suit will be dropped.

2) Endure the lawsuit and hope the FSF doesn't get a $450M settlement
like NTP is getting from RIM. Meanwhile watch your stock price tumble
since the injunction prevents you from shipping product.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-ebay4dec04,0,6943666.story?coll=la-news-comment-editorials

--
Jon Smirl
jonsmirl@gmail.com

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-05 18:34   ` Arjan van de Ven
  2005-12-05 19:41     ` jmerkey
  2005-12-06  9:26     ` [OT] " Alexander E. Patrakov
@ 2005-12-06 16:27     ` Simon Oosthoek
  2005-12-06 18:50       ` Luke-Jr
  2 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Simon Oosthoek @ 2005-12-06 16:27 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: linux-kernel

Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> On Mon, 2005-12-05 at 18:26 +0000, Andrew Walrond wrote:
> 
>>On Monday 05 December 2005 10:52, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
>>
>>>a hypothetical doomsday scenario by Arjan van de Ven
>>>
>>
>>Can I ask what prompted your post?
> 
> 
> I got one too many hatemails from a "nvidia fanboy" who blamed me for
> just about anything wrong in the world.... I fear that most of these
> people have no idea why open source drivers matter, or at least what the
> consequences are for not caring about drivers being open or not.
> 
> 

I suppose this is as good as any point in the thread to add my 2 
eurocents...

I use nvidia cards, mostly because they work better than an alternative 
for now, but every time I need a card I look for stuff that is more 
open, because I hate to have to use the non-free closed stuff to do 
graphics. (Having no real choice in this is really annoying to me!)

I believe the kernel community has a great leverage point on these 
proprietary vendors (although I don't know how far this goes), by 
changing the ABI/API fairly often, they will have to adjust their driver 
building tools as well. This will become annoying to them and may cause 
them to free some more parts of their code. This is not a full solution, 
but at least it will cause them to rethink their policies more often.

Alternatively, I'd be willing to pay some more money than for an 
equivalent closed source driver card, to get good hardware with a GPL 
driver. I may not be part of the majority of PC equipment buyers though ;-)

Cheers

Simon

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 16:16 ` Jon Smirl
@ 2005-12-06 16:32   ` Florian Weimer
  2005-12-07 12:44     ` Helge Hafting
  2005-12-07 12:55     ` Lars Marowsky-Bree
  2005-12-07 21:46   ` Chase Venters
  1 sibling, 2 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Florian Weimer @ 2005-12-06 16:32 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jon Smirl; +Cc: Arjan van de Ven, linux-kernel

* Jon Smirl:

> 2) Endure the lawsuit and hope the FSF doesn't get a $450M settlement
> like NTP is getting from RIM. Meanwhile watch your stock price tumble
> since the injunction prevents you from shipping product.

Unlike NTP[1], the FSF distributes real products and is vulnerable to
counterclaims.

[1] http://www.ntp.com/ belongs to a different company, AFAIK.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 10:46         ` Sander
@ 2005-12-06 16:41           ` Dirk Steuwer
  2005-12-06 18:48             ` Lee Revell
                               ` (2 more replies)
  0 siblings, 3 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Dirk Steuwer @ 2005-12-06 16:41 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: linux-kernel

Sander <sander <at> humilis.net> writes:
> 
> Quite a few companies state on their site that their hardware is
> supported in Linux if it is.
> 
> And I've never bought any computer equipment in a shop. Always online,
> where there is no such thing as a box anyway 
> 


Yes, but there isn't and won't be much recognition - every company does its own
thing. And how many people buy online all the time? But even then, a genery
"runs with Linux" Logo would be great. If a company's product is not certified,
its not considered by Linux customers. 
Also you could hold up figures from certified hardware to impress and argue
against companies that think there is no real market for Linux.
There needs to be a way to breack out of the chicken and egg problem - no linux
market, no linux hardware.
Corporate Customers can afford to do research, expert staff does the buying. But
the average homeuser? He needs a generic sign, as simple as that.

Dirk


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  6:07                 ` Willy Tarreau
  2005-12-06  7:06                   ` Neil Brown
  2005-12-06  8:13                   ` David Woodhouse
@ 2005-12-06 16:47                   ` Greg KH
  2 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Greg KH @ 2005-12-06 16:47 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Willy Tarreau
  Cc: Tim Bird, Dave Airlie, David Woodhouse, arjan, andrew, linux-kernel

On Tue, Dec 06, 2005 at 07:07:34AM +0100, Willy Tarreau wrote:
> It's not about being dumb, but this problem is -I think- what prevents
> some companies from releasing drivers for their hardware (when they
> don't consider that opening it will give their IP away). I've played
> several times with opensource drivers for ADSL modems, LCD modules,
> watchdogs, ethernet adapters, IDE drivers, etc... and their problem
> was that what worked well in 2.4.21 did not even build in 2.4.22
> and became difficult to fix starting with 2.4.23. Most of those
> small companies who propose a Linux driver simply start by paying
> a student during summer for porting their windows/sco/whatever
> driver to linux. They think the job is done when he leaves.
> Unfortunately, they receive complaints 3 months later from users
> because the driver is broken and does not build. They don't have
> the resources to keep a permanent developer on it, and they
> quickly understand that Linux is just a "geek OS" and that it's
> the last time they release any driver.

That's why Documentation/HOWTO was written, to help those people realize
what needs to be done in order to do it properly.

thanks,

greg k-h

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-05 13:07   ` Pekka Enberg
  2005-12-05 18:44     ` Alistair John Strachan
@ 2005-12-06 17:03     ` Jon Masters
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Jon Masters @ 2005-12-06 17:03 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Pekka Enberg; +Cc: William Lee Irwin III, Arjan van de Ven, linux-kernel

On 12/5/05, Pekka Enberg <penberg@cs.helsinki.fi> wrote:

> I know I have become a very disappointed ATI
> customer after figuring out that they have zero interest in me using
> the hardware I paid for on Linux...

I remember calling up ATI and speaking to the CEO's secretary back in
the late 1990s. They'd just started to help out the GATOS guys a
little back then and I decided that they cared more than Nvidia do
about Linux so I would continue to buy only ATI cards. The ATI/Nvidia
thing even determined which model of Powerbook I would buy (since the
12" model had an Nvidia chipset).

Now I'm just disgusted with them. I understand exactly why they've
done what they have, but it's very uncool. People should call them up
and ask them to reconsider their actions. Question: who can I pay
money to for graphics cards that don't have hobbled drivers?

Jon.

P.S. I'm not just being anti-ATI. There are many others who are far
far worse - but we need good vendor support for graphics now more than
we ever did if more people are going to enjoy a good desktop
experience when using Linux.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  4:18             ` Michael Poole
@ 2005-12-06 17:21               ` Benjamin LaHaise
  2005-12-07 12:39                 ` Helge Hafting
  2005-12-07 14:25               ` Rik van Riel
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Benjamin LaHaise @ 2005-12-06 17:21 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Michael Poole; +Cc: Greg KH, linux-kernel

On Mon, Dec 05, 2005 at 11:18:15PM -0500, Michael Poole wrote:
> Besides, if the act of linking is what makes the derivative work,
> there is no problem: The GPL allows a user to make any modifications
> or combinations or derivatives whatsoever, and only imposes
> requirements when the result is distributed.  The linking of the two
> works occurs only on the end user's machine.

But if it's a module, it's probably been compiled against kernel headers.  
Last time I checked, header files were covered by the GPL unless explicitly 
placed under a more permissive license.  How do you use something like 
spinlocks without compiling in GPL code to a module?

		-ben
-- 
"You know, I've seen some crystals do some pretty trippy shit, man."
Don't Email: <dont@kvack.org>.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  1:18   ` Andrea Arcangeli
                       ` (2 preceding siblings ...)
  2005-12-06 12:26     ` Denis Vlasenko
@ 2005-12-06 17:23     ` Jon Masters
  3 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Jon Masters @ 2005-12-06 17:23 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Andrea Arcangeli; +Cc: William Lee Irwin III, Arjan van de Ven, linux-kernel

On 12/6/05, Andrea Arcangeli <andrea@suse.de> wrote:

> I am convinced that the only way to stop the erosion is to totally stop
> buying hardware that has only binary only drivers (unless you buy it to
> create an open source driver or to reverse engineer the binary only
> driver of course! ;).

That's not enough people to make a big enough difference - but I agree
with the logic and do my part.

One idea for dealing with this is to have the kernel complain more
loudly about binary only drivers - instead of using terms like "taint"
which Sysadmins might casually ignore it might be better to have a
couple of lines of warning message in their syslog explaining what it
means in more graphic terms. Granted that average users won't see this
but it would certainly help to convey the impression that binary only
is "wrong" (it's not putting policy in the kernel, it's embedded
politics in the kernel :P).

> I think messages like the one from Arjan are very positive to let
> people understand the long term effect of binary only drivers

I wrote a couple of articles this month which explain to the average
reader what is wrong with this and how it can be addressed. I used
Greg's mail as an example but will followup with a reference to this
thread - we need to encourage more people to talk about this.

> Perhaps we should add a printk that points to an url on kernel.org
> including Arjan's message every time a non-gpl module gets loaded by the
> kernel. I think it's a matter of educating the customer too or they can
> do mistakes, creating a blacklist would help too.

I like the idea of being far more graphic (no pun intended there) by
describing what this means in everyday language - "using binary only
drivers causes your machine to explode! (may not actually cause
machine to explode)" type stuff.

Jon.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  4:12           ` Greg KH
  2005-12-06  4:18             ` Michael Poole
@ 2005-12-06 18:19             ` Theodore Ts'o
  2005-12-06 19:27               ` Alan Cox
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Theodore Ts'o @ 2005-12-06 18:19 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Greg KH; +Cc: Tim Bird, David Woodhouse, arjan, andrew, linux-kernel

On Mon, Dec 05, 2005 at 08:12:16PM -0800, Greg KH wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 05, 2005 at 03:56:06PM -0800, Tim Bird wrote:
> > DISCLAIMER: I'm not speaking for Sony here. Personally
> > I don't believe that most drivers are derivative works
> > of the operating systems they run with, and I don't
> > believe it helps Linux to assert that they are.
> > But, hey, it's not my kernel, and not my plan for
> > world domination. ;-)
> 
> Why do people bring up the "derivative works" issue all the time.  Are
> they so blind to the very simple "linking" issue that all kernel modules
> do when they are loaded into the kernel?

The linked kernel+module combination is pretty clearly a derived work
(but I am not a lawyer).  However, that never gets *distributed* and
the GPL only covers distribution rights.

The question of whether or not something which *could* be linked into
the kernel is a derived work is a very different question, and if
taken too far, an advocate of this interpretation starts advocating
something very close to interface copyrights --- something which I
will note the FSF is passionately against when they called a boycott
on companies such as Lotus many years ago.

But this is very much off-topic for this list.  I suggest that folks
talk to Larry Rosen for his view on this issue, if they want a
balanced counterpoint to that pushed by the FSF.

							- Ted

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  3:56               ` Zwane Mwaikambo
  2005-12-06  4:27                 ` Gene Heskett
@ 2005-12-06 18:33                 ` Jesper Juhl
  2005-12-06 19:12                   ` Zwane Mwaikambo
  2005-12-08 21:49                 ` Rob Landley
  2005-12-10  5:51                 ` Luke-Jr
  3 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Jesper Juhl @ 2005-12-06 18:33 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Zwane Mwaikambo; +Cc: Gene Heskett, linux-kernel

On 12/6/05, Zwane Mwaikambo <zwane@arm.linux.org.uk> wrote:
> On Mon, 5 Dec 2005, Gene Heskett wrote:
>
> > Which is the best reason in the world to buy and use, the open source
> > video card now under development, and I hear its less than 3-4 months
> > from production status now, and at a competitive, sub $150 USD price.
> >
> > If 50% of nvidia's currant linux market share were to dissappear a month
> > after this card becomes available for purchase by those whom one might
> > categorize as believers, I'd think that would send a message loud enough
> > to be heard.
> >
> > Particularly if windows drivers are available, open sourced, and
> > installable on a winderz box using the normal install wizard, and
> > promoted as such to the joe six-packs of the world.  At the right price,
> > that would send an even louder message to both nvidia and ati
>
> Do you think this opensource hardware could keep up with nvidia and ati
> hardware development? Joe sixpack is all about the fastest hardware.

Well, they are not aiming at creating a high end gaming card.

Here are some quotes from various documents at http://www.opengraphics.org/  :

"
Requirements

In order to be interesting to the open source community and OEM
vendors such a card should at a minimum meet the following
requirements:

    * Programming interface must be fully documented
    * No IP encumberment for implementing drivers
    * Very good 2d graphics performance
    * Full OpenGL implementation with as much hardware acceleration as possible
    * Good support for xv (yuv->rgb, scaling) for video playback
    * Reasonable price!
"

"
Due to market size it will not be possible to compete on 3d
performance with market leaders such as ATI and NVIDIA. This is not an
immediate problem because gaming is not what this card is aimed at,
but performance should be good enough for scientific simulations and
similar.
"

"
   1.  *Will I be able to play Doom 3 with this hardware?*

Nope, but at the time of this writing, there is no graphics card on
the market on which you can play Doom 3 well while using open source
drivers. Less demanding games are likely to work however.
"

"
With about 6.4 gigabytes/second memory bandwidth, the video
performance should be comparable to current midrange graphic-cards
like the ATI Radeon 9600 which can e.g. play Battlefield 2.
"

Their featurelist also has more details:
http://wiki.duskglow.com/tiki-index.php?page=FeatureList


--
Jesper Juhl <jesper.juhl@gmail.com>
Don't top-post  http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/T/top-post.html
Plain text mails only, please      http://www.expita.com/nomime.html

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-05 16:23         ` Brian Gerst
@ 2005-12-06 18:42           ` David Woodhouse
  2005-12-06 19:23             ` Alan Cox
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: David Woodhouse @ 2005-12-06 18:42 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Brian Gerst
  Cc: Andrea Arcangeli, William Lee Irwin III, Arjan van de Ven, linux-kernel

On Mon, 2005-12-05 at 11:23 -0500, Brian Gerst wrote:
> Intel?  That's all nice and dandy if and only if you have an Intel
> CPU.   Not an option for AMD users, for obvious reasons.

Actually even the Intel support isn't particularly good. We don't have
proper mode setup code -- we have to invoke the BIOS to do mode setup,
and we can't set specific modelines (like PAL-compatible modes); we're
limited to what the BIOS knows about -- it's like vesafb with
acceleration.

There's some work on reverse-engineering the BIOS so that you can
hackishly poke 'new' modes into its tables, but it's still not a very
good option.

-- 
dwmw2



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 16:41           ` Dirk Steuwer
@ 2005-12-06 18:48             ` Lee Revell
  2005-12-06 21:35               ` Grahame White
  2005-12-07  0:45             ` Horst von Brand
  2005-12-07 14:17             ` Runs with Linux (tm) Benjamin LaHaise
  2 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Lee Revell @ 2005-12-06 18:48 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Dirk Steuwer; +Cc: linux-kernel

On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 16:41 +0000, Dirk Steuwer wrote:
> Sander <sander <at> humilis.net> writes:
> > 
> > Quite a few companies state on their site that their hardware is
> > supported in Linux if it is.
> > 
> > And I've never bought any computer equipment in a shop. Always online,
> > where there is no such thing as a box anyway 
> > 
> 
> 
> Yes, but there isn't and won't be much recognition - every company does its own
> thing. And how many people buy online all the time? But even then, a genery
> "runs with Linux" Logo would be great. If a company's product is not certified,
> its not considered by Linux customers. 

The vendors will just lie like they do now.  For example M-Audio claims
all its products are supported under Linux but leave out the fact that
half of it had to be reverse engineered, lots of it still doesn't work
right for lack of docs, and whenever someone asks them about Linux
support they just punt to the ALSA mailing lists.

Lee


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 16:27     ` Simon Oosthoek
@ 2005-12-06 18:50       ` Luke-Jr
  2005-12-08  8:14         ` Helge Hafting
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Luke-Jr @ 2005-12-06 18:50 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Linux Kernel Mailing List

On Tuesday 06 December 2005 16:27, Simon Oosthoek wrote:
> Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> > On Mon, 2005-12-05 at 18:26 +0000, Andrew Walrond wrote:
> >>On Monday 05 December 2005 10:52, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> >>>a hypothetical doomsday scenario by Arjan van de Ven
> >>
> >>Can I ask what prompted your post?
> >
> > I got one too many hatemails from a "nvidia fanboy" who blamed me for
> > just about anything wrong in the world.... I fear that most of these
> > people have no idea why open source drivers matter, or at least what the
> > consequences are for not caring about drivers being open or not.
>
> I use nvidia cards, mostly because they work better than an alternative
> for now, but every time I need a card I look for stuff that is more
> open, because I hate to have to use the non-free closed stuff to do
> graphics. (Having no real choice in this is really annoying to me!)

The ATi Radeon 9200 works fine...
-- 
Luke-Jr
Developer, Utopios
http://utopios.org/

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 15:36       ` Hannu Savolainen
@ 2005-12-06 18:51         ` Lee Revell
  2005-12-06 20:26           ` Hannu Savolainen
  2005-12-07 15:18         ` Avi Kivity
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Lee Revell @ 2005-12-06 18:51 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Hannu Savolainen; +Cc: linux-kernel

On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 17:36 +0200, Hannu Savolainen wrote:
> On Tue, 6 Dec 2005, Denis Vlasenko wrote:
> 
> > How about refusing binary-only modules instead? I mean, maybe
> > if Linux will stop being lax about GPL requirements on modules.
> Or why not to include an embedded version of gcc/binutils in the kernel
> LKM interface. In this way all drivers can only be distributed in source 
> code which effectively makes all forms of binary only drivers impossible. 

Are you saying you'd open source all those binary only OSS drivers if
this were to happen?

Lee



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  7:58                 ` Coywolf Qi Hunt
  2005-12-06 16:11                   ` Greg KH
@ 2005-12-06 18:56                   ` Luke-Jr
  2005-12-07  1:42                     ` Coywolf Qi Hunt
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Luke-Jr @ 2005-12-06 18:56 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Linux Kernel Mailing List

On Tuesday 06 December 2005 07:58, Coywolf Qi Hunt wrote:
> Your response is nonsense. It has the same logic as saying "If
> proprietary software is wrong, why are you using it?".
> Everybody are using proprietary software, aren't they?

No proprietary software here, excluding things such as firmware/BIOS where 
there is no choice.
-- 
Luke-Jr
Developer, Utopios
http://utopios.org/

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 15:49                 ` Paweł Sikora
@ 2005-12-06 19:00                   ` Tomasz Torcz
  2005-12-06 19:11                     ` Paweł Sikora
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Tomasz Torcz @ 2005-12-06 19:00 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: linux-kernel

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1044 bytes --]

On Tue, Dec 06, 2005 at 04:49:14PM +0100, Paweł Sikora wrote:
> Dnia wtorek, 6 grudnia 2005 16:30, Florian Weimer napisał:
> > * Brian Gerst:
> > > Once again I'd like to point out that user's purchase power means jack
> > > when they only have two choices for video:  ATI and Nvidia.  You can't
> > > walk into a computer store and find anything else (I don't count
> > > integrated video on the motherboard as a solution, since only Intel
> > > boards have it, sorry AMD users).  Even over the web it's hard to find
> > > anything else.
> >
> > What about Matrox cards?  Are there open drivers for accelerated 2D
> > operation?
> 
> Open 2D is nothing new. The OpenGL is a major part.
> Matrox and XGI (e.g. Volari V3 based cards) have openGL parts closed.

 Interesting remark, but false. Xorg ships open source driver with full
3D acceleration suport forMatrox.

-- 
Tomasz Torcz               "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station
zdzichu@irc.-nie.spam-.pl    wagon filled with backup tapes." -- Jim Gray


[-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 229 bytes --]

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 19:00                   ` Tomasz Torcz
@ 2005-12-06 19:11                     ` Paweł Sikora
  2005-12-06 19:34                       ` Tomasz Torcz
  2005-12-06 20:29                       ` Dave Jones
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Paweł Sikora @ 2005-12-06 19:11 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: linux-kernel

Dnia wtorek, 6 grudnia 2005 20:00, Tomasz Torcz napisał:
> On Tue, Dec 06, 2005 at 04:49:14PM +0100, Paweł Sikora wrote:
> > Dnia wtorek, 6 grudnia 2005 16:30, Florian Weimer napisał:
> > > * Brian Gerst:
> > > > Once again I'd like to point out that user's purchase power means
> > > > jack when they only have two choices for video:  ATI and Nvidia.  You
> > > > can't walk into a computer store and find anything else (I don't
> > > > count integrated video on the motherboard as a solution, since only
> > > > Intel boards have it, sorry AMD users).  Even over the web it's hard
> > > > to find anything else.
> > >
> > > What about Matrox cards?  Are there open drivers for accelerated 2D
> > > operation?
> >
> > Open 2D is nothing new. The OpenGL is a major part.
> > Matrox and XGI (e.g. Volari V3 based cards) have openGL parts closed.
>
>  Interesting remark, but false.

I investigated only mtx driver from theirs website.

> Xorg ships open source driver with full 3D acceleration suport forMatrox.

For which card?

-- 
to_be || !to_be == 1, to_be | ~to_be == -1

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 18:33                 ` Jesper Juhl
@ 2005-12-06 19:12                   ` Zwane Mwaikambo
  2005-12-06 19:15                     ` Jesper Juhl
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Zwane Mwaikambo @ 2005-12-06 19:12 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jesper Juhl; +Cc: Gene Heskett, linux-kernel

On Tue, 6 Dec 2005, Jesper Juhl wrote:

> On 12/6/05, Zwane Mwaikambo <zwane@arm.linux.org.uk> wrote:
> > On Mon, 5 Dec 2005, Gene Heskett wrote:
> >
> > > Particularly if windows drivers are available, open sourced, and
> > > installable on a winderz box using the normal install wizard, and
> > > promoted as such to the joe six-packs of the world.  At the right price,
> > > that would send an even louder message to both nvidia and ati
> >
> > Do you think this opensource hardware could keep up with nvidia and ati
> > hardware development? Joe sixpack is all about the fastest hardware.
> 
> Well, they are not aiming at creating a high end gaming card.
> 
> Here are some quotes from various documents at http://www.opengraphics.org/  :

My reply was to his email and not in reference to opengraphics.org

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 11:38               ` Jean-Christian de Rivaz
@ 2005-12-06 19:12                 ` Jesper Juhl
  2005-12-06 21:13                   ` Jon Masters
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Jesper Juhl @ 2005-12-06 19:12 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jean-Christian de Rivaz; +Cc: Gene Heskett, linux-kernel

On 12/6/05, Jean-Christian de Rivaz <jc@eclis.ch> wrote:
> Gene Heskett a écrit :
>
> > Which is the best reason in the world to buy and use, the open source
> > video card now under development, and I hear its less than 3-4 months
> > from production status now, and at a competitive, sub $150 USD price.
>
> Can you post a link about this open source video card ? I strongly wants

http://www.opengraphics.org/


> to support this kind of project. It's clear for me: this is the only way
> to solve the problem in the long term.
>

--
Jesper Juhl <jesper.juhl@gmail.com>
Don't top-post  http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/T/top-post.html
Plain text mails only, please      http://www.expita.com/nomime.html

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  1:43             ` Brian Gerst
                                 ` (4 preceding siblings ...)
  2005-12-06 15:30               ` Florian Weimer
@ 2005-12-06 19:13               ` Jeff Garzik
  2005-12-06 19:37                 ` Lee Revell
  2005-12-06 21:00               ` Francois Romieu
  6 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Jeff Garzik @ 2005-12-06 19:13 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Brian Gerst
  Cc: Arjan van de Ven, M.,
	Andrea Arcangeli, William Lee Irwin III, linux-kernel

Brian Gerst wrote:
> Once again I'd like to point out that user's purchase power means jack 
> when they only have two choices for video:  ATI and Nvidia.  You can't 
> walk into a computer store and find anything else (I don't count 
> integrated video on the motherboard as a solution, since only Intel 
> boards have it, sorry AMD users).  Even over the web it's hard to find 
> anything else.  I'm not trying to defend closed source here, but you 
> people just have to face the reality that trying to use the market to 
> get our way is just not going to work with video.  The only way forward 
> is reverse engineering.  We aren't going to get help from the vendors so 
> we have to help ourselves.

It sure looks that way.

Let's hope the rev-eng people do it the right way, by having one team 
write a document, and a totally separate team write the driver from that 
document.

	Jeff



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 19:12                   ` Zwane Mwaikambo
@ 2005-12-06 19:15                     ` Jesper Juhl
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Jesper Juhl @ 2005-12-06 19:15 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Zwane Mwaikambo; +Cc: Gene Heskett, linux-kernel

On 12/6/05, Zwane Mwaikambo <zwane@arm.linux.org.uk> wrote:
> On Tue, 6 Dec 2005, Jesper Juhl wrote:
>
> > On 12/6/05, Zwane Mwaikambo <zwane@arm.linux.org.uk> wrote:
> > > On Mon, 5 Dec 2005, Gene Heskett wrote:
> > >
> > > > Particularly if windows drivers are available, open sourced, and
> > > > installable on a winderz box using the normal install wizard, and
> > > > promoted as such to the joe six-packs of the world.  At the right price,
> > > > that would send an even louder message to both nvidia and ati
> > >
> > > Do you think this opensource hardware could keep up with nvidia and ati
> > > hardware development? Joe sixpack is all about the fastest hardware.
> >
> > Well, they are not aiming at creating a high end gaming card.
> >
> > Here are some quotes from various documents at http://www.opengraphics.org/  :
>
> My reply was to his email and not in reference to opengraphics.org
>

Ok, then I misunderstood your mail.

--
Jesper Juhl <jesper.juhl@gmail.com>
Don't top-post  http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/T/top-post.html
Plain text mails only, please      http://www.expita.com/nomime.html

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 14:50                   ` Andrea Arcangeli
  2005-12-06 15:25                     ` David Woodhouse
@ 2005-12-06 19:20                     ` Jeff Garzik
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Jeff Garzik @ 2005-12-06 19:20 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Andrea Arcangeli
  Cc: David Woodhouse, Bernd Petrovitsch, Tim Bird, arjan, andrew,
	linux-kernel

Andrea Arcangeli wrote:
> I think Linus is doing the right thing here, and he is avoiding what I
> described in the previous email: that is breaking drivers gratuitously
> is what could make linux hostile and too costly to support IMHO. We want
> to be parnters with all hardware companies, but we want them to support
> linux properly (not with binary only drivers), in a way that we can fix
> it, port it to other archs, and so that we don't lose support for the
> hardware while improving internal APIs.

Agreed.

	Jeff



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 18:42           ` David Woodhouse
@ 2005-12-06 19:23             ` Alan Cox
  2005-12-06 21:33               ` Jeff Garzik
  2005-12-06 22:25               ` David Woodhouse
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Alan Cox @ 2005-12-06 19:23 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: David Woodhouse
  Cc: Brian Gerst, Andrea Arcangeli, William Lee Irwin III,
	Arjan van de Ven, linux-kernel

On Maw, 2005-12-06 at 18:42 +0000, David Woodhouse wrote:
> There's some work on reverse-engineering the BIOS so that you can
> hackishly poke 'new' modes into its tables, but it's still not a very
> good option.

Especially as the BIOS interface at the low level for the analogue end
and the logic driving it is board specific. Intel have been fairly clear
why they use the BIOS interface.


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 18:19             ` Theodore Ts'o
@ 2005-12-06 19:27               ` Alan Cox
  2005-12-06 19:38                 ` Theodore Ts'o
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Alan Cox @ 2005-12-06 19:27 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Theodore Ts'o
  Cc: Greg KH, Tim Bird, David Woodhouse, arjan, andrew, linux-kernel

On Maw, 2005-12-06 at 13:19 -0500, Theodore Ts'o wrote:
> The question of whether or not something which *could* be linked into
> the kernel is a derived work is a very different question

Its also a question that falls into the area of conspiracy to commit an
offence in some legal domains rather than being about 'interface
copyright'.

Alan


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 19:11                     ` Paweł Sikora
@ 2005-12-06 19:34                       ` Tomasz Torcz
  2005-12-06 20:29                       ` Dave Jones
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Tomasz Torcz @ 2005-12-06 19:34 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: linux-kernel

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1515 bytes --]


On Tue, Dec 06, 2005 at 08:11:55PM +0100, Paweł Sikora wrote:
> Dnia wtorek, 6 grudnia 2005 20:00, Tomasz Torcz napisał:
> > On Tue, Dec 06, 2005 at 04:49:14PM +0100, Paweł Sikora wrote:
> > > Dnia wtorek, 6 grudnia 2005 16:30, Florian Weimer napisał:
> > > > * Brian Gerst:
> > > > > Once again I'd like to point out that user's purchase power means
> > > > > jack when they only have two choices for video:  ATI and Nvidia.  You
> > > > > can't walk into a computer store and find anything else (I don't
> > > > > count integrated video on the motherboard as a solution, since only
> > > > > Intel boards have it, sorry AMD users).  Even over the web it's hard
> > > > > to find anything else.
> > > >
> > > > What about Matrox cards?  Are there open drivers for accelerated 2D
> > > > operation?
> > >
> > > Open 2D is nothing new. The OpenGL is a major part.
> > > Matrox and XGI (e.g. Volari V3 based cards) have openGL parts closed.
> >
> >  Interesting remark, but false.
> 
> I investigated only mtx driver from theirs website.

 Binary driver from matrox website caontains, IIRC, only some interface
to access matrox card in dual-monitor modes. It's irrelevant for OpenGL.

> > Xorg ships open source driver with full 3D acceleration suport forMatrox.
> 
> For which card?

 For my Matrox G550 and earlier models.

-- 
Tomasz Torcz               "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station
zdzichu@irc.-nie.spam-.pl    wagon filled with backup tapes." -- Jim Gray


[-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 229 bytes --]

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 19:13               ` Jeff Garzik
@ 2005-12-06 19:37                 ` Lee Revell
  2005-12-06 19:41                   ` Jeff Garzik
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Lee Revell @ 2005-12-06 19:37 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jeff Garzik
  Cc: Brian Gerst, Arjan van de Ven, M.,
	Andrea Arcangeli, William Lee Irwin III, linux-kernel

On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 14:13 -0500, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> Let's hope the rev-eng people do it the right way, by having one team 
> write a document, and a totally separate team write the driver from
> that document.
> 

Isn't it also legal for a single person or team to capture all IO
to/from the device with a bus analyzer or kernel debugger and write a
driver from that, as long as you don't disassemble the original driver?

Lee


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 19:27               ` Alan Cox
@ 2005-12-06 19:38                 ` Theodore Ts'o
  2005-12-06 20:18                   ` Alan Cox
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Theodore Ts'o @ 2005-12-06 19:38 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Alan Cox; +Cc: Greg KH, Tim Bird, David Woodhouse, arjan, andrew, linux-kernel

On Tue, Dec 06, 2005 at 07:27:42PM +0000, Alan Cox wrote:
> On Maw, 2005-12-06 at 13:19 -0500, Theodore Ts'o wrote:
> > The question of whether or not something which *could* be linked into
> > the kernel is a derived work is a very different question
> 
> Its also a question that falls into the area of conspiracy to commit an
> offence in some legal domains rather than being about 'interface
> copyright'.

Conspiracy to commit what offence?  There's nothing wrong with linking
GPL'ed code with propietary code, in the privacy of your own home (or
server).  The offence only happens when you distribute the resulting
derived work....

						- Ted

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 19:37                 ` Lee Revell
@ 2005-12-06 19:41                   ` Jeff Garzik
  2005-12-06 19:55                     ` Lee Revell
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Jeff Garzik @ 2005-12-06 19:41 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Lee Revell
  Cc: Brian Gerst, Arjan van de Ven, M.,
	Andrea Arcangeli, William Lee Irwin III, linux-kernel

Lee Revell wrote:
> On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 14:13 -0500, Jeff Garzik wrote:
>>Let's hope the rev-eng people do it the right way, by having one team 
>>write a document, and a totally separate team write the driver from
>>that document.

> Isn't it also legal for a single person or team to capture all IO
> to/from the device with a bus analyzer or kernel debugger and write a
> driver from that, as long as you don't disassemble the original driver?

It's still legally shaky.  The "Chinese wall" approach I described above 
is beyond reproach, and that's where Linux needs to be.

	Jeff



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 19:41                   ` Jeff Garzik
@ 2005-12-06 19:55                     ` Lee Revell
  2005-12-06 20:25                       ` Alan Cox
                                         ` (2 more replies)
  0 siblings, 3 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Lee Revell @ 2005-12-06 19:55 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jeff Garzik
  Cc: Brian Gerst, Arjan van de Ven, M.,
	Andrea Arcangeli, William Lee Irwin III, linux-kernel

On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 14:41 -0500, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> Lee Revell wrote:
> > On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 14:13 -0500, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> >>Let's hope the rev-eng people do it the right way, by having one team 
> >>write a document, and a totally separate team write the driver from
> >>that document.
> 
> > Isn't it also legal for a single person or team to capture all IO
> > to/from the device with a bus analyzer or kernel debugger and write a
> > driver from that, as long as you don't disassemble the original driver?
> 
> It's still legally shaky.  The "Chinese wall" approach I described above 
> is beyond reproach, and that's where Linux needs to be.

I know you are not a lawyer but do you have a pointer or two?  As long
as we are REing for interoperability I've never read anything to
indicate the approach I described could be a problem even in the US.

Lee


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 15:25                     ` David Woodhouse
@ 2005-12-06 19:58                       ` Alan Cox
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Alan Cox @ 2005-12-06 19:58 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: torvalds, David Woodhouse
  Cc: Andrea Arcangeli, Bernd Petrovitsch, Tim Bird, arjan, andrew,
	linux-kernel

On Maw, 2005-12-06 at 15:25 +0000, David Woodhouse wrote:
> But yes -- its existence is indeed a 'sort of proof' that non-GPL
> modules are at least _considered_ to be OK in some situations. I wish
> we'd never invented EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL() in the first place -- it appears
> to legitimise something which was never really OK in the first place,
> and weakens our position when we take it to court.

<Legalese see below for interesting content>

On the contrary. I can demonstrate I've repeatedly stated that I
consider almost all modules invalid, that I contributed code before
Linus ever made any comments about non-GPL modules and that he
incorporated code from bodies strongly of that view who granted no non
GPL usage without asking them for any exception (notably from the FSF)
(and Linus is added to this for legal reasons alone)

</End of legalese>


I think however you also have to work *with* rather than against a lot
of the vendors who are trying to manage awkward problems (even if
generally of their own historical making). There are plenty of people
who do need a good kicking and ship binary only Linux systems that need
dealing with well before you want to worry about the less clear cases.

People like Nvidia who have made business decisions based on the
licensing problems they face and looked at the question aren't the folks
to go chasing with large hammers even if its annoying. Start with the
folks who really genuinely don't care. A look at gpl-violations.org will
show the scale of that problem. 

Some of the other suggestions people have made don't work either. The
limit of power in a copyright license is constrained by law. The
drafters of copyright laws chose for good and sound reasons to say that
you can't use copyright agreements to interfere with non-derivative
works. They did this for a lot of good reasons.

EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL also started with an intent to indicate internal
interfaces (ie those that are clearly derivative). If you want to split
the technology come legal issues and the politics rename it to
EXPORT_SYMBOL_INTERNAL. The only case for _GPL then would be to
specifically mark code that implements or derives from a work
implementing GPL patent licensed code. In those cases the derivative
work question is irrelevant as patents are not bounded in the same way.

That keeps the intent clear "this is an internal symbol", doesn't really
change the effect of any legal derivate works decision that I can see
(and its hard to see as caselaw for such cases is quite limited).

The enforcement side is also worth keeping because while we don't have
caselaw on the "lying about being GPL" case we do have some good
evidence in ongoing situations that corporate lawyers are very concerned
to discover they are shipping a lying module. Sorry no details on the
case in question can be public atm.

As to moving a function from _GPL, as I understand the legal situation
its up to the copyright holders to make a licensing change _if_ it is
one. If it isn't then it doesn't matter. If it is well Linus is probably
now personally liable (or OSDL) instead of Nvidia, his problem, his
choice. Is the new insert_page internal, that in itself isn't clear 

Alan


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 19:38                 ` Theodore Ts'o
@ 2005-12-06 20:18                   ` Alan Cox
  2005-12-06 20:53                     ` Theodore Ts'o
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Alan Cox @ 2005-12-06 20:18 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Theodore Ts'o
  Cc: Greg KH, Tim Bird, David Woodhouse, arjan, andrew, linux-kernel

On Maw, 2005-12-06 at 14:38 -0500, Theodore Ts'o wrote:
> Conspiracy to commit what offence?  There's nothing wrong with linking
> GPL'ed code with propietary code, in the privacy of your own home (or
> server).  The offence only happens when you distribute the resulting
> derived work....

In many countries moving the data from hard disk to memory is copying,
ditto to cache, and that is established caselaw.

Alan


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 19:55                     ` Lee Revell
@ 2005-12-06 20:25                       ` Alan Cox
  2005-12-06 21:55                         ` Dave Airlie
  2005-12-06 21:49                       ` Reverse engineering (was Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario) Jeff Garzik
  2005-12-06 22:44                       ` Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario Florian Weimer
  2 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Alan Cox @ 2005-12-06 20:25 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Lee Revell
  Cc: Jeff Garzik, Brian Gerst, Arjan van de Ven, M.,
	Andrea Arcangeli, William Lee Irwin III, linux-kernel

On Maw, 2005-12-06 at 14:55 -0500, Lee Revell wrote:
> > It's still legally shaky.  The "Chinese wall" approach I described above 
> > is beyond reproach, and that's where Linux needs to be.
> 
> I know you are not a lawyer but do you have a pointer or two?  As long
> as we are REing for interoperability I've never read anything to
> indicate the approach I described could be a problem even in the US.

It isnt a problem providing you don't copy anything. The chinese wall
approach is used to avoid the risk that what happens is not 

"Oh so register foo bit 4 controls the backlight"


but

"this sequence of instructions turns on the backlight"


The risk is that by reading the disassembled binary and rewriting it a
programming might actually be deemed to have copied code if they
accidentally just reproduce the original implementation.


Often of course disassembly is the hard way to solve the problem. Firing
up the driver with analyser tools and studying how it works can be far
more informative. With the ATI R3xx work asking the binary driver to
draw a wide range of triangles and monitoring the command queue output
for each request  provides very good info, while attempting to deciphers
megabytes of windows 3D driver code, which is likely to contain self
modifying or JIT generated pipelines, is going to be extremely hard
work.



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 18:51         ` Lee Revell
@ 2005-12-06 20:26           ` Hannu Savolainen
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Hannu Savolainen @ 2005-12-06 20:26 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Lee Revell; +Cc: linux-kernel

On Tue, 6 Dec 2005, Lee Revell wrote:

> Are you saying you'd open source all those binary only OSS drivers if
> this were to happen?
I don't promise anything but we have been working on an open source 
release of OSS (OpenOSS) at least for OpenSolaris during next 
spring/summer. Linux port is also possible at the same time or bit later. 
Sorry but I can't give any more details at this moment.

For various reasons this stuff will be released outside the kernel build. 
For this reason I'm more or less worried about the difficulties 
related with compiling driver code separately from the kernel image.

Best regards,

Hannu
-----
Hannu Savolainen (hannu@opensound.com)
http://www.opensound.com (Open Sound System (OSS))
http://www.compusonic.fi (Finnish OSS pages)
OH2GLH QTH: Karkkila, Finland LOC: KP20CM

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 19:11                     ` Paweł Sikora
  2005-12-06 19:34                       ` Tomasz Torcz
@ 2005-12-06 20:29                       ` Dave Jones
  2005-12-06 23:25                         ` Bernd Petrovitsch
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Dave Jones @ 2005-12-06 20:29 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Paweł Sikora; +Cc: linux-kernel

On Tue, Dec 06, 2005 at 08:11:55PM +0100, Paweł Sikora wrote:
 > Dnia wtorek, 6 grudnia 2005 20:00, Tomasz Torcz napisał:
 > > On Tue, Dec 06, 2005 at 04:49:14PM +0100, Paweł Sikora wrote:
 > > > Dnia wtorek, 6 grudnia 2005 16:30, Florian Weimer napisał:
 > > > > * Brian Gerst:
 > > > > > Once again I'd like to point out that user's purchase power means
 > > > > > jack when they only have two choices for video:  ATI and Nvidia.  You
 > > > > > can't walk into a computer store and find anything else (I don't
 > > > > > count integrated video on the motherboard as a solution, since only
 > > > > > Intel boards have it, sorry AMD users).  Even over the web it's hard
 > > > > > to find anything else.
 > > > >
 > > > > What about Matrox cards?  Are there open drivers for accelerated 2D
 > > > > operation?
 > > >
 > > > Open 2D is nothing new. The OpenGL is a major part.
 > > > Matrox and XGI (e.g. Volari V3 based cards) have openGL parts closed.
 > >
 > >  Interesting remark, but false.
 > 
 > I investigated only mtx driver from theirs website.

Indeed, anything newer than a G550 is binary only as far as 3D is concerned.
Sad, as Matrox used to be a really good recommendation for an
opensource friendly graphic card vendor.

It's not as if their newer cards are even that fast, so my only
guess is that they've gone the binary blob route purely for
paranoia reasons.

That said, they had a binary blob for some of the special
features of their cards for a long time, but most users would
never need it.

		Dave


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 20:18                   ` Alan Cox
@ 2005-12-06 20:53                     ` Theodore Ts'o
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Theodore Ts'o @ 2005-12-06 20:53 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Alan Cox; +Cc: Greg KH, Tim Bird, David Woodhouse, arjan, andrew, linux-kernel

On Tue, Dec 06, 2005 at 08:18:27PM +0000, Alan Cox wrote:
> On Maw, 2005-12-06 at 14:38 -0500, Theodore Ts'o wrote:
> > Conspiracy to commit what offence?  There's nothing wrong with linking
> > GPL'ed code with propietary code, in the privacy of your own home (or
> > server).  The offence only happens when you distribute the resulting
> > derived work....
> 
> In many countries moving the data from hard disk to memory is copying,
> ditto to cache, and that is established caselaw.

Ah, but the GPL hangs its requirements off of "distribution", not
copying per se.  Also note the following statement from the GPL:

	"The act of running the Program is not restricted"

But this is not legal advice, and I am not a lawyer; anyone who is
wants to figure out what they can or can't do shouldn't be talking to
either Alan or me; they should be talking to a real, live lawyer.

							- Ted

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Reverse engineering (was Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario)
  2005-12-06 21:49                       ` Reverse engineering (was Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario) Jeff Garzik
@ 2005-12-06 20:54                         ` Jeff V. Merkey
  2005-12-06 23:13                           ` Reverse engineering Bernd Petrovitsch
  2005-12-06 22:21                         ` Reverse engineering (was Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario) Lee Revell
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Jeff V. Merkey @ 2005-12-06 20:54 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jeff Garzik
  Cc: Lee Revell, Brian Gerst, Arjan van de Ven, M.,
	Andrea Arcangeli, William Lee Irwin III, linux-kernel, Alan Cox

Jeff Garzik wrote:

> Lee Revell wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 14:41 -0500, Jeff Garzik wrote:
>>
>>> Lee Revell wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 14:13 -0500, Jeff Garzik wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Let's hope the rev-eng people do it the right way, by having one 
>>>>> team write a document, and a totally separate team write the 
>>>>> driver from
>>>>> that document.
>>>>
>>>
>>>> Isn't it also legal for a single person or team to capture all IO
>>>> to/from the device with a bus analyzer or kernel debugger and write a
>>>> driver from that, as long as you don't disassemble the original 
>>>> driver?
>>>
>>>
>>> It's still legally shaky.  The "Chinese wall" approach I described 
>>> above is beyond reproach, and that's where Linux needs to be.
>>
>>
>>
>> I know you are not a lawyer but do you have a pointer or two?  As long
>> as we are REing for interoperability I've never read anything to
>> indicate the approach I described could be a problem even in the US.
>
>
> The _potential_ for problems is very high:
>
> 1) [ref Alan's email] copying programming sequences
>
> 2) Lack of Chinese wall requires TRUST and EVIDENCE that you did the 
> rev-eng without "source code that fell off the back of a truck" [i.e. 
> illegally obtained] or "docs that fell off the back of a truck."
>
> 3) Lack of Chinese wall increases the likelihood that a SCOX or other 
> entity could use that as a legal weapon against Linux.



Guys, get real.  SCO is out of money and just took 10 million in float 
capital to keep the doors open.  They are after IBM, not Linux.  WAKE UP!!!

Jeff

>
> In Linux, I really have no way of knowing how questionable a driver 
> submission is, if it did not arrive from the Chinese wall approach, or 
> a known hacker with a valid path to hardware docs/engineers/code.  
> Past experience shows that Mr. Unknown Hacker is likely to take legal 
> shortcuts when writing the driver.
>
> If I accept code of highly questionable origin, then I put Linux in 
> jeopardy.
>
>     Jeff
>
>
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe 
> linux-kernel" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/
>


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  1:43             ` Brian Gerst
                                 ` (5 preceding siblings ...)
  2005-12-06 19:13               ` Jeff Garzik
@ 2005-12-06 21:00               ` Francois Romieu
  2005-12-08  1:04                 ` Kasper Sandberg
  6 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Francois Romieu @ 2005-12-06 21:00 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Brian Gerst; +Cc: linux-kernel

Brian Gerst <bgerst@didntduck.org> :
[...]
> walk into a computer store and find anything else (I don't count 
> integrated video on the motherboard as a solution, since only Intel 
> boards have it, sorry AMD users).

Some SiS based motherboards offer both an integrated video and AMD
processor support.

--
Ueimor

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 19:12                 ` Jesper Juhl
@ 2005-12-06 21:13                   ` Jon Masters
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Jon Masters @ 2005-12-06 21:13 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jesper Juhl
  Cc: Jean-Christian de Rivaz, Gene Heskett, linux-kernel, Jon Masters

On 12/6/05, Jesper Juhl <jesper.juhl@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/6/05, Jean-Christian de Rivaz <jc@eclis.ch> wrote:

> > Gene Heskett a écrit :

> > Can you post a link about this open source video card ? I strongly wants

Merci monsieur de votre question.

> http://www.opengraphics.org/

I'll take a look at this - and I'd appreciate as much spam as possible
on this so I can turn it into some interesting articles on the topic.
Looks like I'll need to buy one of these :-)

Jon.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 19:23             ` Alan Cox
@ 2005-12-06 21:33               ` Jeff Garzik
  2005-12-06 22:25               ` David Woodhouse
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Jeff Garzik @ 2005-12-06 21:33 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Alan Cox
  Cc: David Woodhouse, Brian Gerst, Andrea Arcangeli,
	William Lee Irwin III, Arjan van de Ven, linux-kernel

Alan Cox wrote:
> On Maw, 2005-12-06 at 18:42 +0000, David Woodhouse wrote:
> 
>>There's some work on reverse-engineering the BIOS so that you can
>>hackishly poke 'new' modes into its tables, but it's still not a very
>>good option.
> 
> 
> Especially as the BIOS interface at the low level for the analogue end
> and the logic driving it is board specific. Intel have been fairly clear
> why they use the BIOS interface.

[utter, complete, abrupt tangent]

Since people are talking about BIOS, that made me remember that I wanted 
to mention something of minor significance:

Marvell GPL'd their storage BIOS that ships with their 50xx and 60xx 
cards.  x86 code, not OF.

FWIW.

Now you may return to your regularly scheduled flamewar...

	Jeff



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 18:48             ` Lee Revell
@ 2005-12-06 21:35               ` Grahame White
  2005-12-07  8:09                 ` Dirk Steuwer
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Grahame White @ 2005-12-06 21:35 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Lee Revell, linux-kernel

On Tuesday 06 December 2005 18:48, you wrote:
> On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 16:41 +0000, Dirk Steuwer wrote:
> > Sander <sander <at> humilis.net> writes:
> > > Quite a few companies state on their site that their hardware is
> > > supported in Linux if it is.
> > >
> > > And I've never bought any computer equipment in a shop. Always
> > > online, where there is no such thing as a box anyway
> >
> > Yes, but there isn't and won't be much recognition - every company
> > does its own thing. And how many people buy online all the time? But
> > even then, a genery "runs with Linux" Logo would be great. If a
> > company's product is not certified, its not considered by Linux
> > customers.
>
> The vendors will just lie like they do now.  For example M-Audio claims
> all its products are supported under Linux but leave out the fact that
> half of it had to be reverse engineered, lots of it still doesn't work
> right for lack of docs, and whenever someone asks them about Linux
> support they just punt to the ALSA mailing lists.

Then how about a "formal" linux certified logo? IOW a logo that can *only* 
be used if the hardware has drivers that were written using an officially 
supplied set of specifications and if said drivers are available under an 
OSI certified licence. Any use of the logo on a piece of hardware that is 
not certified would be liable to legal action.

Admittedly this would require a fair amount of effort to set up and uphold 
but if it helped make it easier to choose compatible hardware it could be 
worth it.

>
> Lee
>
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel"
> in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 14:49               ` Arjan van de Ven
@ 2005-12-06 21:39                 ` Nicolas Mailhot
  2005-12-08  0:58                   ` Kasper Sandberg
  2005-12-07  7:02                 ` Luke-Jr
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Nicolas Mailhot @ 2005-12-06 21:39 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: linux-kernel

Arjan van de Ven <arjan <at> infradead.org> writes:

> There are lots of opportunities to put pressure on vendors, either
> direct or indirect. Nvidia has a support department. If they get enough
> calls / letters about their solution not being good enough, they're more
> likely to consider the rearchtect solution. 

Indeed a single centralized complete online hardware database (with hardware
rated according to driver support level) would go a long way to put real
pressure on vendors. We know how to set up one for gnome/kde themes surely it'd
be possible to create one for hardware ? (not the current nebulae of
semi-complete overlapping projects, menuconfig entries, blog notes, linux-kernel
notifications)

But this requires _kernel_ _people_ cooperation. You're the ones who know what
works and what doesn't. You're the ones who know which corporations are helpful.
You're the first people users contact when they have new hardware they'd like to
make work. You're the ones who know which drivers you're currently working on.

The PCI ID database can be maintained without kernel people intervention. A
"linux-friendly hardware" database can not.

Right now getting hardware advice is a long and painful process. Hardware that
works is only semi-documented. Hardware which doesn't isn't at all. Users have
to comb numerous on-line databases and mail archives (full of obsolete/wrong
info) to spec a single linux-friendly system. Few people bother to answer
hardware advice requests on mailing lists.

Linux users could reward friendly hardware makers if only you bothered to point
them the right way. That is :
- list publicly working hardware as soon as the kernel driver is ready
- list publicly non-working hardware as soon as someone enquires for a reference
which does not work.

There's no magic.

Hardware makers do all kinds of stupid stuff to please review sites. Review
sites are influential because lots of people buy stuff based on their advice.
Lots of people follow review site advice because review sites centralize info
about all kinds of hardware, so you don't have to comb the web to find it.

As Groklaw has shown - if you manage to do complete coverage of a subject, even
an obscure subject like IP laws or Linux drivers, you suddenly get quoted
everywhere. But to reach that stage you mustn't go halfways but record
meticulously info about all the hardware you know of.

-- 
Nicolas Mailhot


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Reverse engineering (was Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario)
  2005-12-06 19:55                     ` Lee Revell
  2005-12-06 20:25                       ` Alan Cox
@ 2005-12-06 21:49                       ` Jeff Garzik
  2005-12-06 20:54                         ` Jeff V. Merkey
  2005-12-06 22:21                         ` Reverse engineering (was Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario) Lee Revell
  2005-12-06 22:44                       ` Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario Florian Weimer
  2 siblings, 2 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Jeff Garzik @ 2005-12-06 21:49 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Lee Revell
  Cc: Brian Gerst, Arjan van de Ven, M.,
	Andrea Arcangeli, William Lee Irwin III, linux-kernel, Alan Cox

Lee Revell wrote:
> On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 14:41 -0500, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> 
>>Lee Revell wrote:
>>
>>>On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 14:13 -0500, Jeff Garzik wrote:
>>>
>>>>Let's hope the rev-eng people do it the right way, by having one team 
>>>>write a document, and a totally separate team write the driver from
>>>>that document.
>>
>>>Isn't it also legal for a single person or team to capture all IO
>>>to/from the device with a bus analyzer or kernel debugger and write a
>>>driver from that, as long as you don't disassemble the original driver?
>>
>>It's still legally shaky.  The "Chinese wall" approach I described above 
>>is beyond reproach, and that's where Linux needs to be.
> 
> 
> I know you are not a lawyer but do you have a pointer or two?  As long
> as we are REing for interoperability I've never read anything to
> indicate the approach I described could be a problem even in the US.

The _potential_ for problems is very high:

1) [ref Alan's email] copying programming sequences

2) Lack of Chinese wall requires TRUST and EVIDENCE that you did the 
rev-eng without "source code that fell off the back of a truck" [i.e. 
illegally obtained] or "docs that fell off the back of a truck."

3) Lack of Chinese wall increases the likelihood that a SCOX or other 
entity could use that as a legal weapon against Linux.

In Linux, I really have no way of knowing how questionable a driver 
submission is, if it did not arrive from the Chinese wall approach, or a 
known hacker with a valid path to hardware docs/engineers/code.  Past 
experience shows that Mr. Unknown Hacker is likely to take legal 
shortcuts when writing the driver.

If I accept code of highly questionable origin, then I put Linux in 
jeopardy.

	Jeff



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 20:25                       ` Alan Cox
@ 2005-12-06 21:55                         ` Dave Airlie
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Dave Airlie @ 2005-12-06 21:55 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Alan Cox
  Cc: Lee Revell, Jeff Garzik, Brian Gerst, Arjan van de Ven, M.,
	Andrea Arcangeli, William Lee Irwin III, linux-kernel

>
> The risk is that by reading the disassembled binary and rewriting it a
> programming might actually be deemed to have copied code if they
> accidentally just reproduce the original implementation.
>
>
> Often of course disassembly is the hard way to solve the problem. Firing
> up the driver with analyser tools and studying how it works can be far
> more informative. With the ATI R3xx work asking the binary driver to
> draw a wide range of triangles and monitoring the command queue output
> for each request  provides very good info, while attempting to deciphers
> megabytes of windows 3D driver code, which is likely to contain self
> modifying or JIT generated pipelines, is going to be extremely hard
> work.
>

I can pretty much guarantee nobody is stupid enough to even think
about attaching a debugger or disassembler to fglrx, doing black-box
reverse engineering is sufficent for everything, and as the r300 is
derived in many respects from the r200, we have a lot of info from
it..

Dave.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Reverse engineering (was Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario)
  2005-12-06 21:49                       ` Reverse engineering (was Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario) Jeff Garzik
  2005-12-06 20:54                         ` Jeff V. Merkey
@ 2005-12-06 22:21                         ` Lee Revell
  2005-12-06 23:48                           ` Jeff Garzik
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Lee Revell @ 2005-12-06 22:21 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jeff Garzik
  Cc: Brian Gerst, Arjan van de Ven, M.,
	Andrea Arcangeli, William Lee Irwin III, linux-kernel, Alan Cox

On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 16:49 -0500, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> Lee Revell wrote:
> > On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 14:41 -0500, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> > 
> >>Lee Revell wrote:
> >>
> >>>On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 14:13 -0500, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> >>>
> >>>>Let's hope the rev-eng people do it the right way, by having one team 
> >>>>write a document, and a totally separate team write the driver from
> >>>>that document.
> >>
> >>>Isn't it also legal for a single person or team to capture all IO
> >>>to/from the device with a bus analyzer or kernel debugger and write a
> >>>driver from that, as long as you don't disassemble the original driver?
> >>
> >>It's still legally shaky.  The "Chinese wall" approach I described above 
> >>is beyond reproach, and that's where Linux needs to be.
> > 
> > 
> > I know you are not a lawyer but do you have a pointer or two?  As long
> > as we are REing for interoperability I've never read anything to
> > indicate the approach I described could be a problem even in the US.
> 
> The _potential_ for problems is very high:
> 
> 1) [ref Alan's email] copying programming sequences
> 
> 2) Lack of Chinese wall requires TRUST and EVIDENCE that you did the 
> rev-eng without "source code that fell off the back of a truck" [i.e. 
> illegally obtained] or "docs that fell off the back of a truck."
> 
> 3) Lack of Chinese wall increases the likelihood that a SCOX or other 
> entity could use that as a legal weapon against Linux.
> 
> In Linux, I really have no way of knowing how questionable a driver 
> submission is, if it did not arrive from the Chinese wall approach, or a 
> known hacker with a valid path to hardware docs/engineers/code.  Past 
> experience shows that Mr. Unknown Hacker is likely to take legal 
> shortcuts when writing the driver.
> 
> If I accept code of highly questionable origin, then I put Linux in 
> jeopardy.

Should this high barrier to entry for reverse engineered drivers be
documented anywhere?  I would have expected black box reverse
engineering to be OK for Linux driver development.

Lee


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 19:23             ` Alan Cox
  2005-12-06 21:33               ` Jeff Garzik
@ 2005-12-06 22:25               ` David Woodhouse
  2005-12-06 22:49                 ` Alan Cox
  2005-12-06 23:25                 ` Andrew Grover
  1 sibling, 2 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: David Woodhouse @ 2005-12-06 22:25 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Alan Cox
  Cc: Brian Gerst, Andrea Arcangeli, William Lee Irwin III,
	Arjan van de Ven, linux-kernel

On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 19:23 +0000, Alan Cox wrote:
> On Maw, 2005-12-06 at 18:42 +0000, David Woodhouse wrote:
> > There's some work on reverse-engineering the BIOS so that you can
> > hackishly poke 'new' modes into its tables, but it's still not a very
> > good option.
> 
> Especially as the BIOS interface at the low level for the analogue end
> and the logic driving it is board specific. Intel have been fairly clear
> why they use the BIOS interface.

Have they? I haven't seen the excuse.

I assume it's similar to the excuse for ACPI -- "although we _could_
document the chips and allow board manufacturers to include simple
tables which describe the way they're wired together (in which they have
relatively little leeway), we'd rather hide it all behind some opaque
blob and have you trust HardwareVendorCode to drive it instead of being
able to write your own and debug it as you can with Free Software"?

Trusting the BIOS for this kind of thing isn't really much better than
trusting any other binary-only piece of code, from a technical point of
view. (Ignoring the licensing issues; we have indeed digressed). In
fact, given the traditional quality of BIOS implementations, trusting
the BIOS is far _worse_ than trusting any other piece of binary code.

-- 
dwmw2



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 19:55                     ` Lee Revell
  2005-12-06 20:25                       ` Alan Cox
  2005-12-06 21:49                       ` Reverse engineering (was Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario) Jeff Garzik
@ 2005-12-06 22:44                       ` Florian Weimer
  2005-12-06 22:56                         ` Andrea Arcangeli
  2005-12-06 23:17                         ` Lee Revell
  2 siblings, 2 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Florian Weimer @ 2005-12-06 22:44 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Lee Revell
  Cc: Jeff Garzik, Brian Gerst, Arjan van de Ven, M.,
	Andrea Arcangeli, William Lee Irwin III, linux-kernel

* Lee Revell:

> I know you are not a lawyer but do you have a pointer or two?  As long
> as we are REing for interoperability I've never read anything to
> indicate the approach I described could be a problem even in the US.

Are we still reverse-engineering for interoperability when we
essentially want to duplicate a piece of software with identical
purpose? 8-)

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 22:25               ` David Woodhouse
@ 2005-12-06 22:49                 ` Alan Cox
  2005-12-06 23:03                   ` David Woodhouse
  2005-12-06 23:25                 ` Andrew Grover
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Alan Cox @ 2005-12-06 22:49 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: David Woodhouse
  Cc: Brian Gerst, Andrea Arcangeli, William Lee Irwin III,
	Arjan van de Ven, linux-kernel

On Maw, 2005-12-06 at 22:25 +0000, David Woodhouse wrote:
> Have they? I haven't seen the excuse.

The video 'solution' is a combination of digital and analog components.
Intel defined one end only. Its a bit like AC97 audio only as I
understand it rather less structured. 

Note that most of the BIOS fixes don't replace the BIOS code, they
provide extra mode table entries to it.

Alan


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 22:44                       ` Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario Florian Weimer
@ 2005-12-06 22:56                         ` Andrea Arcangeli
  2005-12-06 23:17                         ` Lee Revell
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Andrea Arcangeli @ 2005-12-06 22:56 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Florian Weimer
  Cc: Lee Revell, Jeff Garzik, Brian Gerst, Arjan van de Ven, M.,
	William Lee Irwin III, linux-kernel

On Tue, Dec 06, 2005 at 11:44:43PM +0100, Florian Weimer wrote:
> Are we still reverse-engineering for interoperability when we
> essentially want to duplicate a piece of software with identical
> purpose? 8-)

There's not just x86* and ia64 out there, interoperability with
different archs isn't possible today.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 22:49                 ` Alan Cox
@ 2005-12-06 23:03                   ` David Woodhouse
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: David Woodhouse @ 2005-12-06 23:03 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Alan Cox
  Cc: Brian Gerst, Andrea Arcangeli, William Lee Irwin III,
	Arjan van de Ven, linux-kernel

On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 22:49 +0000, Alan Cox wrote:
> The video 'solution' is a combination of digital and analog
> components. Intel defined one end only. Its a bit like AC97 audio only
> as I understand it rather less structured. 
> 
> Note that most of the BIOS fixes don't replace the BIOS code, they
> provide extra mode table entries to it.

AIUI we can't even add 'extra' mode table entries -- we can only modify
existing entries, and we can't even set the full modeline information on
some systems because we haven't reverse-engineered the tables
completely.

It's done by copying the video BIOS into shadow RAM and modifying the
table in RAM. This isn't really much of an improvement over binary-only
drivers.

-- 
dwmw2



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Reverse engineering
  2005-12-06 20:54                         ` Jeff V. Merkey
@ 2005-12-06 23:13                           ` Bernd Petrovitsch
  2005-12-06 23:19                             ` Lee Revell
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Bernd Petrovitsch @ 2005-12-06 23:13 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jeff V. Merkey
  Cc: Alan Cox, linux-kernel, William Lee Irwin III, Andrea Arcangeli,
	M.,
	Arjan van de Ven, Brian Gerst, Lee Revell, Jeff Garzik

On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 13:54 -0700, Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
[...]
> Guys, get real.  SCO is out of money and just took 10 million in float 
> capital to keep the doors open.  They are after IBM, not Linux.  WAKE UP!!!

Yes, this was obvious since the first accusation. But "they"
-) didn't formulate it that way but came down with completely false (if
   not intentionally lied *from the very first day of the public
   campaign*).
-) used the Linux kernel as a - innocent - vehicle for their great
   campaign to get bought by IBM (which - for God's sake - didn't work
   out) *without* any serious and real background, evidence or anything
   else.

So it's completely up to these folks to make up for the damage they
evoked.

And yes, I can understand that "they" want to make money and get rich
(who doesn't want this?). And no, this doesn't imply any tolerance or
even understanding of the used means, the lying all the way, spreading
FUD, and all other less then serious accusations and the media show.

	Berndm, shutting now up about SCO since they are apparently dead

PS: I don't understand for what reason any (and which) entity should
    give them money (and if it's only 1$).
-- 
"Mozart hätte Stehgeiger werden müssen, wenn Haydn ein Patent auf
Symphonien bekommen hätte"            - http://www.luga.at/swpat/
"Der Horizont vieler Menschen ist ein Kreis mit Radius Null - und
das nennen sie ihren Standpunkt."                   - A. Einstein



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 22:44                       ` Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario Florian Weimer
  2005-12-06 22:56                         ` Andrea Arcangeli
@ 2005-12-06 23:17                         ` Lee Revell
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Lee Revell @ 2005-12-06 23:17 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Florian Weimer
  Cc: Jeff Garzik, Brian Gerst, Arjan van de Ven, M.,
	Andrea Arcangeli, William Lee Irwin III, linux-kernel

On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 23:44 +0100, Florian Weimer wrote:
> * Lee Revell:
> 
> > I know you are not a lawyer but do you have a pointer or two?  As long
> > as we are REing for interoperability I've never read anything to
> > indicate the approach I described could be a problem even in the US.
> 
> Are we still reverse-engineering for interoperability when we
> essentially want to duplicate a piece of software with identical
> purpose? 8-)
> 

I would think that any reverse engineering to make a Linux driver falls
under interoperability because it's the only way to make the hardware
work with my OS.

Lee


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Reverse engineering
  2005-12-06 23:13                           ` Reverse engineering Bernd Petrovitsch
@ 2005-12-06 23:19                             ` Lee Revell
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Lee Revell @ 2005-12-06 23:19 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Bernd Petrovitsch
  Cc: Jeff V. Merkey, Alan Cox, linux-kernel, William Lee Irwin III,
	Andrea Arcangeli, M.,
	Arjan van de Ven, Brian Gerst, Jeff Garzik

On Wed, 2005-12-07 at 00:13 +0100, Bernd Petrovitsch wrote:
> On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 13:54 -0700, Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
> [...]
> > Guys, get real.  SCO is out of money and just took 10 million in float 
> > capital to keep the doors open.  They are after IBM, not Linux.  WAKE UP!!!
> 
> Yes, this was obvious since the first accusation. But "they"
> -) didn't formulate it that way but came down with completely false (if
>    not intentionally lied *from the very first day of the public
>    campaign*).
> -) used the Linux kernel as a - innocent - vehicle for their great
>    campaign to get bought by IBM (which - for God's sake - didn't work
>    out) *without* any serious and real background, evidence or anything
>    else.
> 
> So it's completely up to these folks to make up for the damage they
> evoked.

Please don't feed the trolls, this thread was bad enough already.

Lee


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 22:25               ` David Woodhouse
  2005-12-06 22:49                 ` Alan Cox
@ 2005-12-06 23:25                 ` Andrew Grover
  2005-12-07  0:56                   ` David Woodhouse
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Andrew Grover @ 2005-12-06 23:25 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: David Woodhouse
  Cc: Alan Cox, Brian Gerst, Andrea Arcangeli, William Lee Irwin III,
	Arjan van de Ven, linux-kernel

On 12/6/05, David Woodhouse <dwmw2@infradead.org> wrote:
> On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 19:23 +0000, Alan Cox wrote:
> > On Maw, 2005-12-06 at 18:42 +0000, David Woodhouse wrote:
> > > There's some work on reverse-engineering the BIOS so that you can
> > > hackishly poke 'new' modes into its tables, but it's still not a very
> > > good option.
> >
> > Especially as the BIOS interface at the low level for the analogue end
> > and the logic driving it is board specific. Intel have been fairly clear
> > why they use the BIOS interface.
>
> Have they? I haven't seen the excuse.
>
> I assume it's similar to the excuse for ACPI -- "although we _could_
> document the chips and allow board manufacturers to include simple
> tables which describe the way they're wired together (in which they have
> relatively little leeway), we'd rather hide it all behind some opaque
> blob and have you trust HardwareVendorCode to drive it instead of being
> able to write your own and debug it as you can with Free Software"?

Where possible ACPI does still use tables. For more complicated
configuration, ACPI uses easily-decompiled bytecodes. I think if the
graphics bios provided arch-neutral AML for doing all this
mode-setting stuff we'd be better off. Better than interpreting x86
real-mode BIOS code!

> Trusting the BIOS for this kind of thing isn't really much better than
> trusting any other binary-only piece of code, from a technical point of
> view. (Ignoring the licensing issues; we have indeed digressed). In
> fact, given the traditional quality of BIOS implementations, trusting
> the BIOS is far _worse_ than trusting any other piece of binary code.

You have to get a priori information about the system somewhere. With
ACPI at least it's not a complete mystery what the BIOS is doing,
unlike these video BIOSes.

-- Andy

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 20:29                       ` Dave Jones
@ 2005-12-06 23:25                         ` Bernd Petrovitsch
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Bernd Petrovitsch @ 2005-12-06 23:25 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Dave Jones; +Cc: Paweł Sikora, linux-kernel

On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 15:29 -0500, Dave Jones wrote:
[...]
> Indeed, anything newer than a G550 is binary only as far as 3D is concerned.
> Sad, as Matrox used to be a really good recommendation for an
> opensource friendly graphic card vendor.
> 
> It's not as if their newer cards are even that fast, so my only
> guess is that they've gone the binary blob route purely for
> paranoia reasons.

Yes, the "software as such patent" and/or "trivial patent" disease
spreaded the last decades - not only in USPTO-land (and identically in
JPO-land) but also basically illegally in EPO-land.
And it is probably much simpler to "prove" (in the law sense, not
technically/mathematically) a patent infringement if you have C source
of the driver instead of some undocumented blob of object code.

	Bernd
-- 
Firmix Software GmbH                   http://www.firmix.at/
mobil: +43 664 4416156                 fax: +43 1 7890849-55
          Embedded Linux Development and Services




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Reverse engineering (was Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario)
  2005-12-06 22:21                         ` Reverse engineering (was Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario) Lee Revell
@ 2005-12-06 23:48                           ` Jeff Garzik
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Jeff Garzik @ 2005-12-06 23:48 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Lee Revell
  Cc: Brian Gerst, Arjan van de Ven, M.,
	Andrea Arcangeli, William Lee Irwin III, linux-kernel, Alan Cox

Lee Revell wrote:
> Should this high barrier to entry for reverse engineered drivers be
> documented anywhere?  I would have expected black box reverse
> engineering to be OK for Linux driver development.

As I said, the potential for problems is very high.  I did not say it 
was unacceptable.  The barrier for entry is higher, though, yes.

The current case in point is several reverse-engineered wireless 
drivers.  I am not inclined to merge a few of the questionable projects, 
but the Broadcom wireless project seems to have been done right, so it 
will likely get merged quickly (once it passes quality/code reviews, etc.)

	Jeff



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-05 18:44     ` Alistair John Strachan
  2005-12-05 19:47       ` Gene Heskett
  2005-12-06 10:51       ` Luke-Jr
@ 2005-12-07  0:01       ` William Lee Irwin III
  2 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: William Lee Irwin III @ 2005-12-07  0:01 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Alistair John Strachan; +Cc: Pekka Enberg, Arjan van de Ven, linux-kernel

On 12/5/05, William Lee Irwin III <wli@holomorphy.com> wrote:
>>> I expect the closed source IP affairs rather to keep chipping away
>>> until Linux is dead, or they get tired and change strategies to kill it,
>>> versus any sudden changes of course.

On Mon, Dec 05, 2005 at 06:44:56PM +0000, Alistair John Strachan wrote:
> The problem with this approach is the tiny size of the minority of customers 
> using ATI's video cards on a non-Windows OS.
> I think the only way we can persuade vendors to not take the direction that 
> Arjan speculates they will, is to increase the Linux userbase (and therefore 
> ATI customers using Linux) by making "Desktop Linux" increasingly competent.
> As easy as it is to be pessimistic about binary vendor lockin, there's still 
> places in industry, government and inevitably the general public where Linux 
> is slowly starting to take off as a real desktop alternative to Windows.
> When this happens, vendors will just have to solve all the IP nonsense 
> associated with their hardware, or design hardware to be more dependent on 
> firmware so that largely open source drivers are more feasible for them.

Linux has exempted itself from IP regulations of various countries by
a form of jurisdictional arbitrage, especially in the realms of reverse
engineering and cryptography. These sorts of IP regulations have strong
support from entrenched hardware, software, and entertainment interests,
and as the establishment of international/supranational regulatory
agencies proceeds and as regulatory "harmonizations" advance, this
jurisdictional arbitrage will become progressively more difficult to
continue. In particular, the "intellectual property" lobbyists, unless
challenged on a scale heretofore unseen, are likely to attempt to
convince individual governments to implement similar regulations one by
one as well as use such international/supranational affairs as the WTO,
EUCD, et al to impose such on countries otherwise disinclined to do so.

In particular, there is word of an initiative in France that threatens
to ban Linux and possibly all open-source software outright as
containing insufficient protections against the illegal dissemination
of copyrighted works, and/or as presenting some sort of threat to
royalty-based software, and/or (if I understand the notion properly) an
"illegal subsidy" to competitors of for-profit software firms, as
public utilities and other nonprofit and/or governmentally-erected
infrastructure have been ruled to be in various other instances. In
essence, a counterpart of the DMCA which declares open source software
and/or Linux a technology that can circumvent copyright protection, if
the DMCA doesn't do so itself.

Also, IP issues related to hardware are unlikely to stand still. As
observed earlier, several hardware vendors are looking to close their
driver source or to only offer binary drivers in the future. The
jurisdictional arbitrage under which the reverse engineering so common
for the implementation of open source drivers takes place is also
rather likely to be thwarted by similar attempts to promote legislation
to the above entertainment-related efforts.

So, as seen above, the "IP issues," if they're getting resolved at all,
don't appear to be getting resolved in Linux' favor. To all
appearances, there is literally an effort to legislate Linux out of
existence. One might call this "lawfare" (warfare through legislation)
against Linux.


-- wli

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 16:41           ` Dirk Steuwer
  2005-12-06 18:48             ` Lee Revell
@ 2005-12-07  0:45             ` Horst von Brand
  2005-12-07 14:17             ` Runs with Linux (tm) Benjamin LaHaise
  2 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Horst von Brand @ 2005-12-07  0:45 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Dirk Steuwer; +Cc: linux-kernel

Dirk Steuwer <dirk@steuwer.de> wrote:

[...]

> Yes, but there isn't and won't be much recognition - every company does
> its own thing. And how many people buy online all the time? But even
> then, a genery "runs with Linux" Logo would be great.

Problem is that there are certain monopolists who would like everybody to
think there is nothing else around... besides, "works with Linux" (or BSD,
or whatever) doesn't say anything if it is "includes a driver for Red Hat's
2.2.x-y". "Works with Windows" doesn't say anything either (even if MSFT
themselves certifies games for running on Win98 and later it doesn't mean
they will run on WinNT)

>                                                       If a company's
> product is not certified, its not considered by Linux customers.

Doesn't work, as almost nothing is "Linux certified" today.

>                                                                  Also you
> could hold up figures from certified hardware to impress and argue
> against companies that think there is no real market for Linux.

We here having any credible figures will happen /long/ after the affected
company has smelled the coffee and taken appropiate steps. They /do/ care
about who buys their stuff. It just is too little for now to make any big
difference. Having the figures here won't do any difference.

>                                                                  There
> needs to be a way to breack out of the chicken and egg problem - no linux
> market, no linux hardware.

There is hardware that works well enough with Linux, thank you so much.
Some is broken, some doesn't work at all.

> Corporate Customers can afford to do research, expert staff does the
> buying. But the average homeuser? He needs a generic sign, as simple as
> that.

It would be very nice, true. But just isn't here yet.
-- 
Dr. Horst H. von Brand                   User #22616 counter.li.org
Departamento de Informatica                     Fono: +56 32 654431
Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria              +56 32 654239
Casilla 110-V, Valparaiso, Chile                Fax:  +56 32 797513

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 23:25                 ` Andrew Grover
@ 2005-12-07  0:56                   ` David Woodhouse
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: David Woodhouse @ 2005-12-07  0:56 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Andrew Grover
  Cc: Alan Cox, Brian Gerst, Andrea Arcangeli, William Lee Irwin III,
	Arjan van de Ven, linux-kernel

On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 15:25 -0800, Andrew Grover wrote:
> Where possible ACPI does still use tables. For more complicated
> configuration, ACPI uses easily-decompiled bytecodes. I think if the
> graphics bios provided arch-neutral AML for doing all this
> mode-setting stuff we'd be better off. Better than interpreting x86
> real-mode BIOS code!

This is true. Real drivers with only _tables_ to describe the hardware
would be best, but AML would be at least be better than i386 code, if we
have to settle for something less.

> You have to get a priori information about the system somewhere. With
> ACPI at least it's not a complete mystery what the BIOS is doing,
> unlike these video BIOSes.

Actually, the one time I tried to decompile a DSDT it was a Dell
Inspiron which did _everything_ through SMM traps. It was more opaque
even than a binary-only driver (or BIOS). At least with i386-code I have
_some_ hope of tracing it, if I have enough time and patience.

-- 
dwmw2



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 16:11                   ` Greg KH
@ 2005-12-07  1:38                     ` Coywolf Qi Hunt
  2005-12-07  2:40                       ` Greg KH
  2005-12-10  5:17                       ` GNU/Linux " Richard M. Stallman
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Coywolf Qi Hunt @ 2005-12-07  1:38 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Greg KH
  Cc: Tim Bird, Dave Airlie, David Woodhouse, arjan, andrew, linux-kernel, rms

2005/12/7, Greg KH <greg@kroah.com>:
> On Tue, Dec 06, 2005 at 03:58:46PM +0800, Coywolf Qi Hunt wrote:
> > > [1] My usual response is, "If we are so dumb, why are you using the kernel
> > >     made by us?", which usually stops the conversation right there.
> >
> > Your response is nonsense. It has the same logic as saying "If
> > proprietary software is wrong, why are you using it?".
> > Everybody are using proprietary software, aren't they?
>
> Um, no, not at all.  The logic is, "you trust these developers enough to
> want to run their code, controlling the most basic and secure portions
> of your machines, yet you think they are incapable programmers?"

One bought a PC, that doesn't mean he trust the BIOS, the firmware, etc...
He run windows on the box, that doesn't mean he trust windows either.

>
> And no kernel developers are forcing anyone to use Linux.  If they don't
> like it for whatever reasons, there are other alternatives...

AFAIK, no proprietary software vendors are forcing any1 to buy their
proprietary software. Still you are speaking in a monopoly tone!


(cc: rms)
--
Coywolf Qi Hunt
http://sosdg.org/~coywolf/

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 18:56                   ` Linux " Luke-Jr
@ 2005-12-07  1:42                     ` Coywolf Qi Hunt
  2005-12-07  2:06                       ` Wed, 7 Dec 2005 03:06:35 +0100
  2005-12-10  5:16                       ` GNU/Linux " Richard M. Stallman
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Coywolf Qi Hunt @ 2005-12-07  1:42 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Luke-Jr; +Cc: Linux Kernel Mailing List, rms

2005/12/7, Luke-Jr <luke-jr@utopios.org>:
> On Tuesday 06 December 2005 07:58, Coywolf Qi Hunt wrote:
> > Your response is nonsense. It has the same logic as saying "If
> > proprietary software is wrong, why are you using it?".
> > Everybody are using proprietary software, aren't they?
>
> No proprietary software here, excluding things such as firmware/BIOS where
> there is no choice.

Why 'excluding'? You can't deny you are using proprietary software.
Neither do us.

(cc: rms)
--
Coywolf Qi Hunt
http://sosdg.org/~coywolf/

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-07  1:42                     ` Coywolf Qi Hunt
@ 2005-12-07  2:06                       ` Wed, 7 Dec 2005 03:06:35 +0100
  2005-12-07  5:25                         ` Jeff Garzik
  2005-12-10  5:16                       ` GNU/Linux " Richard M. Stallman
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Wed, 7 Dec 2005 03:06:35 +0100 @ 2005-12-07  2:06 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Coywolf Qi Hunt; +Cc: luke-jr, linux-kernel, rms

El Wed, 7 Dec 2005 09:42:22 +0800,
Coywolf Qi Hunt <coywolf@gmail.com> escribió:

> 2005/12/7, Luke-Jr <luke-jr@utopios.org>:
> > No proprietary software here, excluding things such as firmware/BIOS where
> > there is no choice.
> 
> Why 'excluding'? You can't deny you are using proprietary software.
> Neither do us.

BIOS'es and firmware are not drivers or normal "processes". Firmware
doesn't deal with the internal kernel's locking for example- is a very
different thing. bios and firmware is pretty much part of the hardware,
pretty much like the chips' internal design: it just "does its work".
There's no of point on having open source bioses/firmware if you don't
have the design docs and all the related hardware info aswell.

(IOW: Saying that you'are using "propietary software" because you're
using a propietary BIOS is wrong, IMO - it's pretty much "propietary 
hardware" even if its software)

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-07  1:38                     ` Coywolf Qi Hunt
@ 2005-12-07  2:40                       ` Greg KH
  2005-12-07  3:23                         ` Coywolf Qi Hunt
  2005-12-10  5:17                       ` GNU/Linux " Richard M. Stallman
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Greg KH @ 2005-12-07  2:40 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Coywolf Qi Hunt
  Cc: Tim Bird, Dave Airlie, David Woodhouse, arjan, andrew, linux-kernel, rms

On Wed, Dec 07, 2005 at 09:38:30AM +0800, Coywolf Qi Hunt wrote:
> 2005/12/7, Greg KH <greg@kroah.com>:
> > And no kernel developers are forcing anyone to use Linux.  If they don't
> > like it for whatever reasons, there are other alternatives...
> 
> AFAIK, no proprietary software vendors are forcing any1 to buy their
> proprietary software. Still you are speaking in a monopoly tone!

How is the statement, "If you don't trust the intelligence of the Linux
kernel developers, then don't use the Linux kernel." a monopolistic
tone?

I'm serious, I never want to force anyone to use Linux.  I want to make
Linux be so good that everyone wants to use it, out of their own free
will.  And if they disagree with the way Linux is developed, or the
license terms, or the way it works, it will not bother me at all if they
choose to use something else.

I hear OpenSolaris is looking for users :)

thanks,

greg k-h

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-07  2:40                       ` Greg KH
@ 2005-12-07  3:23                         ` Coywolf Qi Hunt
  2005-12-07  5:29                           ` Greg KH
  2005-12-07 18:57                           ` Horst von Brand
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Coywolf Qi Hunt @ 2005-12-07  3:23 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Greg KH
  Cc: Tim Bird, Dave Airlie, David Woodhouse, arjan, andrew, linux-kernel, rms

2005/12/7, Greg KH <greg@kroah.com>:
> On Wed, Dec 07, 2005 at 09:38:30AM +0800, Coywolf Qi Hunt wrote:
> > 2005/12/7, Greg KH <greg@kroah.com>:
> > > And no kernel developers are forcing anyone to use Linux.  If they don't
> > > like it for whatever reasons, there are other alternatives...
> >
> > AFAIK, no proprietary software vendors are forcing any1 to buy their
> > proprietary software. Still you are speaking in a monopoly tone!
>
> How is the statement, "If you don't trust the intelligence of the Linux
> kernel developers, then don't use the Linux kernel." a monopolistic
> tone?

The fact is Linux supports more hardware now. Some *BSD users turn to
Linux in order to drive their hardware for the _same_ reason as users
turn to windows. That is really a monopolistic position.

>
> I'm serious, I never want to force anyone to use Linux.  I want to make
> Linux be so good that everyone wants to use it, out of their own free
> will.  And if they disagree with the way Linux is developed, or the
> license terms, or the way it works, it will not bother me at all if they
> choose to use something else.

Never doubt.

>
> I hear OpenSolaris is looking for users :)

Clever response. Add it to your usual response. ;)
--
Coywolf Qi Hunt
http://sosdg.org/~coywolf/

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-07  2:06                       ` Wed, 7 Dec 2005 03:06:35 +0100
@ 2005-12-07  5:25                         ` Jeff Garzik
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Jeff Garzik @ 2005-12-07  5:25 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Wed, 7 Dec 2005 03:06:35 +0100
  Cc: Coywolf Qi Hunt, luke-jr, linux-kernel, rms

Wed, 7 Dec 2005 03:06:35 +0100 wrote:
> different thing. bios and firmware is pretty much part of the hardware,
> pretty much like the chips' internal design: it just "does its work".
> There's no of point on having open source bioses/firmware if you don't
> have the design docs and all the related hardware info aswell.

True for firmware, false for BIOS.

	Jeff



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-07  3:23                         ` Coywolf Qi Hunt
@ 2005-12-07  5:29                           ` Greg KH
  2005-12-07 18:57                           ` Horst von Brand
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Greg KH @ 2005-12-07  5:29 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Coywolf Qi Hunt
  Cc: Tim Bird, Dave Airlie, David Woodhouse, arjan, andrew, linux-kernel, rms

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain; charset=unknown-8bit, Size: 1620 bytes --]

On Wed, Dec 07, 2005 at 11:23:37AM +0800, Coywolf Qi Hunt wrote:
> 2005/12/7, Greg KH <greg@kroah.com>:
> > On Wed, Dec 07, 2005 at 09:38:30AM +0800, Coywolf Qi Hunt wrote:
> > > 2005/12/7, Greg KH <greg@kroah.com>:
> > > > And no kernel developers are forcing anyone to use Linux.  If they don't
> > > > like it for whatever reasons, there are other alternatives...
> > >
> > > AFAIK, no proprietary software vendors are forcing any1 to buy their
> > > proprietary software. Still you are speaking in a monopoly tone!
> >
> > How is the statement, "If you don't trust the intelligence of the Linux
> > kernel developers, then don't use the Linux kernel." a monopolistic
> > tone?
> 
> The fact is Linux supports more hardware now. Some *BSD users turn to
> Linux in order to drive their hardware for the _same_ reason as users
> turn to windows. That is really a monopolistic position.

No, not at all:
	mo·nop·o·ly
	Function: noun
	1 : exclusive control of a particular market that is marked by
	    the power to control prices and exclude competition and that
	    esp. is developed willfully rather than as the result of
	    superior products or skill.
	2 : one that has a monopoly

	Source: Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law, © 1996 Merriam-Webster, Inc.

I think our "superior product and skill" is what makes us not a
monopoly :)

Besides, the *BSD developers routinely use our code to write their own
drivers (looking at how things are done) so in the end, having Linux
support a device helps them out too.  So the "exclude competition"
portion of the above definition is also false...

thanks,

greg k-h

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 14:49               ` Arjan van de Ven
  2005-12-06 21:39                 ` Nicolas Mailhot
@ 2005-12-07  7:02                 ` Luke-Jr
  2005-12-07  7:03                   ` Arjan van de Ven
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Luke-Jr @ 2005-12-07  7:02 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Linux Kernel Mailing List

On Tuesday 06 December 2005 14:49, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> Sure. But that doesn't mean there is no purchase power. HP, Dell and IBM
> and co DO have purchasing power over NVidia and ATI. If they tell ATI or
> NVidia to either go open source (unlikely) or rearchitect their drivers
> to do the "hot IP" in userspace, it will happen.

Proprietary code in userspace is not much better.

> And YOU can influence Dell and HP and IBM again. By complaining to their
> sales people. By letting them know binary modules aren't going to cut it.

Neither is binary-only userland stuff.

Moving the problem doesn't solve it.
-- 
Luke-Jr
Developer, Utopios
http://utopios.org/

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-07  7:02                 ` Luke-Jr
@ 2005-12-07  7:03                   ` Arjan van de Ven
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Arjan van de Ven @ 2005-12-07  7:03 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Luke-Jr; +Cc: Linux Kernel Mailing List

On Wed, 2005-12-07 at 07:02 +0000, Luke-Jr wrote:
> On Tuesday 06 December 2005 14:49, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> > Sure. But that doesn't mean there is no purchase power. HP, Dell and IBM
> > and co DO have purchasing power over NVidia and ATI. If they tell ATI or
> > NVidia to either go open source (unlikely) or rearchitect their drivers
> > to do the "hot IP" in userspace, it will happen.
> 
> Proprietary code in userspace is not much better.

Actually yes it is a lot better. Maybe it's not perfect, especially when
it talks to hardware, but in general userland code won't be able to
crash the machine, and is far less sensitive to internal changes to the
kernel. Userland applications are also independent works and are
isolated from eachother when they run. As long as you don't need them
for your system to boot..  Needing a userspace "driver" for 3D stuff is
a bit less optimal than the regular userland application, because it
voids some of the advantages I listed above, but it still is a heck of a
lot better than doing it in kernel land....


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 21:35               ` Grahame White
@ 2005-12-07  8:09                 ` Dirk Steuwer
  2005-12-07 12:47                   ` Lars Marowsky-Bree
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Dirk Steuwer @ 2005-12-07  8:09 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: linux-kernel

Grahame White <grahame <at> regress.homelinux.org> writes:

> Then how about a "formal" linux certified logo? IOW a logo that can *only* 
> be used if the hardware has drivers that were written using an officially 
> supplied set of specifications and if said drivers are available under an 
> OSI certified licence. Any use of the logo on a piece of hardware that is 
> not certified would be liable to legal action.
> 
> Admittedly this would require a fair amount of effort to set up and uphold 
> but if it helped make it easier to choose compatible hardware it could be 
> worth it.


Yes, precisely what i was talking about. 
Something really simple joe average can
follow. 
It has to be validated from a license point of view, 
but also from a technical side. 
Otherwise, hardware folks license a piece of hardware and 
then change something along the way, which doesn't work with the driver. 
So ideally you have
the according linux kernel hacker acknowledging this as well was 
OSI or someone else.
This would be a fantastic central database to look up for linux hardware
compatibility. 
With clever Marketing, this in itself could be turn up quite some
revenue. 
Part of the money could be returned to kernel bounty payment....
And this would put tremendous pressure on hardware folk to get in there 
- job done.
I think this is feasable and if it chucks out some money, i can be done.

regards,
Dirk



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 17:21               ` Benjamin LaHaise
@ 2005-12-07 12:39                 ` Helge Hafting
  2005-12-07 12:41                   ` Christoph Hellwig
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Helge Hafting @ 2005-12-07 12:39 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Benjamin LaHaise; +Cc: Michael Poole, Greg KH, linux-kernel

Benjamin LaHaise wrote:

>On Mon, Dec 05, 2005 at 11:18:15PM -0500, Michael Poole wrote:
>  
>
>>Besides, if the act of linking is what makes the derivative work,
>>there is no problem: The GPL allows a user to make any modifications
>>or combinations or derivatives whatsoever, and only imposes
>>requirements when the result is distributed.  The linking of the two
>>works occurs only on the end user's machine.
>>    
>>
>
>But if it's a module, it's probably been compiled against kernel headers.  
>Last time I checked, header files were covered by the GPL unless explicitly 
>placed under a more permissive license.  How do you use something like 
>spinlocks without compiling in GPL code to a module?
>  
>
They can always claim that reverse engineering works both ways.
Linux spinlocks can be reverse engineered, or they can search
the mailing list archives for detailed explanations. :-/

Helge Hafting

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-07 12:39                 ` Helge Hafting
@ 2005-12-07 12:41                   ` Christoph Hellwig
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Christoph Hellwig @ 2005-12-07 12:41 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Helge Hafting; +Cc: Benjamin LaHaise, Michael Poole, Greg KH, linux-kernel

On Wed, Dec 07, 2005 at 01:39:48PM +0100, Helge Hafting wrote:
> They can always claim that reverse engineering works both ways.
> Linux spinlocks can be reverse engineered, or they can search
> the mailing list archives for detailed explanations. :-/

Sure they can do that.  But the point is they don't.  Every propritary driver
so far uses the linux spinlock inline routines directly, may it be in the
object or in the glue code they ship.


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 16:32   ` Florian Weimer
@ 2005-12-07 12:44     ` Helge Hafting
  2005-12-07 12:49       ` Alan Cox
  2005-12-07 16:15       ` Jon Smirl
  2005-12-07 12:55     ` Lars Marowsky-Bree
  1 sibling, 2 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Helge Hafting @ 2005-12-07 12:44 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Florian Weimer; +Cc: Jon Smirl, Arjan van de Ven, linux-kernel

Florian Weimer wrote:

>* Jon Smirl:
>
>  
>
>>2) Endure the lawsuit and hope the FSF doesn't get a $450M settlement
>>like NTP is getting from RIM. Meanwhile watch your stock price tumble
>>since the injunction prevents you from shipping product.
>>    
>>
>
>Unlike NTP[1], the FSF distributes real products and is vulnerable to
>counterclaims.
>  
>
But they can fix that in a trivial way by setting up a separate company,
"FSF patent management" or some such?

Helge Hafting

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-07  8:09                 ` Dirk Steuwer
@ 2005-12-07 12:47                   ` Lars Marowsky-Bree
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Lars Marowsky-Bree @ 2005-12-07 12:47 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: linux-kernel

On 2005-12-07T08:09:09, Dirk Steuwer <dirk@steuwer.de> wrote:

> Yes, precisely what i was talking about. 
> Something really simple joe average can
> follow. 
> It has to be validated from a license point of view, 
> but also from a technical side. 

Be careful here. You're talking about something OSDL could actually be
useful for. This means there's some serious dragons here.


Sincerely,
    Lars Marowsky-Brée

-- 
High Availability & Clustering
SUSE Labs, Research and Development
SUSE LINUX Products GmbH - A Novell Business	 -- Charles Darwin
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-07 12:44     ` Helge Hafting
@ 2005-12-07 12:49       ` Alan Cox
  2005-12-07 16:15       ` Jon Smirl
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Alan Cox @ 2005-12-07 12:49 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Helge Hafting; +Cc: Florian Weimer, Jon Smirl, Arjan van de Ven, linux-kernel

On Mer, 2005-12-07 at 13:44 +0100, Helge Hafting wrote:
> But they can fix that in a trivial way by setting up a separate company,
> "FSF patent management" or some such?

You sell the patent and all rights to an offshore company that does no
other work. They then sue you for violating the patent because you
"accidentally" forgot to keep your own rights, you settle and pay them
back the same amount of money they paid you, you claim tax breaks on the
resulting loss. 

Just spinning off a company in the modern day world is so tax
inefficient.


Alan
- -
The fundamental problem with western capitalist states is the peculiar
way they differentiate between "bribes" and "lobbying"


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 16:32   ` Florian Weimer
  2005-12-07 12:44     ` Helge Hafting
@ 2005-12-07 12:55     ` Lars Marowsky-Bree
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Lars Marowsky-Bree @ 2005-12-07 12:55 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Florian Weimer, Jon Smirl; +Cc: Arjan van de Ven, linux-kernel

On 2005-12-06T17:32:14, Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.enyo.de> wrote:

> > 2) Endure the lawsuit and hope the FSF doesn't get a $450M settlement
> > like NTP is getting from RIM. Meanwhile watch your stock price tumble
> > since the injunction prevents you from shipping product.
> Unlike NTP[1], the FSF distributes real products and is vulnerable to
> counterclaims.

We have organizations which could do this, but their sponsors wouldn't
like it.


Sincerely,
    Lars Marowsky-Brée

-- 
High Availability & Clustering
SUSE Labs, Research and Development
SUSE LINUX Products GmbH - A Novell Business	 -- Charles Darwin
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Runs with Linux (tm)
  2005-12-06 16:41           ` Dirk Steuwer
  2005-12-06 18:48             ` Lee Revell
  2005-12-07  0:45             ` Horst von Brand
@ 2005-12-07 14:17             ` Benjamin LaHaise
  2005-12-07 14:34               ` linux-os (Dick Johnson)
                                 ` (4 more replies)
  2 siblings, 5 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Benjamin LaHaise @ 2005-12-07 14:17 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Dirk Steuwer; +Cc: linux-kernel

On Tue, Dec 06, 2005 at 04:41:44PM +0000, Dirk Steuwer wrote:
> Yes, but there isn't and won't be much recognition - every company does 
> its own thing. And how many people buy online all the time? But even then, 
> a genery "runs with Linux" Logo would be great. If a company's product 
> is not certified, its not considered by Linux customers. 

This is something I've wanted to see for years now.  Linux distributions 
do not have the motivation to work out the hardware certification issues 
on the community level, as it interferes with their value add of branding.  
I have always wished that when I see hardware advertising Linux support 
that it has a meaning: open source, supportable drivers.  Maybe it's time 
to get such a project moving.

		-ben

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  4:18             ` Michael Poole
  2005-12-06 17:21               ` Benjamin LaHaise
@ 2005-12-07 14:25               ` Rik van Riel
  2005-12-07 15:56                 ` Michael Poole
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Rik van Riel @ 2005-12-07 14:25 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Michael Poole; +Cc: Greg KH, linux-kernel

On Mon, 5 Dec 2005, Michael Poole wrote:

> Most likely people bring up the "derivative works" issue because
> that's what the GPL says it affects.  The FSF contends that linking
> creates a derivative work, but is curiously quiet when people ask for
> statutory or case law to support that claim.

For statically linked programs this is quite easy to find.

-- 
All Rights Reversed

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-05 23:56         ` Tim Bird
                             ` (4 preceding siblings ...)
  2005-12-06  4:12           ` Greg KH
@ 2005-12-07 14:30           ` Rik van Riel
  5 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Rik van Riel @ 2005-12-07 14:30 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Tim Bird; +Cc: David Woodhouse, arjan, andrew, linux-kernel

On Mon, 5 Dec 2005, Tim Bird wrote:

> To the larger argument about supporting binary drivers,
> all Arjan manages to prove with his post is that,
> if handled in the worst possible way, support for
> binary drivers would be a disaster.  Who can disagree
> with that?

>From my point of view, supporting binary drivers IS
the worst possible thing we could do.

It is all too common that a user ends up with two
binary drivers in his kernel, and both of the binary
driver vendors tell the user "try without the other
vendor's driver, otherwise we will not support you".

In the mean time, the user and the distro are caught
in-between two finger pointing binary driver vendors,
with no possibility of fixing the problem the user has.

3rd party binary drivers are such a support nightmare
that I wouldn't wish them on anyone.  Especially not
on end users...

-- 
All Rights Reversed

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Runs with Linux (tm)
  2005-12-07 14:17             ` Runs with Linux (tm) Benjamin LaHaise
@ 2005-12-07 14:34               ` linux-os (Dick Johnson)
  2005-12-07 18:13               ` Randy.Dunlap
                                 ` (3 subsequent siblings)
  4 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: linux-os (Dick Johnson) @ 2005-12-07 14:34 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Benjamin LaHaise; +Cc: Dirk Steuwer, linux-kernel


On Wed, 7 Dec 2005, Benjamin LaHaise wrote:

> On Tue, Dec 06, 2005 at 04:41:44PM +0000, Dirk Steuwer wrote:
>> Yes, but there isn't and won't be much recognition - every company does
>> its own thing. And how many people buy online all the time? But even then,
>> a genery "runs with Linux" Logo would be great. If a company's product
>> is not certified, its not considered by Linux customers.
>
> This is something I've wanted to see for years now.  Linux distributions
> do not have the motivation to work out the hardware certification issues
> on the community level, as it interferes with their value add of branding.
> I have always wished that when I see hardware advertising Linux support
> that it has a meaning: open source, supportable drivers.  Maybe it's time
> to get such a project moving.
>
> 		-ben

If you have one of those junk PCs that the major companies keep
buying, look at the label; "Designed for Microsoft Windows".

This should tell you how little bluff-factor the "Linux fringe"
can pull.

In spite of the imminent destruction of major companies IP by
the incredibly stupid Windows OS, they still use it. Like lemmings
being led to the sea, most companies can't accept that M$ is
a defective, bug-ridden, and security-holed system. Instead they
think that M$ couldn't possibly be as bad as has been proven and
documented.



Cheers,
Dick Johnson
Penguin : Linux version 2.6.13.4 on an i686 machine (5589.55 BogoMips).
Warning : 98.36% of all statistics are fiction.
.

****************************************************************
The information transmitted in this message is confidential and may be privileged.  Any review, retransmission, dissemination, or other use of this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited.  If you are not the intended recipient, please notify Analogic Corporation immediately - by replying to this message or by sending an email to DeliveryErrors@analogic.com - and destroy all copies of this information, including any attachments, without reading or disclosing them.

Thank you.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-05 14:31     ` Brian Gerst
                         ` (2 preceding siblings ...)
  2005-12-06 15:17       ` Pavel Machek
@ 2005-12-07 15:06       ` Rik van Riel
  2005-12-08  7:14       ` Andrew McGregor
  4 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Rik van Riel @ 2005-12-07 15:06 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Brian Gerst
  Cc: Andrea Arcangeli, William Lee Irwin III, Arjan van de Ven, linux-kernel

On Mon, 5 Dec 2005, Brian Gerst wrote:

> The problem with this statement is that Linux users are a drop in the 
> bucket of sales for this hardware.  Boycotting doesn't cost the vendors 
> enough to make them care.

Profit margins in the hardware world are small enough that
1% of the users can have a significant influence...

> And this does nothing for people who are converting over to
> Linux, and didn't buy hardware with that consideration in mind.

Not in the short term, no.  But in the long term it may
make a difference.

-- 
All Rights Reversed

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 15:36       ` Hannu Savolainen
  2005-12-06 18:51         ` Lee Revell
@ 2005-12-07 15:18         ` Avi Kivity
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Avi Kivity @ 2005-12-07 15:18 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Hannu Savolainen; +Cc: linux-kernel

Hannu Savolainen wrote:

>
>Or why not to include an embedded version of gcc/binutils in the kernel
>LKM interface. In this way all drivers can only be distributed in source 
>code which effectively makes all forms of binary only drivers impossible. 
>After that all the EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL nonsense can be removed and a proper 
>DDI layer can be implemented for Linux. This makes it possible to ship 
>"outside the kernel build" drivers without a risk of major 
>incompatibility problems in the next kernel version. No, I'm not 100% 
>serious but just 50%.
>
>  
>
char mydriver[] = { 0x90, 0xf3, 0xa4, ... };
struct { unsigned long offset; void* symbol; } fixups[] = { { 79, 
schedule }, ... };

module_init() { link(mydriver, fixups); ((void (*)())mydriver)(); }

:)

-- 
error compiling committee.c: too many arguments to function


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-07 14:25               ` Rik van Riel
@ 2005-12-07 15:56                 ` Michael Poole
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Michael Poole @ 2005-12-07 15:56 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Rik van Riel; +Cc: Greg KH, linux-kernel

Rik van Riel writes:

> On Mon, 5 Dec 2005, Michael Poole wrote:
> 
> > Most likely people bring up the "derivative works" issue because
> > that's what the GPL says it affects.  The FSF contends that linking
> > creates a derivative work, but is curiously quiet when people ask for
> > statutory or case law to support that claim.
> 
> For statically linked programs this is quite easy to find.

Then please actually do this (rather than just waving your hands).

Michael Poole

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-07 12:44     ` Helge Hafting
  2005-12-07 12:49       ` Alan Cox
@ 2005-12-07 16:15       ` Jon Smirl
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Jon Smirl @ 2005-12-07 16:15 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Helge Hafting; +Cc: Florian Weimer, Arjan van de Ven, linux-kernel

On 12/7/05, Helge Hafting <helge.hafting@aitel.hist.no> wrote:
> Florian Weimer wrote:
>
> >* Jon Smirl:
> >
> >
> >
> >>2) Endure the lawsuit and hope the FSF doesn't get a $450M settlement
> >>like NTP is getting from RIM. Meanwhile watch your stock price tumble
> >>since the injunction prevents you from shipping product.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >Unlike NTP[1], the FSF distributes real products and is vulnerable to
> >counterclaims.
> >
> >
> But they can fix that in a trivial way by setting up a separate company,
> "FSF patent management" or some such?

Yes, even better set it up as a newly created charitable foundation.
Then donations to it are tax deductible and the headline with read:
"Patent crook steals from charity".

This doesn't have to be done in the US, but the laws in the US are
very favorable to do it.

>
> Helge Hafting
>


--
Jon Smirl
jonsmirl@gmail.com

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Runs with Linux (tm)
  2005-12-07 14:17             ` Runs with Linux (tm) Benjamin LaHaise
  2005-12-07 14:34               ` linux-os (Dick Johnson)
@ 2005-12-07 18:13               ` Randy.Dunlap
  2005-12-07 18:22                 ` Jesse Barnes
  2005-12-07 19:12               ` Lee Revell
                                 ` (2 subsequent siblings)
  4 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Randy.Dunlap @ 2005-12-07 18:13 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Benjamin LaHaise; +Cc: Dirk Steuwer, linux-kernel

On Wed, 7 Dec 2005, Benjamin LaHaise wrote:

> On Tue, Dec 06, 2005 at 04:41:44PM +0000, Dirk Steuwer wrote:
> > Yes, but there isn't and won't be much recognition - every company does
> > its own thing. And how many people buy online all the time? But even then,
> > a genery "runs with Linux" Logo would be great. If a company's product
> > is not certified, its not considered by Linux customers.
>
> This is something I've wanted to see for years now.  Linux distributions
> do not have the motivation to work out the hardware certification issues
> on the community level, as it interferes with their value add of branding.
> I have always wished that when I see hardware advertising Linux support
> that it has a meaning: open source, supportable drivers.  Maybe it's time
> to get such a project moving.

Yes, the problem afaict is the "works with Linux(notm)" crowd,
e.g., those companies who see ndiswrapper as a way to say
"works with Linux."  I don't see how the Runs with Linux(tm)
org can keep them from saying "works with Linux" and confusing
uses with that, but IANAL.  Maybe "Linux native support" or
some such words could be used to mean your "open source,
supportable drivers."

-- 
~Randy

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Runs with Linux (tm)
  2005-12-07 18:13               ` Randy.Dunlap
@ 2005-12-07 18:22                 ` Jesse Barnes
  2005-12-12 21:13                   ` David Lang
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Jesse Barnes @ 2005-12-07 18:22 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Randy.Dunlap; +Cc: Benjamin LaHaise, Dirk Steuwer, linux-kernel

On Wednesday, December 7, 2005 10:13 am, Randy.Dunlap wrote:
> > This is something I've wanted to see for years now.  Linux
> > distributions do not have the motivation to work out the hardware
> > certification issues on the community level, as it interferes with
> > their value add of branding. I have always wished that when I see
> > hardware advertising Linux support that it has a meaning: open
> > source, supportable drivers.  Maybe it's time to get such a project
> > moving.
>
> Yes, the problem afaict is the "works with Linux(notm)" crowd,
> e.g., those companies who see ndiswrapper as a way to say
> "works with Linux."  I don't see how the Runs with Linux(tm)
> org can keep them from saying "works with Linux" and confusing
> uses with that, but IANAL.  Maybe "Linux native support" or
> some such words could be used to mean your "open source,
> supportable drivers."

I think it's pretty clear that the brand would have to entail a very 
specific meaning, like "drivers for this device are open source and in 
the upstream kernel" or somesuch.  Anything else would dilute the 
meaning of a penguin sticker (or whatever it is) so much as to be 
useless I think, as you point out.

Now, who's in a position to make this happen?  Maybe Linux International?  
(I think Maddog mentioned something like this at a Kernel Summit a few 
years ago.)

Jesse

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  8:29     ` Arjan van de Ven
@ 2005-12-07 18:39       ` Rik van Riel
  2005-12-07 18:44         ` Randy.Dunlap
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Rik van Riel @ 2005-12-07 18:39 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Arjan van de Ven; +Cc: Andrea Arcangeli, William Lee Irwin III, linux-kernel

On Tue, 6 Dec 2005, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 02:18 +0100, Andrea Arcangeli wrote:

> > I am convinced that the only way to stop the erosion is to totally stop
> > buying hardware that has only binary only drivers

> this only works if more people than "just Andrea and Arjan" do it
> though.

This worked very well in the late 1990's, when various
sites had Linux hardware compatibility lists.

Does anybody still maintain a list like that today (with
components, not just whole certified systems) ?


-- 
All Rights Reversed

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-07 18:39       ` Rik van Riel
@ 2005-12-07 18:44         ` Randy.Dunlap
  2005-12-07 18:55           ` Arjan van de Ven
                             ` (3 more replies)
  0 siblings, 4 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Randy.Dunlap @ 2005-12-07 18:44 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Rik van Riel
  Cc: Arjan van de Ven, Andrea Arcangeli, William Lee Irwin III, linux-kernel

On Wed, 7 Dec 2005, Rik van Riel wrote:

> On Tue, 6 Dec 2005, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> > On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 02:18 +0100, Andrea Arcangeli wrote:
>
> > > I am convinced that the only way to stop the erosion is to totally stop
> > > buying hardware that has only binary only drivers
>
> > this only works if more people than "just Andrea and Arjan" do it
> > though.
>
> This worked very well in the late 1990's, when various
> sites had Linux hardware compatibility lists.
>
> Does anybody still maintain a list like that today (with
> components, not just whole certified systems) ?

There are lists for USB and for IEEE1394 (Firewire).
I'm not aware of others, but then I haven't searched for others.

Such lists could tell us not only which devices work (are
supported with open source drivers) but also which devices
are not supported and hence may need attention.

There has been some discussion about OSDL attempting to do this.

-- 
~Randy

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-07 18:44         ` Randy.Dunlap
@ 2005-12-07 18:55           ` Arjan van de Ven
  2005-12-07 19:53             ` Geert Uytterhoeven
  2005-12-07 20:16             ` Andrea Arcangeli
  2005-12-07 19:34           ` Lee Revell
                             ` (2 subsequent siblings)
  3 siblings, 2 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Arjan van de Ven @ 2005-12-07 18:55 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Randy.Dunlap
  Cc: Rik van Riel, Andrea Arcangeli, William Lee Irwin III, linux-kernel


> Such lists could tell us not only which devices work (are
> supported with open source drivers) but also which devices
> are not supported and hence may need attention.
> 
> There has been some discussion about OSDL attempting to do this.

the biggest pitfal by having this done by a commercial entity or an
entity with commercial funding is that there is a LOT of pressure to
call things with binary drivers also certified/working. 
It has to be an entity that can resist that pressure; if OSDL can,
great. But their funding is partially from sources that will try to put
that pressure on I suspect...
So I would almost rather have a separate "kicked off and supported by
OSDL" organisation with its own charter than have OSDL do it itself. I
can imagine OSDL feeling the same as well ...


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-07  3:23                         ` Coywolf Qi Hunt
  2005-12-07  5:29                           ` Greg KH
@ 2005-12-07 18:57                           ` Horst von Brand
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Horst von Brand @ 2005-12-07 18:57 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Coywolf Qi Hunt
  Cc: Greg KH, Tim Bird, Dave Airlie, David Woodhouse, arjan, andrew,
	linux-kernel, rms

Coywolf Qi Hunt <coywolf@gmail.com> wrote:
> 2005/12/7, Greg KH <greg@kroah.com>:
> > On Wed, Dec 07, 2005 at 09:38:30AM +0800, Coywolf Qi Hunt wrote:
> > > 2005/12/7, Greg KH <greg@kroah.com>:

> > > > And no kernel developers are forcing anyone to use Linux.  If they
> > > > don't like it for whatever reasons, there are other alternatives...

> > > AFAIK, no proprietary software vendors are forcing any1 to buy their
> > > proprietary software. Still you are speaking in a monopoly tone!

> > How is the statement, "If you don't trust the intelligence of the Linux
> > kernel developers, then don't use the Linux kernel." a monopolistic
> > tone?

> The fact is Linux supports more hardware now. Some *BSD users turn to
> Linux in order to drive their hardware for the _same_ reason as users
> turn to windows.

So? Nobody is forcing them. Nobody is squeezing them for money (or anything
else) in exchange. If they want, they can take it, use it, modify it to
their heart's content. Modulo GPL restrictions, obviously.

>                  That is really a monopolistic position.

Perhaps /position/, but not /taking advantage of it/. The second part is
where trouble brews.
-- 
Dr. Horst H. von Brand                   User #22616 counter.li.org
Departamento de Informatica                     Fono: +56 32 654431
Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria              +56 32 654239
Casilla 110-V, Valparaiso, Chile                Fax:  +56 32 797513

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Runs with Linux (tm)
  2005-12-07 14:17             ` Runs with Linux (tm) Benjamin LaHaise
  2005-12-07 14:34               ` linux-os (Dick Johnson)
  2005-12-07 18:13               ` Randy.Dunlap
@ 2005-12-07 19:12               ` Lee Revell
  2005-12-07 19:47                 ` Benjamin LaHaise
  2005-12-08  2:07               ` Richard Knutsson
  2005-12-08  9:42               ` Runs with Linux (tm) jerome lacoste
  4 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Lee Revell @ 2005-12-07 19:12 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Benjamin LaHaise; +Cc: Dirk Steuwer, linux-kernel

On Wed, 2005-12-07 at 09:17 -0500, Benjamin LaHaise wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 06, 2005 at 04:41:44PM +0000, Dirk Steuwer wrote:
> > Yes, but there isn't and won't be much recognition - every company does 
> > its own thing. And how many people buy online all the time? But even then, 
> > a genery "runs with Linux" Logo would be great. If a company's product 
> > is not certified, its not considered by Linux customers. 
> 
> This is something I've wanted to see for years now.  Linux distributions 
> do not have the motivation to work out the hardware certification issues 
> on the community level, as it interferes with their value add of branding.  
> I have always wished that when I see hardware advertising Linux support 
> that it has a meaning: open source, supportable drivers.  Maybe it's time 
> to get such a project moving.

If even some "Linux-friendly" hardware manufacturers barely cooperate
with the Linux comminuty now what makes you think this would work?

Christ, some vendors don't bother to get their Windows drivers
certified.

Lee


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-07 18:44         ` Randy.Dunlap
  2005-12-07 18:55           ` Arjan van de Ven
@ 2005-12-07 19:34           ` Lee Revell
  2005-12-07 23:17           ` Horst von Brand
  2005-12-08 10:58           ` Sander
  3 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Lee Revell @ 2005-12-07 19:34 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Randy.Dunlap
  Cc: Rik van Riel, Arjan van de Ven, Andrea Arcangeli,
	William Lee Irwin III, linux-kernel

On Wed, 2005-12-07 at 10:44 -0800, Randy.Dunlap wrote:
> On Wed, 7 Dec 2005, Rik van Riel wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, 6 Dec 2005, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> > > On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 02:18 +0100, Andrea Arcangeli wrote:
> >
> > > > I am convinced that the only way to stop the erosion is to totally stop
> > > > buying hardware that has only binary only drivers
> >
> > > this only works if more people than "just Andrea and Arjan" do it
> > > though.
> >
> > This worked very well in the late 1990's, when various
> > sites had Linux hardware compatibility lists.
> >
> > Does anybody still maintain a list like that today (with
> > components, not just whole certified systems) ?
> 
> There are lists for USB and for IEEE1394 (Firewire).
> I'm not aware of others, but then I haven't searched for others.
> 

http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/index.php?vendor=All#matrix

It's a LOT of work to keep up to date...

Lee


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Runs with Linux (tm)
  2005-12-07 19:12               ` Lee Revell
@ 2005-12-07 19:47                 ` Benjamin LaHaise
  2005-12-07 22:23                   ` Jeffrey Hundstad
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Benjamin LaHaise @ 2005-12-07 19:47 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Lee Revell; +Cc: Dirk Steuwer, linux-kernel

On Wed, Dec 07, 2005 at 02:12:20PM -0500, Lee Revell wrote:
> If even some "Linux-friendly" hardware manufacturers barely cooperate
> with the Linux comminuty now what makes you think this would work?

Nothing in life is guaranteed.  But at the very least, I think it would 
be a good step towards improving the Linux end user experience.  Instead 
of the unclear mess we have now (Is it supported?  Check with your 
vendor!), we would be able to say "Look for the Linux Certified logo".  
Combine that with a standard format for source code driver disks, and 
it would be a good step in the right direction.

> Christ, some vendors don't bother to get their Windows drivers
> certified.

Maybe our lower cost will make it easier to entice hardware vendors.  As 
far as I know, the requirements for Windows driver certification are 
pretty heft as vendors have to pay for the cost of future driver 
maintenence.  In the Linux case we'll make it easier on the vendors as 
our maintenence component comes from having the source code and many 
hands amongst the community.

		-ben
-- 
"You know, I've seen some crystals do some pretty trippy shit, man."
Don't Email: <dont@kvack.org>.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-07 18:55           ` Arjan van de Ven
@ 2005-12-07 19:53             ` Geert Uytterhoeven
  2005-12-07 20:22               ` Gerrit Huizenga
  2005-12-07 20:16             ` Andrea Arcangeli
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Geert Uytterhoeven @ 2005-12-07 19:53 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Arjan van de Ven
  Cc: Randy.Dunlap, Rik van Riel, Andrea Arcangeli,
	William Lee Irwin III, Linux Kernel Development

On Wed, 7 Dec 2005, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> > Such lists could tell us not only which devices work (are
> > supported with open source drivers) but also which devices
> > are not supported and hence may need attention.
> > 
> > There has been some discussion about OSDL attempting to do this.
> 
> the biggest pitfal by having this done by a commercial entity or an
> entity with commercial funding is that there is a LOT of pressure to
> call things with binary drivers also certified/working. 
> It has to be an entity that can resist that pressure; if OSDL can,
> great. But their funding is partially from sources that will try to put
> that pressure on I suspect...
> So I would almost rather have a separate "kicked off and supported by
> OSDL" organisation with its own charter than have OSDL do it itself. I
> can imagine OSDL feeling the same as well ...

What about linux/Documentation/, which is maintained by us (as in `the
community', not by `commercial entity that can be pressured')?

At least for a `positive' lists it's not that difficult: if the driver is in
the tree, just add the supported hardware to the list in linux/Documentation/.

Whether we want to put a `negative' list there as well is another question.
Perhaps some form of `to do' or `drivers wanted' list?

Gr{oetje,eeting}s,

						Geert

--
Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- geert@linux-m68k.org

In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But
when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that.
							    -- Linus Torvalds

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 12:26     ` Denis Vlasenko
  2005-12-06 15:36       ` Hannu Savolainen
@ 2005-12-07 20:10       ` Geert Uytterhoeven
       [not found]         ` <f0cc38560512071322m1d370589vd9f8a7684fa2ee1d@mail.gmail.com>
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Geert Uytterhoeven @ 2005-12-07 20:10 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Denis Vlasenko
  Cc: Andrea Arcangeli, William Lee Irwin III, Arjan van de Ven,
	Linux Kernel Development

On Tue, 6 Dec 2005, Denis Vlasenko wrote:
> On Tuesday 06 December 2005 03:18, Andrea Arcangeli wrote:
> > On Mon, Dec 05, 2005 at 04:18:51AM -0800, William Lee Irwin III wrote:
> > > The December 6 event is extraordinarily unlikely. What's vastly more
> > > likely is consistent "erosion" over time. First the 3D video drivers,
> > > then the wireless network drivers, then the fakeraid drivers, and so on.
> > 
> > I agree about the erosion.
> > 
> > I am convinced that the only way to stop the erosion is to totally stop
> > buying hardware that has only binary only drivers (unless you buy it to
> > create an open source driver or to reverse engineer the binary only
> > driver of course! ;).
> 
> I'm afraid there is not enough Linux users in desktop/laptop market
> for vendors to notice.
> 
> How about refusing binary-only modules instead? I mean, maybe

You mean, call panic() if module license not acceptable? Nice!

Gr{oetje,eeting}s,

						Geert

--
Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- geert@linux-m68k.org

In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But
when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that.
							    -- Linus Torvalds

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-07 18:55           ` Arjan van de Ven
  2005-12-07 19:53             ` Geert Uytterhoeven
@ 2005-12-07 20:16             ` Andrea Arcangeli
  2005-12-07 20:19               ` Arjan van de Ven
  2005-12-07 20:51               ` Rik van Riel
  1 sibling, 2 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Andrea Arcangeli @ 2005-12-07 20:16 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Arjan van de Ven
  Cc: Randy.Dunlap, Rik van Riel, William Lee Irwin III, linux-kernel

On Wed, Dec 07, 2005 at 07:55:08PM +0100, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> the biggest pitfal by having this done by a commercial entity or an
> entity with commercial funding is that there is a LOT of pressure to
> call things with binary drivers also certified/working. 
> It has to be an entity that can resist that pressure; if OSDL can,
> great. But their funding is partially from sources that will try to put
> that pressure on I suspect...
> So I would almost rather have a separate "kicked off and supported by
> OSDL" organisation with its own charter than have OSDL do it itself. I
> can imagine OSDL feeling the same as well ...

I don't like to see an entity doing this: if an organization (no matter
if for-profit or no-profit) will do it, they may ask vendors to pay to
be added to the "certified list".

Nobody should be required to pay to be added in the list. Furthermroe I
would suggest to use the kernel.org website, to leave it neutral.

A moinmoin wiki.kernel.org should work fine and it takes 10 minutes to
set it up. Let's use the community to build this list. Perhaps
wiki.kernel.org could also be used to document some kernel stuff later
on.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-07 20:16             ` Andrea Arcangeli
@ 2005-12-07 20:19               ` Arjan van de Ven
  2005-12-07 20:40                 ` Andrea Arcangeli
  2005-12-08 18:44                 ` Dave Neuer
  2005-12-07 20:51               ` Rik van Riel
  1 sibling, 2 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Arjan van de Ven @ 2005-12-07 20:19 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Andrea Arcangeli
  Cc: Randy.Dunlap, Rik van Riel, William Lee Irwin III, linux-kernel

On Wed, 2005-12-07 at 21:16 +0100, Andrea Arcangeli wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 07, 2005 at 07:55:08PM +0100, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> > the biggest pitfal by having this done by a commercial entity or an
> > entity with commercial funding is that there is a LOT of pressure to
> > call things with binary drivers also certified/working. 
> > It has to be an entity that can resist that pressure; if OSDL can,
> > great. But their funding is partially from sources that will try to put
> > that pressure on I suspect...
> > So I would almost rather have a separate "kicked off and supported by
> > OSDL" organisation with its own charter than have OSDL do it itself. I
> > can imagine OSDL feeling the same as well ...
> 
> I don't like to see an entity doing this: if an organization (no matter
> if for-profit or no-profit) will do it, they may ask vendors to pay to
> be added to the "certified list".

yeah I agree that would be not good. providing a good open driver should
be reward already, not be a reason to be asked for more money

> A moinmoin wiki.kernel.org should work fine and it takes 10 minutes to
> set it up. Let's use the community to build this list. Perhaps
> wiki.kernel.org could also be used to document some kernel stuff later
> on.

the problem with this is that with wiki's you get a sliding scope wrt
criteria; I mean, many people will say nvidia graphics work great with
linux... and the wiki will represent that ;(



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-07 19:53             ` Geert Uytterhoeven
@ 2005-12-07 20:22               ` Gerrit Huizenga
  2005-12-07 20:30                 ` Arjan van de Ven
  2005-12-07 21:02                 ` Dave Jones
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Gerrit Huizenga @ 2005-12-07 20:22 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Geert Uytterhoeven
  Cc: Arjan van de Ven, Randy.Dunlap, Rik van Riel, Andrea Arcangeli,
	William Lee Irwin III, Linux Kernel Development


On Wed, 07 Dec 2005 20:53:03 +0100, Geert Uytterhoeven wrote:
> On Wed, 7 Dec 2005, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> > > Such lists could tell us not only which devices work (are
> > > supported with open source drivers) but also which devices
> > > are not supported and hence may need attention.
> > > 
> > > There has been some discussion about OSDL attempting to do this.
> > 
> > the biggest pitfal by having this done by a commercial entity or an
> > entity with commercial funding is that there is a LOT of pressure to
> > call things with binary drivers also certified/working. 
> > It has to be an entity that can resist that pressure; if OSDL can,
> > great. But their funding is partially from sources that will try to put
> > that pressure on I suspect...
> > So I would almost rather have a separate "kicked off and supported by
> > OSDL" organisation with its own charter than have OSDL do it itself. I
> > can imagine OSDL feeling the same as well ...
> 
> What about linux/Documentation/, which is maintained by us (as in `the
> community', not by `commercial entity that can be pressured')?
> 
> At least for a `positive' lists it's not that difficult: if the driver is in
> the tree, just add the supported hardware to the list in linux/Documentation/.
> 
> Whether we want to put a `negative' list there as well is another question.
> Perhaps some form of `to do' or `drivers wanted' list?

I'm a little less worried about OSDL advocating binary drivers.  I
*am* more worried about how the message goes out, how the information
becomes visible to the right people, etc.  I think OSDL can help there;
the project managers, product marking people, senior manager's etc. at
these various companies have business models that assume Linux is
"just like everything else" and these people don't go rooting around
in linux/Documentation looking for the answers to their business model.
OSDL can help here since more business folks talk to OSDL.

And, by calling attention to those items which do and do not have source
drivers available along with the education on business reasons for
avoiding binary drivers might help get the message through to more of
the right people.

Ideally, any OSDL effort would also be reviewed and contributed to by
the development community to keep it focused in the right directions.

gerrit

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-07 20:22               ` Gerrit Huizenga
@ 2005-12-07 20:30                 ` Arjan van de Ven
  2005-12-07 20:56                   ` Andrea Arcangeli
  2005-12-07 21:02                 ` Dave Jones
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Arjan van de Ven @ 2005-12-07 20:30 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Gerrit Huizenga
  Cc: Geert Uytterhoeven, Randy.Dunlap, Rik van Riel, Andrea Arcangeli,
	William Lee Irwin III, Linux Kernel Development


> I'm a little less worried about OSDL advocating binary drivers. 

fair enough; in my experience this kind of thing comes down to defining
a good enough charter/rulebook to begin with, and then just sticking to
that. The rules can just be public and part of the communication of what
the lists are etc. If OSDL can buy into a good set of rules I see no
problems with them doing it; I do hope that it can be "for no fee"
service. Or at worst, have an option for the manufacturer to put in a
link or two on the product page for a fee to cover the costs of the lot.

>  I
> *am* more worried about how the message goes out, how the information
> becomes visible to the right people, etc.  I think OSDL can help there;

to be honest I liked the kernel.org idea... there probably can be other
means too, but a good decent website (eg nice categories, search option
etc) goes a really long way esp if it's 'official' like kernel.org is.

the hair part may be an option for users to add links to pages with
extra info for a certain piece of hardware, that needs manual review




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-07 20:19               ` Arjan van de Ven
@ 2005-12-07 20:40                 ` Andrea Arcangeli
  2005-12-08 13:23                   ` Dirk Steuwer
  2005-12-08 18:44                 ` Dave Neuer
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Andrea Arcangeli @ 2005-12-07 20:40 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Arjan van de Ven
  Cc: Randy.Dunlap, Rik van Riel, William Lee Irwin III, linux-kernel

On Wed, Dec 07, 2005 at 09:19:02PM +0100, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> the problem with this is that with wiki's you get a sliding scope wrt
> criteria; I mean, many people will say nvidia graphics work great with
> linux... and the wiki will represent that ;(

then the wiki will be closed. But it worth a try. Of course the topic
will explain it's a list of hardware supported by open source (GPL
compatible) drivers.

Like wiki.kernel.org/OpenSourceKernelDrivers

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-07 20:16             ` Andrea Arcangeli
  2005-12-07 20:19               ` Arjan van de Ven
@ 2005-12-07 20:51               ` Rik van Riel
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Rik van Riel @ 2005-12-07 20:51 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Andrea Arcangeli
  Cc: Arjan van de Ven, Randy.Dunlap, William Lee Irwin III, linux-kernel

On Wed, 7 Dec 2005, Andrea Arcangeli wrote:

> A moinmoin wiki.kernel.org should work fine and it takes 10 minutes to
> set it up. Let's use the community to build this list.

MoinMoin needs a navigation structure though.  This has
been on my TODO list (http://linux-mm.org/RikvanRiel) for
months now, but I haven't gotten around to it yet ;(

Maybe I should try making this during the christmas
holidays. Or, better yet, convince somebody else to do
it with this shameless email ;)

> Perhaps wiki.kernel.org could also be used to document some kernel stuff 
> later on.

This is already done in a few places:

http://linux-net.osdl.org/
http://linux-mm.org/
http://wiki.kernelnewbies.org/

-- 
All Rights Reversed

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-07 20:30                 ` Arjan van de Ven
@ 2005-12-07 20:56                   ` Andrea Arcangeli
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Andrea Arcangeli @ 2005-12-07 20:56 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Arjan van de Ven
  Cc: Gerrit Huizenga, Geert Uytterhoeven, Randy.Dunlap, Rik van Riel,
	William Lee Irwin III, Linux Kernel Development

On Wed, Dec 07, 2005 at 09:30:13PM +0100, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> to be honest I liked the kernel.org idea... there probably can be other
> means too, but a good decent website (eg nice categories, search option
> etc) goes a really long way esp if it's 'official' like kernel.org is.

To categorize with wiki, hierarchy can be used. Like
OpenSourceKernelDrivers/{Storage,Video,Audio} etc... Search is
automatic. However for audio one may as well just use #redirect
www.alsasomehwere inside the Audio page.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-07 20:22               ` Gerrit Huizenga
  2005-12-07 20:30                 ` Arjan van de Ven
@ 2005-12-07 21:02                 ` Dave Jones
  2005-12-07 21:30                   ` Gerrit Huizenga
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Dave Jones @ 2005-12-07 21:02 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Gerrit Huizenga
  Cc: Geert Uytterhoeven, Arjan van de Ven, Randy.Dunlap, Rik van Riel,
	Andrea Arcangeli, William Lee Irwin III,
	Linux Kernel Development

On Wed, Dec 07, 2005 at 12:22:24PM -0800, Gerrit Huizenga wrote:

 > I'm a little less worried about OSDL advocating binary drivers.

Really ? That's a worst case scenario as far as I can see.

		Dave


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-07 21:02                 ` Dave Jones
@ 2005-12-07 21:30                   ` Gerrit Huizenga
  2005-12-07 21:38                     ` David S. Miller
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Gerrit Huizenga @ 2005-12-07 21:30 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Dave Jones
  Cc: Geert Uytterhoeven, Arjan van de Ven, Randy.Dunlap, Rik van Riel,
	Andrea Arcangeli, William Lee Irwin III,
	Linux Kernel Development, Leann Ogasawara


On Wed, 07 Dec 2005 16:02:46 EST, Dave Jones wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 07, 2005 at 12:22:24PM -0800, Gerrit Huizenga wrote:
> 
>  > I'm a little less worried about OSDL advocating binary drivers.
> 
> Really ? That's a worst case scenario as far as I can see.

So, OSDL is an organization, sometimes referred to as "osdl.org"
and OSDL has members which are listed on the members page.

OSDL.org has no desire to advocate binary drivers in any way and I
don't expect that they will do anything to educate or influence their
members or the global vendor/IHV/developer communities to use binary
drivers.  Further, I expect they will do exactly the opposite, in
particular, educate members, developers, IHV's on how to deploy
open source drivers and the benefits of doing so.

There are *members* of OSDL who continue to have binary drivers as
part of their product line, in part because of IHV business choices,
and some of those *members* (e.g. IBM) are working to reduce the
number of binary drivers while at the same time not impacting revenue.
The goal is to remove all need for binary drivers as quickly as we can.
Business realities are keeping this from happening "immediately" but most
of the member companies that I know of are working in a similar direction.

OSDL.org has also offered to help by creating a mailing list for open source
drivers with a focus on educating and supporting IHV's (see
os_drivers@lists.osdl.org) and a new documentation site (brand new!!!)
http://developer.osdl.org/dev/opendrivers/documentation/ which will
evolve into a Wiki over time.  That Wiki will hopefully help out
IHV developers but ALSO will focus on program managers, product
managers, executives, etc.

Resolving the customer issues related to device drivers has been rated
as the #1 problem impeding customer adoption of Linux today.  That has
been raised by several vendors as well as by the OSDL Board of directors
as the #1 problem to solve.

There is a contingent of us working to ensure that the future solution
to this problem is aligned with the community guidelines of open source,
mainline accepted drivers over time, as well as with the distro needs
as we understand them.  There is a lot of material that we've generated
with a goal of educating the IHV's; we continue to work with them over
time at all levels within our own companies and the various IHV's.  This
is not an easy battle - MS still owns a large share of the IHV's business
and it is ultimately business reasons that are most compelling to
them over time.

But, net summary, I trust that OSDL would do the right thing in hosting
and editing a repository of information related to helping companies
move towards open source drivers over time.

gerrit

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-07 21:30                   ` Gerrit Huizenga
@ 2005-12-07 21:38                     ` David S. Miller
  2005-12-07 21:47                       ` Andrew Walrond
                                         ` (2 more replies)
  0 siblings, 3 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: David S. Miller @ 2005-12-07 21:38 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: gh
  Cc: davej, geert, arjan, rdunlap, riel, andrea, wli, linux-kernel, ogasawara

From: Gerrit Huizenga <gh@us.ibm.com>
Date: Wed, 07 Dec 2005 13:30:18 -0800

> OSDL.org has no desire to advocate binary drivers in any way and I
> don't expect that they will do anything to educate or influence their
> members or the global vendor/IHV/developer communities to use binary
> drivers.  Further, I expect they will do exactly the opposite, in
> particular, educate members, developers, IHV's on how to deploy
> open source drivers and the benefits of doing so.

You might want to read the following before stating such
things:

	http://www.kroah.com/log/2005/11/03/#osdl_gkai

Thanks.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 16:16 ` Jon Smirl
  2005-12-06 16:32   ` Florian Weimer
@ 2005-12-07 21:46   ` Chase Venters
  2005-12-07 23:07     ` Alan Cox
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Chase Venters @ 2005-12-07 21:46 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jon Smirl; +Cc: Arjan van de Ven, linux-kernel

On Tue, 6 Dec 2005, Jon Smirl wrote:

> On 12/5/05, Arjan van de Ven <arjan@infradead.org> wrote:
>> Linux in a binary world
>
> Why not start our own Linux doomsday? Give the closed source vendors
> exactly what they fear the most, a patent lawsuit. Whining will get us
> nowhere, hitting the vendor's revenue stream will get you anything you
> want.

I like this idea a lot.

> US patent infringement provides the giant sledgehammer of having a
> court issue an injunction stopping the shipment of product that is in
> litigation over patent infringement. Note that it does not have to be
> proven that the the patents are valid. RIM is very close to having an
> injunction issued against it even though it is likely that the patents
> they are accused of violating will be found invalid.
>

The other thing to keep in mind in the specific case of ATI and NVIDIA is 
that their competition is feirce and expensive. They somewhat depend
on consumers being willing to purchase a new graphics card every half
year to two years. The fact that they have both 'held the throne'
so to speak in terms of performance and might demonstrate that a
costly patent lawsuit would be a good thing for them to avoid -
because their competitor is literally breathing down their neck,
they could very much do without the distraction or the loss of funds.

> The game plan is simple. IBM and Intel hold 
> enough hardware patents to
> take down any hardware company these choose. Donate one or two key
> patents to the FSF with a rule that they can't be used against the
> company that donated them. The FSF then moves for a patent
> infringement injunction against ATI, NVidia or other closed source
> vendor.
>
> The target company gets a choice:
>
> 1) open source the drivers and hardware. As a sweetener contribute a
> patent to the pool and aim the FSF at the next domino. In exchange the
> suit will be dropped.
>

Perhaps the way to go about this is to put a lot of applicable patents
in a pool. Join us and our patents will defend your newly opened
drivers from your competition's lawsuits. Oppose us, and we will make 
things very bad for you, giving your competition an opportunity to take
the lead again, and if they know what's good for them, beat you to
the punch with open drivers.

The key then is target one company at a time, because the time
and money they would waste defending themselves would likely do very
bad things to allowing their competitor to take a *big* lead. Hell,
wasn't 3dfx's fall from power partially related to IP suits? Or
did I just hear that somewhere? I don't recall.

> 2) Endure the lawsuit and 
> hope the FSF doesn't get a $450M settlement
> like NTP is getting from RIM. Meanwhile watch your stock price tumble
> since the injunction prevents you from shipping product.
>
> http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-ebay4dec04,0,6943666.story?coll=la-news-comment-editorials
>
> --
> Jon Smirl
> jonsmirl@gmail.com
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/
>

Ah, what it's like to dream. :)

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-07 21:38                     ` David S. Miller
@ 2005-12-07 21:47                       ` Andrew Walrond
  2005-12-07 21:53                       ` Gerrit Huizenga
  2005-12-12 17:52                       ` Ric Wheeler
  2 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Andrew Walrond @ 2005-12-07 21:47 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: linux-kernel

On Wednesday 07 December 2005 21:38, David S. Miller wrote:
>
> You might want to read the following before stating such
> things:
>
> 	http://www.kroah.com/log/2005/11/03/#osdl_gkai
>

Ouch!

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-07 21:38                     ` David S. Miller
  2005-12-07 21:47                       ` Andrew Walrond
@ 2005-12-07 21:53                       ` Gerrit Huizenga
  2005-12-12 17:52                       ` Ric Wheeler
  2 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Gerrit Huizenga @ 2005-12-07 21:53 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: David S. Miller
  Cc: davej, geert, arjan, rdunlap, riel, andrea, wli, linux-kernel, ogasawara


On Wed, 07 Dec 2005 13:38:20 PST, "David S. Miller" wrote:
> From: Gerrit Huizenga <gh@us.ibm.com>
> Date: Wed, 07 Dec 2005 13:30:18 -0800
> 
> > OSDL.org has no desire to advocate binary drivers in any way and I
> > don't expect that they will do anything to educate or influence their
> > members or the global vendor/IHV/developer communities to use binary
> > drivers.  Further, I expect they will do exactly the opposite, in
> > particular, educate members, developers, IHV's on how to deploy
> > open source drivers and the benefits of doing so.
> 
> You might want to read the following before stating such
> things:
> 
> 	http://www.kroah.com/log/2005/11/03/#osdl_gkai
> 
> Thanks.

I have read that and in fact I was at that meeting.  That was a case
where we had spent some time trying to convince member companies that
a stable kernel API was not going to happen.  They did not believe it.
Greg and others came in and expressed directly to those people their
viewpoints.  That has helped and the companies in question are still
thinking about their future strategy.  Greg had an impact where OSDL
members (myself included) were simply viewed as expressing a radical
opinion which reality would change.

This whole concept of drivers being broken has been painful for everyone
and people are still trying to apply traditional solutions.  The kernel
communities solution solves a piece of the problem (not the distro portion
of the problem) but the continuing education on a pardaigm shift seems
to be unending.  I've been working on this for over a year and I still
run into people every day that just don't see the value of the paradigm
change and don't even realize that there *is* a paradigm change.

Wishing the problem away hasn't helped.  People need education and all
kinds of levels and unfortunately LKML doesn't reach most of the people
that actually need the education.  :(

gerrit

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Runs with Linux (tm)
  2005-12-07 19:47                 ` Benjamin LaHaise
@ 2005-12-07 22:23                   ` Jeffrey Hundstad
  1970-01-02  3:28                     ` Pavel Machek
                                       ` (3 more replies)
  0 siblings, 4 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Jeffrey Hundstad @ 2005-12-07 22:23 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Benjamin LaHaise; +Cc: Lee Revell, Dirk Steuwer, linux-kernel

Benjamin LaHaise wrote:

>On Wed, Dec 07, 2005 at 02:12:20PM -0500, Lee Revell wrote:
>  
>
>>If even some "Linux-friendly" hardware manufacturers barely cooperate
>>with the Linux comminuty now what makes you think this would work?
>>    
>>
>
>Nothing in life is guaranteed.  But at the very least, I think it would 
>be a good step towards improving the Linux end user experience.  Instead 
>of the unclear mess we have now (Is it supported?  Check with your 
>vendor!), we would be able to say "Look for the Linux Certified logo".  
>Combine that with a standard format for source code driver disks, and 
>it would be a good step in the right direction.
>
>  
>
The problem as I see it:

A hardware vendor hires someone to write a driver.  The driver is 
completed and submitted and finally makes it into the kernel.  It's 
fully GPL and everyone is happy.  The hardware gets a "Native Linux 
Support" logo.  The card goes out of favor and no one is interested in 
maintaining the driver, it is marked obsolete and finally removed from 
the kernel. ...the logo still suggests the hardware will work.

Possible fix:

It might be possible to add a serial number to the logo, and keep a 
database that maintains a current status of the device in the Linux kernel.

Does this make sense?

-- 
Jeffrey Hundstad
PS.  warning "not politically correct": When I heard "Native Linux 
Support" I immediately thought of Tux with a full Native American Indian 
headdress

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Runs with Linux (tm)
  2005-12-07 22:23                   ` Jeffrey Hundstad
  1970-01-02  3:28                     ` Pavel Machek
@ 2005-12-07 22:29                     ` Michael Poole
  2005-12-08  8:08                       ` Helge Hafting
  2005-12-07 22:49                     ` Benjamin LaHaise
  2005-12-08  3:28                     ` Magnus Damm
  3 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Michael Poole @ 2005-12-07 22:29 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jeffrey Hundstad; +Cc: Benjamin LaHaise, Lee Revell, Dirk Steuwer, linux-kernel

Jeffrey Hundstad writes:

> It might be possible to add a serial number to the logo, and keep a
> database that maintains a current status of the device in the Linux
> kernel.
> 
> Does this make sense?

Not especially.  To be accurate, it would have to be bumped every time
a driver is removed from the kernel -- or, more accurately, every time
the in-kernel API changes.  To be useful, such an increment would have
to only happen once a year or so, or else updating the packaging is
too much work.  Currently, the in-kernel API changes every month or
two, which means a driver compatibility serial number would be
inaccurate, futile, or both.

Michael Poole

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Runs with Linux (tm)
  2005-12-07 22:23                   ` Jeffrey Hundstad
  1970-01-02  3:28                     ` Pavel Machek
  2005-12-07 22:29                     ` Michael Poole
@ 2005-12-07 22:49                     ` Benjamin LaHaise
  2005-12-08  3:28                     ` Magnus Damm
  3 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Benjamin LaHaise @ 2005-12-07 22:49 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jeffrey Hundstad; +Cc: Lee Revell, Dirk Steuwer, linux-kernel

On Wed, Dec 07, 2005 at 04:23:59PM -0600, Jeffrey Hundstad wrote:
> The problem as I see it:
> 
> A hardware vendor hires someone to write a driver.  The driver is 
> completed and submitted and finally makes it into the kernel.  It's 
> fully GPL and everyone is happy.  The hardware gets a "Native Linux 
> Support" logo.  The card goes out of favor and no one is interested in 
> maintaining the driver, it is marked obsolete and finally removed from 
> the kernel. ...the logo still suggests the hardware will work.

Your assumptions are pretty wild: drivers which are accepted into the 
mainline kernel, we *rarely* drop.  Only recently have some of the more 
impossible to find ISA drivers started being dropped.

> It might be possible to add a serial number to the logo, and keep a 
> database that maintains a current status of the device in the Linux kernel.

Note as you're thinking.  It makes more sense to say that the driver 
works with version x.y.z of the kernel and later.

		-ben
-- 
"You know, I've seen some crystals do some pretty trippy shit, man."
Don't Email: <dont@kvack.org>.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-07 21:46   ` Chase Venters
@ 2005-12-07 23:07     ` Alan Cox
  2005-12-07 23:41       ` Jon Smirl
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Alan Cox @ 2005-12-07 23:07 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Chase Venters; +Cc: Jon Smirl, Arjan van de Ven, linux-kernel

On Mer, 2005-12-07 at 15:46 -0600, Chase Venters wrote:
> bad things to allowing their competitor to take a *big* lead. Hell,
> wasn't 3dfx's fall from power partially related to IP suits? Or
> did I just hear that somewhere? I don't recall.

If my memory still works correctly 3Dfx sued Nvidia and in the end
Nvidia had to buy them to solve it. Patents are a big issue in the 3D
graphics space and the 'what they can't see' approach to minimising
lawsuits has its obvious appeal.

One of the problems in this area is the big fight going on and the fact
it is not commodity. Ten random developers are not going to produce a
driver comparable to Nvidia's libGL in the same way that ten random
developers can produce as good an ATA or SCSI adapter as anyone else


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-07 18:44         ` Randy.Dunlap
  2005-12-07 18:55           ` Arjan van de Ven
  2005-12-07 19:34           ` Lee Revell
@ 2005-12-07 23:17           ` Horst von Brand
  2005-12-09  6:17             ` Ben Greear
  2005-12-08 10:58           ` Sander
  3 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Horst von Brand @ 2005-12-07 23:17 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Randy.Dunlap
  Cc: Rik van Riel, Arjan van de Ven, Andrea Arcangeli,
	William Lee Irwin III, linux-kernel

Randy.Dunlap <rdunlap@xenotime.net> wrote:
> On Wed, 7 Dec 2005, Rik van Riel wrote:

[...]

> > Does anybody still maintain a list like that today (with
> > components, not just whole certified systems) ?
> 
> There are lists for USB and for IEEE1394 (Firewire).
> I'm not aware of others, but then I haven't searched for others.

<http://www.linuxprinting.org> has comprehensive coverage of printers.
Yes, I know it is not exactly what has been asked here, but still.
-- 
Dr. Horst H. von Brand                   User #22616 counter.li.org
Departamento de Informatica                     Fono: +56 32 654431
Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria              +56 32 654239
Casilla 110-V, Valparaiso, Chile                Fax:  +56 32 797513

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-07 23:07     ` Alan Cox
@ 2005-12-07 23:41       ` Jon Smirl
  2005-12-07 23:59         ` Chase Venters
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Jon Smirl @ 2005-12-07 23:41 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Alan Cox; +Cc: Chase Venters, Arjan van de Ven, linux-kernel

On 12/7/05, Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> wrote:
> On Mer, 2005-12-07 at 15:46 -0600, Chase Venters wrote:
> > bad things to allowing their competitor to take a *big* lead. Hell,
> > wasn't 3dfx's fall from power partially related to IP suits? Or
> > did I just hear that somewhere? I don't recall.
>
> If my memory still works correctly 3Dfx sued Nvidia and in the end
> Nvidia had to buy them to solve it. Patents are a big issue in the 3D
> graphics space and the 'what they can't see' approach to minimising
> lawsuits has its obvious appeal.
>
> One of the problems in this area is the big fight going on and the fact
> it is not commodity. Ten random developers are not going to produce a
> driver comparable to Nvidia's libGL in the same way that ten random
> developers can produce as good an ATA or SCSI adapter as anyone else

I do believe that patent lawsuits can be used to force hardware specs
out of everyone; all we need is for someone to donate a good patent to
get the ball rolling. Being on the receiving end of a suit like this
will suck big time. There is no good solution for the company being
attacked, cough up your hardware specs or risk an injunction that may
kill your company.

But to play fair the settlement should only ask for the specs needed
to program the hardware. It wouldn't be right to use these tactics to
force Nvidia's libGL source out of them if they didn't want to
contribute it.

Can the Linux community justify using ruthless means to force
documentation out of vendors? Asking politely doesn't seem to be
working -  I suspect it may take something of this magnitude to force
a change out of NVidia/ATI.

--
Jon Smirl
jonsmirl@gmail.com

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-07 23:41       ` Jon Smirl
@ 2005-12-07 23:59         ` Chase Venters
  2005-12-08  8:24           ` Helge Hafting
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Chase Venters @ 2005-12-07 23:59 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jon Smirl; +Cc: Alan Cox, Arjan van de Ven, linux-kernel

On Wednesday 07 December 2005 05:41 pm, Jon Smirl wrote:
> Can the Linux community justify using ruthless means to force
> documentation out of vendors? Asking politely doesn't seem to be
> working -  I suspect it may take something of this magnitude to force
> a change out of NVidia/ATI.

Is this a vote? Cause you have mine. :)

Seriously, there is a danger in the move being seen by the press as too 
adversarial, but with everything I've been reading and seeing lately, I'm 
starting to think that the NVidia/ATI situation may be the single largest 
danger to Linux.

I'm sorry to have not followed the entire "Small PCI Core Patch" thread and 
reference it anyway, but would any device class in Linux be in *near* as much 
danger as the video drivers if Greg's patch was a reality? I seem to have the 
impression that there would be alternative wireless drivers, SCSI drivers, 
etc... 

I think you'd want to try to be more political, naturally. It could start by 
gently suggesting to NVIDIA or ATI that they join a patent commons project 
(where these offensive patents will also reside). They open their driver and 
agree to allow the open source driver to use their patents, then in return 
the commons agrees to defend them from backlash.

But that might not work - things might just heat up. Who would you go after 
first - NVIDIA or ATI? The underdog or the current leader? A threat of losing 
your market leadership, or of being seriously beaten while you are already 
down?

If we got an open graphics driver from one of these two (or, hell, even the 
ability to make one), I would hope that would give us the boost we need to, 
after a short while, finish kicking binary drivers out for good.

But perhaps I'm still dreaming.

- Chase

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 21:39                 ` Nicolas Mailhot
@ 2005-12-08  0:58                   ` Kasper Sandberg
  2005-12-08  2:24                     ` Diego Calleja
  2005-12-08 19:32                     ` Horst von Brand
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Kasper Sandberg @ 2005-12-08  0:58 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Nicolas Mailhot; +Cc: linux-kernel

On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 21:39 +0000, Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
> Arjan van de Ven <arjan <at> infradead.org> writes:
> 
> > There are lots of opportunities to put pressure on vendors, either
> > direct or indirect. Nvidia has a support department. If they get enough
> > calls / letters about their solution not being good enough, they're more
> > likely to consider the rearchtect solution. 
> 
> Indeed a single centralized complete online hardware database (with hardware
> rated according to driver support level) would go a long way to put real
> pressure on vendors. We know how to set up one for gnome/kde themes surely it'd
> be possible to create one for hardware ? (not the current nebulae of
> semi-complete overlapping projects, menuconfig entries, blog notes, linux-kernel
> notifications)
> 
> But this requires _kernel_ _people_ cooperation. You're the ones who know what
> works and what doesn't. You're the ones who know which corporations are helpful.
> You're the first people users contact when they have new hardware they'd like to
> make work. You're the ones who know which drivers you're currently working on.
> 
> The PCI ID database can be maintained without kernel people intervention. A
> "linux-friendly hardware" database can not.
> 
> Right now getting hardware advice is a long and painful process. Hardware that
> works is only semi-documented. Hardware which doesn't isn't at all. Users have
> to comb numerous on-line databases and mail archives (full of obsolete/wrong
> info) to spec a single linux-friendly system. Few people bother to answer
> hardware advice requests on mailing lists.
i disagree, you make it sound like it takes weeks of effort to find out
which stuff works on linux, and that basically you have to be lucky to
find it at all...

basically the only thing that doesent work (i dont count binary-only
solutions working) is nvidia and ati.

other mainstream stuff just works.. i never have to look for hardware
when i buy, it simply works (whereas the few times i have put together a
system that should run windows hardware has often not worked very well..
if at all)

i have also converted a fair share of windows users to linux, where they
have simply gone to the store and bought their pc, and it has never
given problems (granted, there i have installed nvidia driver even
though its closed source stuff.)

as it is today, the end user doesent really have much of a problem.

> 
> Linux users could reward friendly hardware makers if only you bothered to point
> them the right way. That is :
> - list publicly working hardware as soon as the kernel driver is ready
> - list publicly non-working hardware as soon as someone enquires for a reference
> which does not work.
i agree, stupid vendors which ignores linux drivers should be pointed
out, and vendors which either give specs, develop drivers or help doing
so should also be pointed out.

> 
> There's no magic.
> 
> Hardware makers do all kinds of stupid stuff to please review sites. Review
> sites are influential because lots of people buy stuff based on their advice.
> Lots of people follow review site advice because review sites centralize info
> about all kinds of hardware, so you don't have to comb the web to find it.
> 
> As Groklaw has shown - if you manage to do complete coverage of a subject, even
> an obscure subject like IP laws or Linux drivers, you suddenly get quoted
> everywhere. But to reach that stage you mustn't go halfways but record
> meticulously info about all the hardware you know of.
> 


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 21:00               ` Francois Romieu
@ 2005-12-08  1:04                 ` Kasper Sandberg
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Kasper Sandberg @ 2005-12-08  1:04 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Francois Romieu; +Cc: Brian Gerst, linux-kernel

On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 22:00 +0100, Francois Romieu wrote:
> Brian Gerst <bgerst@didntduck.org> :
> [...]
> > walk into a computer store and find anything else (I don't count 
> > integrated video on the motherboard as a solution, since only Intel 
> > boards have it, sorry AMD users).
> 
> Some SiS based motherboards offer both an integrated video and AMD
> processor support.
> 
unfortunately that sis chip has a hardware bug (or so the xorg module
tells me) which makes dri impossible, and video overlay extremely bad..

> --
> Ueimor
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/
> 


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Runs with Linux (tm)
  2005-12-07 14:17             ` Runs with Linux (tm) Benjamin LaHaise
                                 ` (2 preceding siblings ...)
  2005-12-07 19:12               ` Lee Revell
@ 2005-12-08  2:07               ` Richard Knutsson
  2005-12-08  2:38                 ` Benjamin LaHaise
  2005-12-08  9:42               ` Runs with Linux (tm) jerome lacoste
  4 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Richard Knutsson @ 2005-12-08  2:07 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Benjamin LaHaise; +Cc: Dirk Steuwer, linux-kernel

Benjamin LaHaise wrote:

>On Tue, Dec 06, 2005 at 04:41:44PM +0000, Dirk Steuwer wrote:
>  
>
>>Yes, but there isn't and won't be much recognition - every company does 
>>its own thing. And how many people buy online all the time? But even then, 
>>a genery "runs with Linux" Logo would be great. If a company's product 
>>is not certified, its not considered by Linux customers. 
>>    
>>
>
>This is something I've wanted to see for years now.  Linux distributions 
>do not have the motivation to work out the hardware certification issues 
>on the community level, as it interferes with their value add of branding.  
>I have always wished that when I see hardware advertising Linux support 
>that it has a meaning: open source, supportable drivers.  Maybe it's time 
>to get such a project moving.
>
>		-ben
>-
>  
>
Hi

I understand this as a logical answer to "Designed for Windows", but is 
it really what we want?

After all, "Runs with Linux" (or such) does not, by it self, speak about 
closed drivers. Also, it will only attract Linux-users toward a goal 
everyone would gain from: maintainable drivers after "expiration" date. 
Why not something more of "Runs on Open Drivers", which also gives us a 
chance to "teach" people why to use an open OS without the replies:
"Windows is pretty" (actually, it was a guy who told me that)
"It is difficult (to learn new stuff)"
etc..
Even in the short run (we _will_ have world-domination someday ;) ) I 
think such an approach is more beneficial because we can gather force 
from *BSD, Solaris and (even) Windows-users as well.

Well, just an idea...

/Richard Knutsson


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-08  0:58                   ` Kasper Sandberg
@ 2005-12-08  2:24                     ` Diego Calleja
  2005-12-08  6:21                       ` Zwane Mwaikambo
  2005-12-08 19:32                     ` Horst von Brand
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Diego Calleja @ 2005-12-08  2:24 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Kasper Sandberg; +Cc: nicolas.mailhot, linux-kernel

El Thu, 08 Dec 2005 01:58:56 +0100,
Kasper Sandberg <lkml@metanurb.dk> escribió:


> i disagree, you make it sound like it takes weeks of effort to find out
> which stuff works on linux, and that basically you have to be lucky to
> find it at all...
> 
> basically the only thing that doesent work (i dont count binary-only
> solutions working) is nvidia and ati.

Agreed - I know several people who has bought "exotic" laptops and
everything (sound, usb, irda, firewire, ethernet, pcmcia slots) except 
video cards worked out-of-the box using distros like ubuntu

Many times Windows XP requires inserting the CDs with 3rd party drivers.

IMO the way linux is doing things is the Right Way: Hardware should
work out of the box, and things like the windows' panel control driver
dialogs are a failure because users should't care about low-level
things like installing drivers. The "works under linux logo" is
misleading because a given device may not have such logo and
it may have been supported by a recent kernel version or it may
work only with a distro or things like that.


Companies like adaptec are collaborating in creating open source
drivers since linux became relevant in servers because companies
understood that their devices need to support linux properly
if they want to get money. IMO it will happen the same with desktops
once linux gets a decent part of the market share if people keeps the
same pressure on them.

The main problem right now are graphic chips, but IMHO that's because
right now there's a "revolution" in the graphics market: programmable
GPUs, 3d-hardware-accelerated desktops and all that, but i think
it'd be reasonable to expect that it'll settle down after a few years
and it will be easier to write drivers for them (today you can
reverse engineer a device but ati will release a new and revamped
chip in six months etc.)

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Runs with Linux (tm)
  2005-12-08  2:07               ` Richard Knutsson
@ 2005-12-08  2:38                 ` Benjamin LaHaise
  2005-12-08  4:15                   ` Richard Knutsson
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Benjamin LaHaise @ 2005-12-08  2:38 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Richard Knutsson; +Cc: Dirk Steuwer, linux-kernel

On Thu, Dec 08, 2005 at 03:07:37AM +0100, Richard Knutsson wrote:
> Why not something more of "Runs on Open Drivers", which also gives us a 
> chance to "teach" people why to use an open OS without the replies:
> "Windows is pretty" (actually, it was a guy who told me that)

What does something like that say about the state of the drivers?  If one 
of the open OSes doesn't merge the driver, do they get to use the logo?  
The more you dilute something, the harder the whole process becomes.


		-ben
-- 
"You know, I've seen some crystals do some pretty trippy shit, man."
Don't Email: <dont@kvack.org>.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Runs with Linux (tm)
  2005-12-07 22:23                   ` Jeffrey Hundstad
                                       ` (2 preceding siblings ...)
  2005-12-07 22:49                     ` Benjamin LaHaise
@ 2005-12-08  3:28                     ` Magnus Damm
  3 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Magnus Damm @ 2005-12-08  3:28 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jeffrey Hundstad; +Cc: Benjamin LaHaise, Lee Revell, Dirk Steuwer, linux-kernel

On 12/8/05, Jeffrey Hundstad <jeffrey.hundstad@mnsu.edu> wrote:
> Benjamin LaHaise wrote:
>
> >On Wed, Dec 07, 2005 at 02:12:20PM -0500, Lee Revell wrote:
> >
> >
> >>If even some "Linux-friendly" hardware manufacturers barely cooperate
> >>with the Linux comminuty now what makes you think this would work?
> >>
> >>
> >
> >Nothing in life is guaranteed.  But at the very least, I think it would
> >be a good step towards improving the Linux end user experience.  Instead
> >of the unclear mess we have now (Is it supported?  Check with your
> >vendor!), we would be able to say "Look for the Linux Certified logo".
> >Combine that with a standard format for source code driver disks, and
> >it would be a good step in the right direction.
> >
> >
> >
> The problem as I see it:
>
> A hardware vendor hires someone to write a driver.  The driver is
> completed and submitted and finally makes it into the kernel.  It's
> fully GPL and everyone is happy.  The hardware gets a "Native Linux
> Support" logo.  The card goes out of favor and no one is interested in
> maintaining the driver, it is marked obsolete and finally removed from
> the kernel. ...the logo still suggests the hardware will work.

I think "Designed for Windows" has the same problem. I know some
hardware that works well with Win98 but no driver exist for XP.
Fortunately that hardware works with Linux...

I would say the fix is "Runs with Linux(tm) 2005-2006" and the
hardware vendor finances maintainance during the specified period.

/ magnus

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Runs with Linux (tm)
  2005-12-08  2:38                 ` Benjamin LaHaise
@ 2005-12-08  4:15                   ` Richard Knutsson
  2005-12-08  8:50                     ` free Driver proposal (tm) Dirk Steuwer
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Richard Knutsson @ 2005-12-08  4:15 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Benjamin LaHaise; +Cc: Dirk Steuwer, linux-kernel

Benjamin LaHaise wrote:

>On Thu, Dec 08, 2005 at 03:07:37AM +0100, Richard Knutsson wrote:
>  
>
>>Why not something more of "Runs on Open Drivers", which also gives us a 
>>chance to "teach" people why to use an open OS without the replies:
>>"Windows is pretty" (actually, it was a guy who told me that)
>>    
>>
>
>What does something like that say about the state of the drivers?  If one 
>of the open OSes doesn't merge the driver, do they get to use the logo?  
>  
>
Good point, the questions already for the "Runs on Linux" (have not seen 
any answers to them yet):
* is all drivers going to be runnable for all series and if not, how is 
that going to show?
* do the logo mean "only guarantied with the latest version (in the 
serie)"? some sort of time stamp on the logo?

The reason for my "suggestion" is:
* is there no risk to scare off people not interested in Linux?
* more likely it would get help from other OS-users too.
* is this about open drivers or the OS? (possible idea is to not 
verbally say Linux but having Tux on the logo) (think there is to much 
focus on the OS, ex: have seen "run on all Windows versions" for 
IDE->SATA-converters).

>The more you dilute something, the harder the whole process becomes.
>  
>
True! I hope I did not do so by suggesting/writing this.

>		-ben
>  
>
Thank you, for answering.

/Richard

PS
Don't get me wrong! If I see a "Runs on Linux"-logo in the future, I 
will be thrilled. No doubt about that!
DS


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-08  2:24                     ` Diego Calleja
@ 2005-12-08  6:21                       ` Zwane Mwaikambo
  2005-12-08 12:31                         ` Diego Calleja
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Zwane Mwaikambo @ 2005-12-08  6:21 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Diego Calleja; +Cc: Kasper Sandberg, nicolas.mailhot, linux-kernel

[-- Attachment #1: Type: TEXT/PLAIN, Size: 616 bytes --]

On Thu, 8 Dec 2005, Diego Calleja wrote:

> El Thu, 08 Dec 2005 01:58:56 +0100,
> Kasper Sandberg <lkml@metanurb.dk> escribió:
> 
> Many times Windows XP requires inserting the CDs with 3rd party drivers.
> 
> IMO the way linux is doing things is the Right Way: Hardware should
> work out of the box, and things like the windows' panel control driver
> dialogs are a failure because users should't care about low-level
> things like installing drivers. The "works under linux logo" is

Lets be objective at least, Windows XP was released in 2002, have you 
tried Linux distros from 2002 on said laptops?

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-05 14:31     ` Brian Gerst
                         ` (3 preceding siblings ...)
  2005-12-07 15:06       ` Rik van Riel
@ 2005-12-08  7:14       ` Andrew McGregor
  4 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Andrew McGregor @ 2005-12-08  7:14 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Brian Gerst
  Cc: Andrea Arcangeli, William Lee Irwin III, Arjan van de Ven, linux-kernel


On 6/12/2005, at 3:31 AM, Brian Gerst wrote:

> Andrea Arcangeli wrote:
>>
>> When we don't buy hardware without open source drivers, we send the
>> message to the shareholders that the management is causing them a  
>> loss.
>
> The problem with this statement is that Linux users are a drop in  
> the bucket of sales for this hardware.  Boycotting doesn't cost the  
> vendors enough to make them care.  And this does nothing for people  
> who are converting over to Linux, and didn't buy hardware with that  
> consideration in mind.

I happen to know of an orphaned wireless chip that might be revived  
if we can orchestrate orders for a few thousand cards.  It has a nice  
Linux driver that could be open sourced very easily, as so far as I  
can tell it doesn't derive from anything that wasn't BSD licensed in  
the first place... and the hardware performance is exemplary.  Anyone  
with significant purchasing capacity reading this?

Andrew


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Runs with Linux (tm)
  2005-12-07 22:29                     ` Michael Poole
@ 2005-12-08  8:08                       ` Helge Hafting
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Helge Hafting @ 2005-12-08  8:08 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Michael Poole
  Cc: Jeffrey Hundstad, Benjamin LaHaise, Lee Revell, Dirk Steuwer,
	linux-kernel

Michael Poole wrote:

>Jeffrey Hundstad writes:
>
>  
>
>>It might be possible to add a serial number to the logo, and keep a
>>database that maintains a current status of the device in the Linux
>>kernel.
>>
>>Does this make sense?
>>    
>>
>
>Not especially.  To be accurate, it would have to be bumped every time
>a driver is removed from the kernel -- or, more accurately, every time
>the in-kernel API changes.  To be useful, such an increment would have
>to only happen once a year or so, or else updating the packaging is
>too much work.  Currently, the in-kernel API changes every month or
>two, which means a driver compatibility serial number would be
>inaccurate, futile, or both.
>  
>
Well, a driver that gets _into_ the tree will get a lot of maintenance
for free.  Basically, someone wanting to change an internal interface
normally takes care of all internal users of that interface. (And yes,
there are some exceptions but this is the rule.)

Still, to prevent everlasting "runs with linux" stickers, give them one-year
stickers only.  Get a GPL driver into the kernel tree in 2005, and you
get the "runs with linux 2005" sticker.  To get a sticker for 2006, 
there have
to be an active maintainer. This could be the company doing maintenance. Or,
in case of really popular hardware, it could be the kernel regulars doing
it voluntarily. In the latter case, the company would only need to ask 
for the 2006 sticker.

Once a driver gets no maintenance, neither from the company nor the 
community,
no more stickers is handed out for it. 

And of course it shouldn't be stickers only, but also logos they can put on
their websites.  Linux people usually look up such things on the web
when planning purchases. Also, a company that _wants_ to support linux can
show that they still support the previous generation of products.
They have no use for physical stickers for a product that doesn't sell much,
but having a logo is advertising, they show that their products have
long-time viability for linux users.

Helge Hafting

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 18:50       ` Luke-Jr
@ 2005-12-08  8:14         ` Helge Hafting
  2005-12-08 11:30           ` Luke-Jr
  2005-12-08 13:48           ` Nix
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Helge Hafting @ 2005-12-08  8:14 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Luke-Jr; +Cc: Linux Kernel Mailing List

Luke-Jr wrote:

>On Tuesday 06 December 2005 16:27, Simon Oosthoek wrote:
>  
>
>>Arjan van de Ven wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>On Mon, 2005-12-05 at 18:26 +0000, Andrew Walrond wrote:
>>>      
>>>
>>>>On Monday 05 December 2005 10:52, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>>>a hypothetical doomsday scenario by Arjan van de Ven
>>>>>          
>>>>>
>>>>Can I ask what prompted your post?
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>I got one too many hatemails from a "nvidia fanboy" who blamed me for
>>>just about anything wrong in the world.... I fear that most of these
>>>people have no idea why open source drivers matter, or at least what the
>>>consequences are for not caring about drivers being open or not.
>>>      
>>>
>>I use nvidia cards, mostly because they work better than an alternative
>>for now, but every time I need a card I look for stuff that is more
>>open, because I hate to have to use the non-free closed stuff to do
>>graphics. (Having no real choice in this is really annoying to me!)
>>    
>>
>
>The ATi Radeon 9200 works fine...
>  
>
Lucky you.  Mine doesn't.  Using 3D on it makes the machine unstable,
and the performance is apalling too. So I'm looking for something
else - a radeon 7000 is cheap .  . .

And don't say that a crash during a 3D game isn't important - it is
a two-user machine and the other user is not amused when this happens.

Helge Hafting

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-07 23:59         ` Chase Venters
@ 2005-12-08  8:24           ` Helge Hafting
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Helge Hafting @ 2005-12-08  8:24 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Chase Venters; +Cc: Jon Smirl, Alan Cox, Arjan van de Ven, linux-kernel

Chase Venters wrote:

>On Wednesday 07 December 2005 05:41 pm, Jon Smirl wrote:
>  
>
>>Can the Linux community justify using ruthless means to force
>>documentation out of vendors? Asking politely doesn't seem to be
>>working -  I suspect it may take something of this magnitude to force
>>a change out of NVidia/ATI.
>>    
>>
>
>Is this a vote? Cause you have mine. :)
>
>Seriously, there is a danger in the move being seen by the press as too 
>adversarial, but with everything I've been reading and seeing lately, I'm 
>starting to think that the NVidia/ATI situation may be the single largest 
>danger to Linux.
>
This is a win-win situation.  for us, it is NOT a problem if the press
see the move as too adversarial.  In fact - that would be the best
outcome of all because then we have the press and general opinion
against dumb patents.

Putting an end to stupid patents in general (and software patents
specifically) is even better than bogging a difficult hw company
down with lawsuits.

If they think the move is too nasty - then it must be because the
move itself is a bad thing - an opportunity that shouldn't exist, right?

Helge Hafting


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: free Driver proposal (tm)
  2005-12-08  4:15                   ` Richard Knutsson
@ 2005-12-08  8:50                     ` Dirk Steuwer
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Dirk Steuwer @ 2005-12-08  8:50 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: linux-kernel

Richard Knutsson <ricknu-0 <at> student.ltu.se> writes:

> 
> Benjamin LaHaise wrote:
> 
> >On Thu, Dec 08, 2005 at 03:07:37AM +0100, Richard Knutsson wrote:
> >  
> >
> >>Why not something more of "Runs on Open Drivers", which also gives us a 
> >>chance to "teach" people why to use an open OS without the replies:
> >>"Windows is pretty" (actually, it was a guy who told me that)
> >>    
> >>

Yes, i was thinking purely about openDrivers. 
Lets do it this way:

- get all open operating system folks to join
- have an approval organisation, that everyone is happy with
- lets call it "free driver" support
- create apropriate Logos for each operating system i.e. "Penguin-Logo" 
with "free driver since kernel-a.b.c.d" or "BSD-Daemon-Logo" with "free driver
since a.b"
- the hardware version numer (usb-device id, pci-id)? will be held in a
database. 
If in doubt people can look it up there. In case future kernels will
drop support, it can be marked there as well. 
A yearly logo is too much
confusion, since hardware support for open drivers stays pretty long in 
the kernel. (Imagine you license in december - you only got a month...)
Maybe educate people that support for kernel 2.6.x.y series means a 
penguin logo on blue ground. 
If dramatic changes to the kernel are introduced, which all
drivers affect call the kernel 2.8.x.y an educate people about a new linux 
in town and create a penguin logo on yellow ground

- hardware vendors pay someone, or provide source code themselves 
to be reviewed by apropriate kernel folks/bsd board...

- small licence fee and endless advertising possiblilities pay for 
organisation folks and hosting. 
Keeping up database records could help kernel developers.
There could be a log file attached to each device stating the 
current affairs about support in varying OSs


Dirk


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Runs with Linux (tm)
  2005-12-07 14:17             ` Runs with Linux (tm) Benjamin LaHaise
                                 ` (3 preceding siblings ...)
  2005-12-08  2:07               ` Richard Knutsson
@ 2005-12-08  9:42               ` jerome lacoste
  2005-12-08 11:04                 ` Felix Oxley
  4 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: jerome lacoste @ 2005-12-08  9:42 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Benjamin LaHaise; +Cc: Dirk Steuwer, linux-kernel

On 12/7/05, Benjamin LaHaise <bcrl@kvack.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 06, 2005 at 04:41:44PM +0000, Dirk Steuwer wrote:
> > Yes, but there isn't and won't be much recognition - every company does
> > its own thing. And how many people buy online all the time? But even then,
> > a genery "runs with Linux" Logo would be great. If a company's product
> > is not certified, its not considered by Linux customers.
>
> This is something I've wanted to see for years now.  Linux distributions
> do not have the motivation to work out the hardware certification issues
> on the community level, as it interferes with their value add of branding.
> I have always wished that when I see hardware advertising Linux support
> that it has a meaning: open source, supportable drivers.  Maybe it's time
> to get such a project moving.

I've read that thread with interest and would like to share some of my thoughts.

What are the issues with a "run with Linux" sticker?

- supported by who? kernel.org? a distribution? the vendor?

- accredited by who? the entity that supports? an external entity?

- support which features? If the in-kernel driver contains the bare
minimum number of features, but no support for the advanced features,
what does the support claim mean? E.g. with all the OSS/ALSA, APM/ACPI
debates, I wonder what happens whenever a hardware is 'half'
supported.

- which Linux version? Some people mention restricting support to a
particular linux version or time periods. I find this not very
practical. How can you guarantee that in the next 2 years (or even 6
months)? With non stable API/ABI, how do you want to sell the idea of
unknown unforecastable development costs to the hardware maker?

- I still see people saying supported on "Linux 9.1" (aka Red Hat/Suse
or whatever)...

- it requires the manufacturer to care about putting the sticker in
place. If they start to advertise support, they will have more costs,
even if the support is handled by an external entity.

- what happens when a different revision of the 'same' hardware is not
supported anymore? It happened with one my webcam.

- how does that work when online? You will have a particular hardware
saying "Runs With Linux" and another one fully supported by the maker,
or fully unsupported use-ndiswrapper-like saying "Runs On Linux" or
"Works on Linux". How does the sticker help me to decide?


Because of all these reasons, I don't think we will ever have half of
the really supported hardware even display the sticker. What does that
mean for me as a user? I will still need to search for information
about the other part.

How to identify the other part?

I'd rather want to know this information from the community. The
community, in help with the distribution vendors, should come up with
a big database that contains all this information. I don't want to go
on the ALSA web site to check if my sound card is supported, then on
the SATA one for my disk controller, then on linux-usb etc...

I want tools to help us feed that database, like the Ubuntu Device
Database client. But I want that at the Linux scale not the
distribution one.
* The client software would be used to report functional state of
hardware elements or access information about a particular hardware
present on the machine.
* There should be an easy way to have a Live distro with the latest
kernel that contains the minimal set of programs required to run this
Hardware Database client.

Cheers,

Jerome

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-07 18:44         ` Randy.Dunlap
                             ` (2 preceding siblings ...)
  2005-12-07 23:17           ` Horst von Brand
@ 2005-12-08 10:58           ` Sander
  3 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Sander @ 2005-12-08 10:58 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Randy.Dunlap
  Cc: Rik van Riel, Arjan van de Ven, Andrea Arcangeli,
	William Lee Irwin III, linux-kernel

Randy.Dunlap wrote (ao):
> On Wed, 7 Dec 2005, Rik van Riel wrote:
> > This worked very well in the late 1990's, when various
> > sites had Linux hardware compatibility lists.
> >
> > Does anybody still maintain a list like that today (with
> > components, not just whole certified systems) ?
> 
> There are lists for USB and for IEEE1394 (Firewire).
> I'm not aware of others, but then I haven't searched for others.

There is a great list for SATA too, by Jeff Garzik:

http://linux.yyz.us/sata/

-- 
Humilis IT Services and Solutions
http://www.humilis.net

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Runs with Linux (tm)
  2005-12-08  9:42               ` Runs with Linux (tm) jerome lacoste
@ 2005-12-08 11:04                 ` Felix Oxley
  2005-12-08 11:48                   ` jerome lacoste
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Felix Oxley @ 2005-12-08 11:04 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: jerome lacoste; +Cc: Benjamin LaHaise, Dirk Steuwer, linux-kernel


On 8 Dec 2005, at 09:42, jerome lacoste wrote:
>
> I've read that thread with interest and would like to share some of  
> my thoughts.
>
> What are the issues with a "run with Linux" sticker?
>
> - supported by who? kernel.org? a distribution? the vendor?
>

Supported financially by:
OSDL? A generous donor? IBM? Distros?


> - accredited by who? the entity that supports? an external entity?
>

The technical accreditation would have to be based on the existing  
expertise of the kernel maintainers.

Administration handled by a new Independent not-for-profit body with  
initial funding from the bodies mentioned above.
On going funding provided by revenue from anyone who wants to use the  
logo without having provided an open-source driver in 'payment'.


> - support which features? If the in-kernel driver contains the bare
> minimum number of features, but no support for the advanced features,
> what does the support claim mean? E.g. with all the OSS/ALSA, APM/ACPI
> debates, I wonder what happens whenever a hardware is 'half'
> supported.
>

The accreditation, by kernel maintainers, would be based on the fact  
that the driver provides full support for the features of the hardware.


> - which Linux version? Some people mention restricting support to a
> particular linux version or time periods. I find this not very
> practical. How can you guarantee that in the next 2 years (or even 6
> months)? With non stable API/ABI, how do you want to sell the idea of
> unknown unforecastable development costs to the hardware maker?
>
> - I still see people saying supported on "Linux 9.1" (aka Red Hat/Suse
> or whatever)...
>

Maybe the OEM cannot get accreditation for a new device if they have  
any accredited devices which are 'broken'


> - it requires the manufacturer to care about putting the sticker in
> place. If they start to advertise support, they will have more costs,
> even if the support is handled by an external entity.
>

The purpose of the logo is to build customer demand for hardware  
which is accredited and therefore has the benefits of open source  
drivers which will be maintained.
Once the logo gains mind share there will be a competitive advantage  
for the OEMs who use it.
Therefore they will be willing to bear some costs.


> - what happens when a different revision of the 'same' hardware is not
> supported anymore? It happened with one my webcam.
>

As above.
(Maybe the OEM cannot get accreditation for a new device if they have  
any accredited devices which are 'broken')



> - how does that work when online? You will have a particular hardware
> saying "Runs With Linux" and another one fully supported by the maker,
> or fully unsupported use-ndiswrapper-like saying "Runs On Linux" or
> "Works on Linux". How does the sticker help me to decide?
>

The primary requiremnet to gain the logo is that there is an open  
source driver (merged in the kernel tree).
The logo allows people to tell the difference between OEMs who claim  
compatibility because they use ndiswrapper and those who actually  
have a proper kernel driver.

>
> Because of all these reasons, I don't think we will ever have half of
> the really supported hardware even display the sticker. What does that
> mean for me as a user? I will still need to search for information
> about the other part.
>
> How to identify the other part?
>

The solution depends on build the logo 'brand' so that different  
players in the linux world want to use it .
This will happen in the following manner:
  (as described in this thread http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/12/7/391)
>
>> Why will this work? Here is how I see it developing in the server  
>> market:
>>
>> 1. The logo will be launched along with a campaign to explain to  
>> technical users that (a) open source drivers are better quality,  
>> (b) that binary drivers threaten the future of the Linux ecosystem.
>>
>> 2. Any company which manufactures equipment with open source  
>> drivers already available will have the logo granted for their  
>> current equipment.
>>      This means that right from the outset it will be possible to  
>> put together a system which is wholly conformant, i.e. the entire  
>> PC is eligible to carry the logo.
>> 3. Certain small system builders will get on board.
>> 4. Obviously, everyone on LKML will only buy/recommend hardware  
>> which carries "the mark of the penguin". As will geeks the world  
>> over.
>> 5. One of the distros will decide that their "Supported Hardware"  
>> list will only feature items with the logo.
>> 6. Medium sized system builders, maybe "partners" of the distro  
>> will begin to ship systems that fully conform.
>> 7. All the supporters above will be using the the new Open Source  
>> Graphics hardware from www.opengraphics.org. (Important later)
>> 8. Corporate or government buyers will by now become aware of the  
>> value of buying certified equipment.



> I'd rather want to know this information from the community. The
> community, in help with the distribution vendors, should come up with
> a big database that contains all this information. I don't want to go
> on the ALSA web site to check if my sound card is supported, then on
> the SATA one for my disk controller, then on linux-usb etc...
>
> I want tools to help us feed that database, like the Ubuntu Device
> Database client. But I want that at the Linux scale not the
> distribution one.
> * The client software would be used to report functional state of
> hardware elements or access information about a particular hardware
> present on the machine.
> * There should be an easy way to have a Live distro with the latest
> kernel that contains the minimal set of programs required to run this
> Hardware Database client.

With a logo a PC vendor such as Dell can stick the logo on their PCs  
if and only if every component in the machine is certified.  
(Including motherboard, on-board graphics, on-boad-sound, on-board  
raid etc. etc.)

This means you or I don't have to try to find out the exact machine  
specification from Dell and then individually check each part against  
the hardware database.

regards,
Felix



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-08  8:14         ` Helge Hafting
@ 2005-12-08 11:30           ` Luke-Jr
  2005-12-12 11:27             ` Helge Hafting
  2005-12-08 13:48           ` Nix
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Luke-Jr @ 2005-12-08 11:30 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Helge Hafting; +Cc: Linux Kernel Mailing List

On Thursday 08 December 2005 08:14, you wrote:
> Luke-Jr wrote:
> >The ATi Radeon 9200 works fine...
>
> Lucky you.  Mine doesn't.  Using 3D on it makes the machine unstable,
> and the performance is apalling too.

Hm, well I don't have DRI enabled on my primary desktop... just on a second 
one dedicated to gaming. Not sure if that makes any difference...

> So I'm looking for something else - a radeon 7000 is cheap .  . .

That'll outperform a 9200? ;)

> And don't say that a crash during a 3D game isn't important -

A system crash? Worst I've ever seen was a X crash, back before I got my X 
configs good. If you mean a game crash, I wouldn't know... half the time it'd 
probably be my fault. ;)

> it is a two-user machine and the other user is not amused when this happens.

Maybe he would be if it showed a BSOD? :p
-- 
Luke-Jr
Developer, Utopios
http://utopios.org/

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Runs with Linux (tm)
  2005-12-08 11:04                 ` Felix Oxley
@ 2005-12-08 11:48                   ` jerome lacoste
  2005-12-08 12:23                     ` Felix Oxley
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: jerome lacoste @ 2005-12-08 11:48 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Felix Oxley; +Cc: Benjamin LaHaise, Dirk Steuwer, linux-kernel

[...]
> With a logo a PC vendor such as Dell can stick the logo on their PCs
> if and only if every component in the machine is certified.
> (Including motherboard, on-board graphics, on-boad-sound, on-board
> raid etc. etc.)
>
> This means you or I don't have to try to find out the exact machine
> specification from Dell and then individually check each part against
> the hardware database.

I completely agree with all your arguments. My point is that your
solution is a long term one. It depends on demand being there, on
hardware vendors to be educated/lobbied/pressured, on both part
vendors and part assemblers to use the logos (as a good side effect
creating the logo might enforce the existance of Linux/Free OS
specialized hardware companies).

This is a good but long term shot. It will take years before such a
framework becomes effective for the user.

For example. If I have to buy a laptop today, I will have a hard time
finding a computer fully supported under Linux using Free drivers.

Let's say that the laptop of my dreams contains a non supported wifi
driver. I already have a supported exteranl Wifi card. In that case,
I'd rather pick the tool almost good for the job that shows me as
profficient under Linux (non certified), than a fully certified laptop
but that doesn't make me as effective.

We probably need both the logo/certification and the centralized
hardware database, but the later might be effective sooner.

Jerome

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
       [not found]         ` <f0cc38560512071322m1d370589vd9f8a7684fa2ee1d@mail.gmail.com>
@ 2005-12-08 12:19           ` Geert Uytterhoeven
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Geert Uytterhoeven @ 2005-12-08 12:19 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Michele
  Cc: Denis Vlasenko, Andrea Arcangeli, William Lee Irwin III,
	Arjan van de Ven, Linux Kernel Development

On Wed, 7 Dec 2005, Michele wrote:
> On 12/7/05, Geert Uytterhoeven <geert@linux-m68k.org> wrote:
> > On Tue, 6 Dec 2005, Denis Vlasenko wrote:
> > > On Tuesday 06 December 2005 03:18, Andrea Arcangeli wrote:
> > > > On Mon, Dec 05, 2005 at 04:18:51AM -0800, William Lee Irwin III wrote:
> > > > > The December 6 event is extraordinarily unlikely. What's vastly more
> > > > > likely is consistent "erosion" over time. First the 3D video
> > drivers,
> > > > > then the wireless network drivers, then the fakeraid drivers, and so
> > on.
> > > >
> > > > I agree about the erosion.
> > > >
> > > > I am convinced that the only way to stop the erosion is to totally
> > stop
> > > > buying hardware that has only binary only drivers (unless you buy it
> > to
> > > > create an open source driver or to reverse engineer the binary only
> > > > driver of course! ;).
> > >
> > > I'm afraid there is not enough Linux users in desktop/laptop market
> > > for vendors to notice.
> > >
> > > How about refusing binary-only modules instead? I mean, maybe
> >
> > You mean, call panic() if module license not acceptable? Nice!
> 
> This can only be defined a GPL-integralist approach. You are ignoring closed
> SDK used by almost every one who uses linux on embedded platforms...from
> Linksys routers and access points to media stations to STB with hardware a/v
> decoders. You cant really think linux could influence nearly the whole IT
> market, especially if they make money selling closed source SDK.

If you post in HTML, you're message will never make it to the list.

Gr{oetje,eeting}s,

						Geert

--
Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- geert@linux-m68k.org

In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But
when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that.
							    -- Linus Torvalds

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Runs with Linux (tm)
  2005-12-08 11:48                   ` jerome lacoste
@ 2005-12-08 12:23                     ` Felix Oxley
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Felix Oxley @ 2005-12-08 12:23 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: jerome lacoste; +Cc: Benjamin LaHaise, Dirk Steuwer, linux-kernel


On 8 Dec 2005, at 11:48, jerome lacoste wrote:

> [...]
>> With a logo a PC vendor such as Dell can stick the logo on their PCs
>> if and only if every component in the machine is certified.
>> (Including motherboard, on-board graphics, on-boad-sound, on-board
>> raid etc. etc.)
>>
>> This means you or I don't have to try to find out the exact machine
>> specification from Dell and then individually check each part against
>> the hardware database.
>
> I completely agree with all your arguments. My point is that your
> solution is a long term one. It depends on demand being there, on
> hardware vendors to be educated/lobbied/pressured, on both part
> vendors and part assemblers to use the logos (as a good side effect
> creating the logo might enforce the existance of Linux/Free OS
> specialized hardware companies).
>
> This is a good but long term shot. It will take years before such a
> framework becomes effective for the user.
>

I am not trying to address the immediate problem.
This is a strategy to prevent the "Doomsday Scenario" outlined by  
Arjan which ends up with most drivers being closed source.

I said in my other thread (http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/12/7/391):

>> The primary motivation for this is that it leverages the  
>> individual power of each purchaser (of a system or individual  
>> piece of hardware) be they a consumer, SME, system builder, tier 1  
>> or 2 PC manufacturer, government dept., or Linux distro company,  
>> into a single point of pressure that can be applied to OEMs to  
>> ensure that they provide open source drivers.

regards,
Felix

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-08  6:21                       ` Zwane Mwaikambo
@ 2005-12-08 12:31                         ` Diego Calleja
  2005-12-08 12:39                           ` Arjan van de Ven
  2005-12-08 16:55                           ` Kasper Sandberg
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Diego Calleja @ 2005-12-08 12:31 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Zwane Mwaikambo; +Cc: lkml, nicolas.mailhot, linux-kernel

El Wed, 7 Dec 2005 22:21:31 -0800 (PST),
Zwane Mwaikambo <zwane@arm.linux.org.uk> escribió:

> Lets be objective at least, Windows XP was released in 2002, have you 
> tried Linux distros from 2002 on said laptops?

Indeed windows xp was released in 2002, but Microsoft don't seem
to add new drivers in the service packs (which is something they
could do).

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-08 12:31                         ` Diego Calleja
@ 2005-12-08 12:39                           ` Arjan van de Ven
  2005-12-08 13:01                             ` Matan Peled
  2005-12-08 16:55                           ` Kasper Sandberg
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Arjan van de Ven @ 2005-12-08 12:39 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Diego Calleja; +Cc: Zwane Mwaikambo, lkml, nicolas.mailhot, linux-kernel

On Thu, 2005-12-08 at 13:31 +0100, Diego Calleja wrote:
> El Wed, 7 Dec 2005 22:21:31 -0800 (PST),
> Zwane Mwaikambo <zwane@arm.linux.org.uk> escribió:
> 
> > Lets be objective at least, Windows XP was released in 2002, have you 
> > tried Linux distros from 2002 on said laptops?
> 
> Indeed windows xp was released in 2002, but Microsoft don't seem
> to add new drivers in the service packs (which is something they
> could do).

in the OEM editions they sure do.



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-08 12:39                           ` Arjan van de Ven
@ 2005-12-08 13:01                             ` Matan Peled
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Matan Peled @ 2005-12-08 13:01 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Arjan van de Ven
  Cc: Diego Calleja, Zwane Mwaikambo, lkml, nicolas.mailhot, linux-kernel

Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> in the OEM editions they sure do.

You mean, for the specific OEM hardware involved? I don't think MS does that, 
its probably the OEM...

Putting drivers into Windows installation CDs is easier then it seems at first. 
I have made a few to ease installation on new computers, though I usually use 
Ghost to achieve the same goal.

Which is actually what some OEMs do instead of giving you a real Windows 
installation CD (With the image residing on a hidden partition).

-- 
[Name      ]   ::  [Matan I. Peled    ]
[Location  ]   ::  [Israel            ]
[Public Key]   ::  [0xD6F42CA5        ]
[Keyserver ]   ::  [keyserver.kjsl.com]
encrypted/signed  plain text  preferred


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-07 20:40                 ` Andrea Arcangeli
@ 2005-12-08 13:23                   ` Dirk Steuwer
  2005-12-08 14:03                     ` Diego Calleja
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Dirk Steuwer @ 2005-12-08 13:23 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: linux-kernel

Andrea Arcangeli <andrea <at> cpushare.com> writes:

> 
> On Wed, Dec 07, 2005 at 09:19:02PM +0100, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> > the problem with this is that with wiki's you get a sliding scope wrt
> > criteria; I mean, many people will say nvidia graphics work great with
> > linux... and the wiki will represent that ;(
> 
> then the wiki will be closed. But it worth a try. Of course the topic
> will explain it's a list of hardware supported by open source (GPL
> compatible) drivers.
> 
> Like wiki.kernel.org/OpenSourceKernelDrivers
> 


I think this could be of value, although i have my problems with a wiki solution.
As pointed out, there is no structure in the wiki itself, the advantages are 
just that quick'n'easy editing is possible and everyone can start topics.

For a hardwaredatabase i like to see a structure. Kernel developers are 
required to enter the support into the database, when submitting the driver.
Ongoing status will be logged there as well. Status and devices can only be 
entered by kernel developers.
The interface could have a mixed structure - fixed fields in the header 
(device ID, status, kernel version,..) 
and a wiki style body for free editing of additional info. 
Below each device there could be a open comment forum, allowing user/tester
to leave info.

this whole thing could then serve as a starting point for this diskussion:
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/355950

Where an logo is awarded for full device support with free driver, which
hardware vendors can stick on their boxes. Customers therefore know that
this device is "Plug and Play" :-) no driver installation hassle.
This is what linux should be known for, not like the current situation..

regards,
Dirk


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-08  8:14         ` Helge Hafting
  2005-12-08 11:30           ` Luke-Jr
@ 2005-12-08 13:48           ` Nix
  2005-12-12 12:01             ` Helge Hafting
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Nix @ 2005-12-08 13:48 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Helge Hafting; +Cc: Linux Kernel Mailing List

On 8 Dec 2005, Helge Hafting said:
> Lucky you.  Mine doesn't.  Using 3D on it makes the machine unstable,
> and the performance is apalling too. So I'm looking for something
> else - a radeon 7000 is cheap .  . .

Backtraces? X version? X config?

(FWIW, my AGP Radeon 9250 works flawlessly as of X.org 6.8.99.901.
6.8.2 and earlier were wobbly.)

Whether performance is appalling I don't know because I don't have any
standards to measure it by, but I get 2000fps or thereabouts out of
glxgears. That's a hell of a lot better than the 64fps I got out of
my earlier mach64 :)

> And don't say that a crash during a 3D game isn't important - it is
> a two-user machine and the other user is not amused when this happens.

Agreed. If you can handle a brief possibility of deadlocking then you
can get a backtrace when X dies, which is very useful:
<http://xorg.freedesktop.org/wiki/DebuggingTheXserver>.

-- 
`Don't confuse the shark with the remoras.' --- Rob Landley


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-08 13:23                   ` Dirk Steuwer
@ 2005-12-08 14:03                     ` Diego Calleja
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Diego Calleja @ 2005-12-08 14:03 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Dirk Steuwer
  Cc: linux-kernel, Arjan van de Ven, Randy.Dunlap, Rik van Riel,
	William Lee Irwin III

El Thu, 8 Dec 2005 13:23:11 +0000 (UTC),
Dirk Steuwer <dirk@steuwer.de> escribió:


> For a hardwaredatabase i like to see a structure. Kernel developers are 
> required to enter the support into the database, when submitting the driver.
> Ongoing status will be logged there as well. Status and devices can only be 
> entered by kernel developers.

[Please don't remove the CC list]

This sounds like the typical nightmare that never is 100% accurate and
needs lots of mainteinance (developers not updating the wiki, etc) as
Lee Revell pointed out.

IMO the one way of creating such database is automating it. If you
could get a list of the device IDs supported by drivers you 
could (?) use the pciid/usbid/whatever list to build a user-readable
database of the devices supported by the linux tree. Maybe it won't
100% perfect but...

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-05 11:39 ` Dave Airlie
  2005-12-05 13:55   ` Xavier Bestel
@ 2005-12-08 14:27   ` Graham Murray
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Graham Murray @ 2005-12-08 14:27 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: linux-kernel

Dave Airlie <airlied@gmail.com> writes:

> ATI engineers now use the excuse well NVIDIA have a closed source
> driver so we have to have one to compete. Again neither company is
> willing to put resources into doing much on the open source scene
> due to lack of staff, reasons, and neither company is willing to
> give info to open source developers because they need to push it all
> past their legal departments (despite this info existing and a
> number of open source developers having access to it via $job).

Maybe one day they might see that having an open source driver, or
even just releasing the hardware interface specifications so that
drivers can be written, will give them an advantage over those who
only have closed source drivers. After all, these companies are in the
business of designing and selling hardware and knowing the interface
specifications (ie the registers and the commands which have to be
sent to them etc) should not give away the layout of the silicon (ie
does not give competitors information about how the commands are
translated to actual operations on the screen). So publishing the
interface should not violate the IP of the silicon design owners.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-08 12:31                         ` Diego Calleja
  2005-12-08 12:39                           ` Arjan van de Ven
@ 2005-12-08 16:55                           ` Kasper Sandberg
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Kasper Sandberg @ 2005-12-08 16:55 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Diego Calleja; +Cc: Zwane Mwaikambo, nicolas.mailhot, linux-kernel

On Thu, 2005-12-08 at 13:31 +0100, Diego Calleja wrote:
> El Wed, 7 Dec 2005 22:21:31 -0800 (PST),
> Zwane Mwaikambo <zwane@arm.linux.org.uk> escribió:
> 
> > Lets be objective at least, Windows XP was released in 2002, have you 
> > tried Linux distros from 2002 on said laptops?
well true, but really there are no newer windows release available to
buy, so this must be what they want us to use! (xp with sp2 embedded
still have problems with alot stuff)

> 
> Indeed windows xp was released in 2002, but Microsoft don't seem
> to add new drivers in the service packs (which is something they
> could do).
> 


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-07 20:19               ` Arjan van de Ven
  2005-12-07 20:40                 ` Andrea Arcangeli
@ 2005-12-08 18:44                 ` Dave Neuer
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Dave Neuer @ 2005-12-08 18:44 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Arjan van de Ven
  Cc: Andrea Arcangeli, Randy.Dunlap, Rik van Riel,
	William Lee Irwin III, linux-kernel

On 12/7/05, Arjan van de Ven <arjan@infradead.org> wrote:
>
> > A moinmoin wiki.kernel.org should work fine and it takes 10 minutes to
> > set it up. Let's use the community to build this list. Perhaps
> > wiki.kernel.org could also be used to document some kernel stuff later
> > on.
>
> the problem with this is that with wiki's you get a sliding scope wrt
> criteria; I mean, many people will say nvidia graphics work great with
> linux... and the wiki will represent that ;(
>

Well, if the USB developers are already keeping a list of "known
good/known bad" devices, and the IEEE 1394 people are maintaining such
a list, and the ALSA people are maintaining a list, wouldn't it make
sense to just have some sort of agregation method to present a
centralized front end to the information? A distributed hardware
matrix as it were?

Seems wise, in order to avoid the problem that Arjan mentioned, to
have developers closest to the drivers to be the primary maintainers
of the info. Users are obviously going to be an important source of
information, but having random users editing a wiki page with "works
great for me," "doesn't work at all for me"-style comments appears
less helpful than a matrix maintained w/ input from users (where input
from users is primarily though the bug reporting process or something
else a little more disciplined than unqualified affirmative or
negative blurbs).

Dave

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-08  0:58                   ` Kasper Sandberg
  2005-12-08  2:24                     ` Diego Calleja
@ 2005-12-08 19:32                     ` Horst von Brand
  2005-12-08 21:10                       ` linux-os (Dick Johnson)
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Horst von Brand @ 2005-12-08 19:32 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Kasper Sandberg; +Cc: Nicolas Mailhot, linux-kernel

Kasper Sandberg <lkml@metanurb.dk> wrote:

[...]

> i disagree, you make it sound like it takes weeks of effort to find out
> which stuff works on linux, and that basically you have to be lucky to
> find it at all...

> basically the only thing that doesent work (i dont count binary-only
> solutions working) is nvidia and ati.

Count several WiFi cards into it too. Perhaps very-high-end stuff.

And what doesn't work well on Linux in "normal PCs" (rock-bottom priced
stuff, mostly) doesn't work well at all, period.
-- 
Dr. Horst H. von Brand                   User #22616 counter.li.org
Departamento de Informatica                     Fono: +56 32 654431
Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria              +56 32 654239
Casilla 110-V, Valparaiso, Chile                Fax:  +56 32 797513

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-08 19:32                     ` Horst von Brand
@ 2005-12-08 21:10                       ` linux-os (Dick Johnson)
  2005-12-09  6:12                         ` Ben Greear
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: linux-os (Dick Johnson) @ 2005-12-08 21:10 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Horst von Brand; +Cc: Kasper Sandberg, Nicolas Mailhot, linux-kernel


On Thu, 8 Dec 2005, Horst von Brand wrote:

> Kasper Sandberg <lkml@metanurb.dk> wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>> i disagree, you make it sound like it takes weeks of effort to find out
>> which stuff works on linux, and that basically you have to be lucky to
>> find it at all...
>
>> basically the only thing that doesent work (i dont count binary-only
>> solutions working) is nvidia and ati.
>
> Count several WiFi cards into it too. Perhaps very-high-end stuff.
>
> And what doesn't work well on Linux in "normal PCs" (rock-bottom priced
> stuff, mostly) doesn't work well at all, period.
> --
> Dr. Horst H. von Brand                   User #22616 counter.li.org
> Departamento de Informatica                     Fono: +56 32 654431
> Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria              +56 32 654239
> Casilla 110-V, Valparaiso, Chile                Fax:  +56 32 797513

Talk about rock-bottom stuff, does anybody know if I can build
a file-system on a CompactFlash card that plugs into a USB adapter
from Linux (like those marketed by Kodak) ??

Cheers,
Dick Johnson
Penguin : Linux version 2.6.13.4 on an i686 machine (5589.55 BogoMips).
Warning : 98.36% of all statistics are fiction.
.

****************************************************************
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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  3:56               ` Zwane Mwaikambo
  2005-12-06  4:27                 ` Gene Heskett
  2005-12-06 18:33                 ` Jesper Juhl
@ 2005-12-08 21:49                 ` Rob Landley
  2005-12-10  2:38                   ` Lee Revell
  2005-12-10  5:51                 ` Luke-Jr
  3 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Rob Landley @ 2005-12-08 21:49 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Zwane Mwaikambo; +Cc: Gene Heskett, linux-kernel

On Monday 05 December 2005 21:56, Zwane Mwaikambo wrote:
> Do you think this opensource hardware could keep up with nvidia and ati
> hardware development? Joe sixpack is all about the fastest hardware.

Not really.  The early adopters and cutting edge gamers are, sure.  For 
everybody else its price/performance and "good enough to run my games".  The 
playstation 2 is how many years old now?  But it's still selling fresh 
copies, and will until the PS3 comes out.  (And even then, people will still 
play PS2 games.)

Like everything else, this is application driven.  If it runs World of 
Warcraft and City of Heroes, there's a market for it.  May be a cheap market, 
but it's there.  Especially if it fits nicely in laptops, has low power 
consumption, doesn't need a cooling fan...

(Also, keep in mind that half of graphics performance is how much texture 
memory the sucker has and how fast the ram it talks to is.)

(I remember the days when games had a selection menu so you could tell it what 
kind of sound card you had.  3D video cards are still there.  Won't last 
forever.)

Rob
-- 
Steve Ballmer: Innovation!  Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word.
I do not think it means what you think it means.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  9:07       ` Dirk Steuwer
  2005-12-06 10:46         ` Sander
@ 2005-12-09  5:49         ` Miles Bader
  2005-12-09  9:49           ` Felix Oxley
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Miles Bader @ 2005-12-09  5:49 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Dirk Steuwer; +Cc: linux-kernel

Dirk Steuwer <dirk@steuwer.de> writes:
> Ideally, there should be a label "designed for Linux" (or "designed for
> free software" (maybe getting the bsd people on board as well?))
> straight on the box.  So customers that start to care about linux, can
> see this right away and make the right choice, when buying hardware.

The last bit of hardware I bought, a super-cheapo NIC (for use with an
ADSL modem), prominently stated it was "linux compatible".  Morever, all
the other brands of super-cheapo NIC alongside it on the shelf did the
same thing; they all used the defacto linux logo -- the chubby penguin --
on the front of the box to indicate this, next to the windows logo to.

The fine print on the side of the box said something to the effect of
"linux driver is included with OS, not in box" (whereas a floppy with
windows driver was in the box).

I dunno, maybe there's something weird about NICs or something...
I suppose for them it's a no-brainer, since they generally know their
stuff will just work in linux, and the only cost to them is someone to
insert the logo in the box art.  Also, since competition among low-end
brands like that is probably ferocious, even a little marketing advantage
is probably worth persuing.

[But in my experience, it's certainly not _unusual_ to see "linux
compatible" on random consumer hardware boxes these days (I live in Tokyo
though; maybe the market's a bit different here than where you live).]

-Miles
-- 
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-08 21:10                       ` linux-os (Dick Johnson)
@ 2005-12-09  6:12                         ` Ben Greear
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Ben Greear @ 2005-12-09  6:12 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: linux-os (Dick Johnson); +Cc: linux-kernel

linux-os (Dick Johnson) wrote:

> Talk about rock-bottom stuff, does anybody know if I can build
> a file-system on a CompactFlash card that plugs into a USB adapter
> from Linux (like those marketed by Kodak) ??

If you're talking about one of those 15-in-one card readers...

Yes..it shows up like a normal USB storage block device.  I use one of
those things to copy 512MB CF disks using 'dd' often...

Thanks,
Ben

-- 
Ben Greear <greearb@candelatech.com>
Candela Technologies Inc  http://www.candelatech.com


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-07 23:17           ` Horst von Brand
@ 2005-12-09  6:17             ` Ben Greear
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Ben Greear @ 2005-12-09  6:17 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Horst von Brand
  Cc: Randy.Dunlap, Rik van Riel, Arjan van de Ven, Andrea Arcangeli,
	William Lee Irwin III, linux-kernel


With Mr. Hemminger's permission, I've started a Hardware WIKI catagory on
the linux-net wiki:   http://linux-net.osdl.org/index.php/Main_Page (bottom of first column)

I plan to add my notes on NICs and motherboards (that I use primarily for
network traffic applications) to this page.  I don't plan to try to make
it exhaustive (though others can contribute, of course).  I do plan to
add notes and work-arounds as I find them...and I seem to have some luck
finding issues since I often stretch the networking side of the hardware...

Thanks,
Ben

-- 
Ben Greear <greearb@candelatech.com>
Candela Technologies Inc  http://www.candelatech.com


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-09  5:49         ` Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario Miles Bader
@ 2005-12-09  9:49           ` Felix Oxley
  2005-12-09  9:53             ` Bernd Petrovitsch
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Felix Oxley @ 2005-12-09  9:49 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Miles Bader; +Cc: Dirk Steuwer, linux-kernel


On 9 Dec 2005, at 05:49, Miles Bader wrote:

>
> The last bit of hardware I bought, a super-cheapo NIC (for use with an
> ADSL modem), prominently stated it was "linux compatible".   
> Morever, all
> the other brands of super-cheapo NIC alongside it on the shelf did the
> same thing; they all used the defacto linux logo -- the chubby  
> penguin --
> on the front of the box to indicate this, next to the windows logo to.
>
> The fine print on the side of the box said something to the effect of
> "linux driver is included with OS, not in box" (whereas a floppy with
> windows driver was in the box).
>
> I dunno, maybe there's something weird about NICs or something...
> I suppose for them it's a no-brainer, since they generally know their
> stuff will just work in linux, and the only cost to them is someone to
> insert the logo in the box art.  Also, since competition among low-end
> brands like that is probably ferocious, even a little marketing  
> advantage
> is probably worth persuing.
>
> [But in my experience, it's certainly not _unusual_ to see "linux
> compatible" on random consumer hardware boxes these days (I live in  
> Tokyo
> though; maybe the market's a bit different here than where you live).]

Two advantages to a certified logo program:

1. To ensure that the driver actually works, continues to work and  
fully supports the features of the hardware.
2. To enable PC manufactures to badge their entire systems (e.g. a  
Dell with a Linux Compatible sticker on the box).

The long term objective being to put those manufacturers who don't  
supply open source drivers at a disadvantage.

regards,
Felix

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-09  9:49           ` Felix Oxley
@ 2005-12-09  9:53             ` Bernd Petrovitsch
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Bernd Petrovitsch @ 2005-12-09  9:53 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Felix Oxley; +Cc: Miles Bader, Dirk Steuwer, linux-kernel

On Fri, 2005-12-09 at 09:49 +0000, Felix Oxley wrote:
[...]
> Two advantages to a certified logo program:
[...]
> 2. To enable PC manufactures to badge their entire systems (e.g. a  
> Dell with a Linux Compatible sticker on the box).

Actually it would probably some pressure on Dell to actually admit the
(some) Linux runs on their hardware. In the marketing folders, they
recommend software from the evil empire.
And I saw last week an add from Lenovo where they also recommend the
monopoly software. This raises - at least for me - the question how
serious IBM was and is with their support and commitment Linux ....

> The long term objective being to put those manufacturers who don't  
> supply open source drivers at a disadvantage.

	Bernd
-- 
Firmix Software GmbH                   http://www.firmix.at/
mobil: +43 664 4416156                 fax: +43 1 7890849-55
          Embedded Linux Development and Services


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-08 21:49                 ` Rob Landley
@ 2005-12-10  2:38                   ` Lee Revell
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Lee Revell @ 2005-12-10  2:38 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Rob Landley; +Cc: Zwane Mwaikambo, Gene Heskett, linux-kernel

On Thu, 2005-12-08 at 15:49 -0600, Rob Landley wrote:
> I remember the days when games had a selection menu so you could tell
> it what kind of sound card you had. 

Don't they still do that, for EAX, A3D, etc?

Lee


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: GNU/Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-07  1:42                     ` Coywolf Qi Hunt
  2005-12-07  2:06                       ` Wed, 7 Dec 2005 03:06:35 +0100
@ 2005-12-10  5:16                       ` Richard M. Stallman
  2005-12-10  7:06                         ` Jeff V. Merkey
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Richard M. Stallman @ 2005-12-10  5:16 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Coywolf Qi Hunt; +Cc: luke-jr, linux-kernel

    > No proprietary software here, excluding things such as firmware/BIOS where
    > there is no choice.

    Why 'excluding'? You can't deny you are using proprietary software.
    Neither do us.

The FSF chose, for its newest server, a machine that supports a
free BIOS.  You can make such choices too.

We are also trying to help the work to support free BIOS on a laptop
so that my next laptop can run a free BIOS.  There are surely ways you
can help, too, if you want to be constructive.

Non-free device firmware is also a problem, when it has to be
installed from outside the device.  The OpenBSD developers have done a
lot of work to arrange to avoid non-free device firmware.  The FSF
tries to help too; we maintain some lists of hardware which works
without non-free firmware.  We need more of these lists; if you are an
expert on some category of hardware, and you would like to help,
please write to me.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: GNU/Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-07  1:38                     ` Coywolf Qi Hunt
  2005-12-07  2:40                       ` Greg KH
@ 2005-12-10  5:17                       ` Richard M. Stallman
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Richard M. Stallman @ 2005-12-10  5:17 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Coywolf Qi Hunt
  Cc: greg, tim.bird, airlied, dwmw2, arjan, andrew, linux-kernel

    AFAIK, no proprietary software vendors are forcing any1 to buy their
    proprietary software. Still you are speaking in a monopoly tone!

Strictly speaking, they do not _force_ members of the public to use
their software.  But they do create situations that put strong
pressure on people to use certain proprietary software.  While this is
not literally "forcing" people, it is close enough to deserve similar
criticism.

Meanwhile, in France, the media companies have proposed an amendment
to the French DMCA which would make it more like the former proposed
US CBDTPA (Consume But Don't Try Programming Act).  It would forbid
the distribution of programs that allow copying of copyrighted works
and do not enforce DRM.

Various programs in GNU/Linux systems, including Apache, ftpd, Emacs,
and Linux, could fall under this prohibition.  It is impossible to see
where the line would be drawn, because the text of the law is not
clear.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06  3:56               ` Zwane Mwaikambo
                                   ` (2 preceding siblings ...)
  2005-12-08 21:49                 ` Rob Landley
@ 2005-12-10  5:51                 ` Luke-Jr
  3 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Luke-Jr @ 2005-12-10  5:51 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Linux Kernel Mailing List

On Tuesday 06 December 2005 03:56, Zwane Mwaikambo wrote:
> Do you think this opensource hardware could keep up with nvidia and ati
> hardware development? Joe sixpack is all about the fastest hardware.

Personally, I'm hoping that it will get some standard interfaces to video 
cards and possibly lay out a VESA-for-OpenGL or such that is later adopted by 
all other cards...
-- 
Luke-Jr
Developer, Utopios
http://utopios.org/

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: GNU/Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-10  5:16                       ` GNU/Linux " Richard M. Stallman
@ 2005-12-10  7:06                         ` Jeff V. Merkey
  2005-12-10 16:43                           ` Helge Hafting
                                             ` (4 more replies)
  0 siblings, 5 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Jeff V. Merkey @ 2005-12-10  7:06 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: rms; +Cc: Coywolf Qi Hunt, luke-jr, linux-kernel

Richard M. Stallman wrote:

>    > No proprietary software here, excluding things such as firmware/BIOS where
>    > there is no choice.
>
>    Why 'excluding'? You can't deny you are using proprietary software.
>    Neither do us.
>
>The FSF chose, for its newest server, a machine that supports a
>free BIOS.  You can make such choices too.
>
>We are also trying to help the work to support free BIOS on a laptop
>so that my next laptop can run a free BIOS.  There are surely ways you
>can help, too, if you want to be constructive.
>  
>
"constructive" is a for profit model that sustains the hi tech 
industry.    The current
models have created a conduit for socialist disintegration of the 
american hi tech
markets, loss of jobs, and have funnelled technology out of the 
country.  Legal
defense funds should be the biggest red flags of all.  If this system 
you devised really
works, why all the litigation?  Why all the need for legal defense funds 
and patent
infringement insurance?   I've watched the entire market slowly collapse 
over the years
as the result of the affect of the GPL on America's hi tech markets. 

It isn't working, and it isn't sustainable.  non-profit and "temples" of 
GPL "religion"
have evolved, with the leaders living in orgnaizations that subsist from 
handouts and
donations.   This movement has spawned a global attitude that has no 
respect
for IP rights, and it's extended itself to no respect for human rights, 
or any other rights
of the indivdual.    That's the legacy this has left and the ultimate 
conclusion.

My 2 cents.

J

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: GNU/Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-10  7:06                         ` Jeff V. Merkey
@ 2005-12-10 16:43                           ` Helge Hafting
  2005-12-10 19:05                             ` Jan-Benedict Glaw
  2005-12-11 13:24                             ` Bernd Petrovitsch
  2005-12-10 20:04                             ` Sean
                                             ` (3 subsequent siblings)
  4 siblings, 2 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Helge Hafting @ 2005-12-10 16:43 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jeff V. Merkey; +Cc: rms, Coywolf Qi Hunt, luke-jr, linux-kernel

On Sat, Dec 10, 2005 at 12:06:54AM -0700, Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
> Richard M. Stallman wrote:
> 
> >   > No proprietary software here, excluding things such as firmware/BIOS 
> >   where
> >   > there is no choice.
> >
> >   Why 'excluding'? You can't deny you are using proprietary software.
> >   Neither do us.
> >
> >The FSF chose, for its newest server, a machine that supports a
> >free BIOS.  You can make such choices too.
> >
> >We are also trying to help the work to support free BIOS on a laptop
> >so that my next laptop can run a free BIOS.  There are surely ways you
> >can help, too, if you want to be constructive.
> > 
> >
> "constructive" is a for profit model that sustains the hi tech 
> industry.    The current
> models have created a conduit for socialist disintegration of the 
> american hi tech
> markets, loss of jobs, and have funnelled technology out of the 
> country.  Legal

The hi-tech industry can sustain itself just fine selling _hardware_.
Wether it does so from America or elsewhere isn't all that interesting,
although it may be an indication of wich countries that have 
competitive advantages - and which have disadvantages. Open source
software is not a problem here, it certainly takes a bite out of
_software_ markets but the effect is the same on every country. 
It is generally a good thing, not having to pay for software
means more money for hardware (or non-computer stuff.) The money
is still spent though - so no ill effects for the economy.  But
a nice effect for users - who gets more "other stuff" without 
loosing software. 


> defense funds should be the biggest red flags of all.  If this system 
> you devised really
> works, why all the litigation?  Why all the need for legal defense funds 
> and patent
> infringement insurance?   

Isn't that something that you have to have in american business today,
wether you run the FSF or some more ordinary company?

> I've watched the entire market slowly collapse 
> over the years
> as the result of the affect of the GPL on America's hi tech markets. 
> 
Really?  90% still uses windows, it is not as if paid software 
dwindled much yet . . .

> It isn't working, and it isn't sustainable.  non-profit and "temples" of 

Certainly sustainable.  You can usually not make a living programming free
sw _only_, but there is support, there is hw sales, there is working
with something different having free sw as a hobby only.

> GPL "religion"
> have evolved, with the leaders living in orgnaizations that subsist from 
> handouts and
> donations.   This movement has spawned a global attitude that has no 
> respect
> for IP rights, and it's extended itself to no respect for human rights, 
> or any other rights
> of the indivdual.    That's the legacy this has left and the ultimate 
> conclusion.

Less respect for IP rights - possibly.  Perhaps that's a good thing though,
some of us thinks such rights are a bit overrated.

Helge Hafting

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: GNU/Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-10 19:05                             ` Jan-Benedict Glaw
@ 2005-12-10 18:44                               ` Jeff V. Merkey
  2005-12-10 19:15                                 ` Jan-Benedict Glaw
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Jeff V. Merkey @ 2005-12-10 18:44 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jan-Benedict Glaw
  Cc: Helge Hafting, rms, Coywolf Qi Hunt, luke-jr, linux-kernel

Jan-Benedict Glaw wrote:

>On Sat, 2005-12-10 17:43:20 +0100, Helge Hafting <helgehaf@aitel.hist.no> wrote:
>  
>
>>>GPL "religion"
>>>have evolved, with the leaders living in orgnaizations that subsist from 
>>>handouts and
>>>donations.   This movement has spawned a global attitude that has no 
>>>respect
>>>for IP rights, and it's extended itself to no respect for human rights, 
>>>or any other rights
>>>of the indivdual.    That's the legacy this has left and the ultimate 
>>>conclusion.
>>>      
>>>
>>Less respect for IP rights - possibly.  Perhaps that's a good thing though,
>>some of us thinks such rights are a bit overrated.
>>    
>>
>
>_Less_ respect? I'm sorry, no. Once I started working on free
>software, I really started having raising respect for what you call
>Intellectual Property. ...and also recognizing some special words:
>
>"patented" --	product will be extraordinary expensive and probably not
>		any longer actively developed (like it would be if
>		there was real competition).
>"special" --	product will use parts and materials that are hard to
>		obtain, hard to repair and probably expensive, too.
>
>"Intellectual Property" means to not do the very best for the
>customers, but for the company. So if somebody fights for their IP to
>be kept secret, that's just as good as writing "I'm selfish and only
>want to get your money."
>
>Thanks.
>
>I try to share my IP to teaching people using free software, but also
>doing some limited hardware soldering etc. Lots of fun, won't create
>secret IP and will actually educate people to be creative instead of
>consuming television...
>
>MfG, JBG
>
>  
>
Two responses from people who live in socialist countries.  Sure you 
agree, it's just status quo from your perspectives.

Jeff

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: GNU/Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-10 16:43                           ` Helge Hafting
@ 2005-12-10 19:05                             ` Jan-Benedict Glaw
  2005-12-10 18:44                               ` Jeff V. Merkey
  2005-12-11 13:24                             ` Bernd Petrovitsch
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Jan-Benedict Glaw @ 2005-12-10 19:05 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Helge Hafting; +Cc: Jeff V. Merkey, rms, Coywolf Qi Hunt, luke-jr, linux-kernel

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1930 bytes --]

On Sat, 2005-12-10 17:43:20 +0100, Helge Hafting <helgehaf@aitel.hist.no> wrote:
> > GPL "religion"
> > have evolved, with the leaders living in orgnaizations that subsist from 
> > handouts and
> > donations.   This movement has spawned a global attitude that has no 
> > respect
> > for IP rights, and it's extended itself to no respect for human rights, 
> > or any other rights
> > of the indivdual.    That's the legacy this has left and the ultimate 
> > conclusion.
> 
> Less respect for IP rights - possibly.  Perhaps that's a good thing though,
> some of us thinks such rights are a bit overrated.

_Less_ respect? I'm sorry, no. Once I started working on free
software, I really started having raising respect for what you call
Intellectual Property. ...and also recognizing some special words:

"patented" --	product will be extraordinary expensive and probably not
		any longer actively developed (like it would be if
		there was real competition).
"special" --	product will use parts and materials that are hard to
		obtain, hard to repair and probably expensive, too.

"Intellectual Property" means to not do the very best for the
customers, but for the company. So if somebody fights for their IP to
be kept secret, that's just as good as writing "I'm selfish and only
want to get your money."

Thanks.

I try to share my IP to teaching people using free software, but also
doing some limited hardware soldering etc. Lots of fun, won't create
secret IP and will actually educate people to be creative instead of
consuming television...

MfG, JBG

-- 
Jan-Benedict Glaw       jbglaw@lug-owl.de    . +49-172-7608481             _ O _
"Eine Freie Meinung in  einem Freien Kopf    | Gegen Zensur | Gegen Krieg  _ _ O
 für einen Freien Staat voll Freier Bürger"  | im Internet! |   im Irak!   O O O
ret = do_actions((curr | FREE_SPEECH) & ~(NEW_COPYRIGHT_LAW | DRM | TCPA));

[-- Attachment #2: Digital signature --]
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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: GNU/Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-10 18:44                               ` Jeff V. Merkey
@ 2005-12-10 19:15                                 ` Jan-Benedict Glaw
  2005-12-10 20:44                                   ` Jeff V. Merkey
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Jan-Benedict Glaw @ 2005-12-10 19:15 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jeff V. Merkey; +Cc: Helge Hafting, rms, Coywolf Qi Hunt, luke-jr, linux-kernel

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 788 bytes --]

On Sat, 2005-12-10 11:44:37 -0700, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey@wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> Two responses from people who live in socialist countries.  Sure you 
> agree, it's just status quo from your perspectives.

Jeff, I'm not sure if we both think about the same things when we talk
about "socialist", but I guess you may want to have a look at
Germany's history, as well as the whole newer history (like 50 years)
of Old Europe...

MfG, JBG

-- 
Jan-Benedict Glaw       jbglaw@lug-owl.de    . +49-172-7608481             _ O _
"Eine Freie Meinung in  einem Freien Kopf    | Gegen Zensur | Gegen Krieg  _ _ O
 für einen Freien Staat voll Freier Bürger"  | im Internet! |   im Irak!   O O O
ret = do_actions((curr | FREE_SPEECH) & ~(NEW_COPYRIGHT_LAW | DRM | TCPA));

[-- Attachment #2: Digital signature --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 189 bytes --]

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* [way OT] Re: GNU/Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
@ 2005-12-10 20:04                             ` Sean
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Sean @ 2005-12-10 20:04 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jeff V. Merkey; +Cc: Coywolf Qi Hunt, luke-jr, linux-kernel

On Sat, December 10, 2005 2:06 am, Jeff V. Merkey said:

> "constructive" is a for profit model that sustains the hi tech industry.
> The current

There are for-profit models of selling GPL software.  Anyway, billions of
dollars are still spent every year on software.

> models have created a conduit for socialist disintegration of the
> american hi tech markets, loss of jobs, and have funnelled technology out

You should look at the dwindling manufacturing sector in America and
notice that the same thing is happening there without any GPL to blame.

> of the country.  Legal defense funds should be the biggest red flags of
> all.  If this system you devised really works, why all the litigation?
> Why all the need for legal defense funds and patent infringement

This is just utter nonsense; most litigation in the software industry
occurs between closed source vendors.

> insurance?   I've watched the entire market slowly collapse over the
> years as the result of the affect of the GPL on America's hi tech
> markets.

By which measure has the market collapsed?  Whatever you mean, my guess is
that you're overestimating the role of the GPL.  More likely, you're just
misinterpreting globalization and the natural transition of the sector
into more of a commodity market.

> It isn't working, and it isn't sustainable.  non-profit and "temples" of
> GPL "religion" have evolved, with the leaders living in orgnaizations

Hah!  By your definition of the word, American capitalism is just another
"religion".

> that subsist from handouts and donations.   This movement has spawned a
> global attitude that has no respect for IP rights, and it's extended

This movement has spawned a global attitude supporting greater consumer
rights.  Overall, its been a very positive and healthy force.

> itself to no respect for human rights, or any other rights of the
> indivdual.    That's the legacy this has left and the ultimate
> conclusion.

Oh please, how exactly does GPL software undermine human rights?

Cheers,
Sean



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: GNU/Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-10 19:15                                 ` Jan-Benedict Glaw
@ 2005-12-10 20:44                                   ` Jeff V. Merkey
  2005-12-10 21:47                                     ` Jan-Benedict Glaw
                                                       ` (5 more replies)
  0 siblings, 6 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Jeff V. Merkey @ 2005-12-10 20:44 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jan-Benedict Glaw
  Cc: Helge Hafting, rms, Coywolf Qi Hunt, luke-jr, linux-kernel

Jan-Benedict Glaw wrote:

>On Sat, 2005-12-10 11:44:37 -0700, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey@wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>  
>
>>Two responses from people who live in socialist countries.  Sure you 
>>agree, it's just status quo from your perspectives.
>>    
>>
>
>Jeff, I'm not sure if we both think about the same things when we talk
>about "socialist", but I guess you may want to have a look at
>Germany's history, as well as the whole newer history (like 50 years)
>of Old Europe...
>
>MfG, JBG
>
>  
>
I'm married to a German citizen and I visit Germany for 3-4 week stints 
once a year.  Last year I went to Aachen and Amsterdam on vacation.  
Every computer store I visited sold pirated copies of Windows XP and 
Microsoft Office and in Amsterdam people were selling copies on the 
street corners in the Artis District.

The entire culture has absolutely no concept of IP rights and I was 
amazed at how open folks are there about piracy.  If someone did that in 
the US, they'd
be in jail.   I have lived in Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Crete, and 
I spent about 2 years in the UK when I was a younger man, and I have a 
really
good handle on the culture over there.  Even the republic countries 
which have democratic governments are very much socialist in terms of the
lifestyle and the governments, and the way people live, so it's no 
surprise the whole concept of free software and the GPL are so natural 
to the
culture of Europe in general.

I have been very dismayed at how FOSS has been used as a vehicle to 
promote anti-american attitudes into our own culture.  It's sad.  I have 
lived in
all these places and the only place where people have guaranteed rights 
as individuals and true freedom is America.  I was in Germany in the late
1970's and earlt 1980's when the Bater-Meinhoffs were killing Americans 
in the streets and the Grune-Gehfahr (Green Party) was having 
demonstrations burning effigies of Uncle Sam in the Hauptewache District 
in Frankfurt.    This younger generation has no concept of what they are 
supporting or how bad things can get.  It is the doom of men that they 
forget.

At any rate, I do understand, and I have a son-in-law in Germany and 
grandchildren who speak German and not English (I know what Oh-pa means
and I can always tell them "Ich Habe Dich Leib"), so I do agree the 
bonds between countries are becoming more and more blurred.  I remember an
older German man in Aachen in a Luftwaffe Uniform watching me with my 
grandson in Starbucks try to talk to each other and him smiling at the
thought an American man has grandkids who are totally immersed in the 
German culture.  At any rate, Stallman needs to in the next GPL incorporate
capitalist provisions which will allow FOSS to become a self sustaining 
model.   The US markets are abandoning Linux as a commerical offering
and Windows is continuing to get stronger and stronger.  It's tough to 
embrace technology when people cannot see a future in it.  Hardware
purchases aside.

Jeff





Jeff

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: GNU/Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-10 20:44                                   ` Jeff V. Merkey
@ 2005-12-10 21:47                                     ` Jan-Benedict Glaw
  2005-12-11 13:56                                     ` Bernd Petrovitsch
                                                       ` (4 subsequent siblings)
  5 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Jan-Benedict Glaw @ 2005-12-10 21:47 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jeff V. Merkey; +Cc: Helge Hafting, rms, Coywolf Qi Hunt, luke-jr, linux-kernel

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 5732 bytes --]

On Sat, 2005-12-10 13:44:38 -0700, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey@wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> Jan-Benedict Glaw wrote:
> >On Sat, 2005-12-10 11:44:37 -0700, Jeff V. Merkey 
> ><jmerkey@wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> >>Two responses from people who live in socialist countries.  Sure you 
> >>agree, it's just status quo from your perspectives.
> >Jeff, I'm not sure if we both think about the same things when we talk
> >about "socialist", but I guess you may want to have a look at
> >Germany's history, as well as the whole newer history (like 50 years)
> >of Old Europe...
> I'm married to a German citizen and I visit Germany for 3-4 week stints 
> once a year.  Last year I went to Aachen and Amsterdam on vacation.  
> Every computer store I visited sold pirated copies of Windows XP and 
> Microsoft Office and in Amsterdam people were selling copies on the 
> street corners in the Artis District.

Well, so what's your point? Germans and Netherlands tend to steal
software? Be it, but thses countries aren't socialistic at all...

> The entire culture has absolutely no concept of IP rights and I was 
> amazed at how open folks are there about piracy.  If someone did that in 
> the US, they'd
> be in jail.   I have lived in Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Crete, and 
> I spent about 2 years in the UK when I was a younger man, and I have a 
> really
> good handle on the culture over there.  Even the republic countries 
> which have democratic governments are very much socialist in terms of the
> lifestyle and the governments, and the way people live, so it's no 
> surprise the whole concept of free software and the GPL are so natural 
> to the
> culture of Europe in general.

What *may* be true is that possibly European mentality towards
"Intellectual Property" is somewhat different to the US. I've learned
to gain strength by sharing something (esp. knowledge) in a community
and not to basically try to de-share knowledge, making it a rare good.

Give a man a fish, he'll have food for the day. Teach a man fishing
and he'll have food for all his life.  You probably know that
sentence. You seem to not distinguish between enforced sharing and
willfull sharing. That's where the problems arise.

> I have been very dismayed at how FOSS has been used as a vehicle to 
> promote anti-american attitudes into our own culture.  It's sad.  I have 
> lived in
> all these places and the only place where people have guaranteed rights 
> as individuals and true freedom is America.  I was in Germany in the late
> 1970's and earlt 1980's when the Bater-Meinhoffs were killing Americans 
> in the streets and the Grune-Gehfahr (Green Party) was having 
> demonstrations burning effigies of Uncle Sam in the Hauptewache District 
> in Frankfurt.    This younger generation has no concept of what they are 
> supporting or how bad things can get.  It is the doom of men that they 
> forget.

Really?  People, esp. the younger ones, really tend to get quite a lot
of political input. Just look at hot political topics that are
discussed in the media as well as at the school like the way the US
government (as well as some European governments) try to do their nice
war against terror and where it affects our daily life.

> At any rate, I do understand, and I have a son-in-law in Germany and 
> grandchildren who speak German and not English (I know what Oh-pa means
> and I can always tell them "Ich Habe Dich Leib"), so I do agree the 
> bonds between countries are becoming more and more blurred.  I remember an
> older German man in Aachen in a Luftwaffe Uniform watching me with my 
> grandson in Starbucks try to talk to each other and him smiling at the
> thought an American man has grandkids who are totally immersed in the 
> German culture.  At any rate, Stallman needs to in the next GPL incorporate
> capitalist provisions which will allow FOSS to become a self sustaining 
> model.   The US markets are abandoning Linux as a commerical offering
> and Windows is continuing to get stronger and stronger.  It's tough to 
> embrace technology when people cannot see a future in it.  Hardware
> purchases aside.

I think you totally over-estimate the goal of GPL and/or FOSS. This is
what it's *not*:

  - Kill commercial markets. (Though it'll bring PITA to some
    commercial vendors that will need to compete with FOSS.)
  - World domination. (There's always some granny loving Win3.1 so
    there's always at least one {BSD,Linux,...} compatible computer
    not running it. Also, would you as a FOSS programmer like to
    support all these John McDummy users that cannot handle a
    computer at all?)

Though, it is (besides other things):

  - A lot of *personal* fun for some single, technically-skilled
    programmers that like to hack software and present their work.
  - A way to earn money (I've worked at a company using Linux and the
    whole GNU stack of software for several years).

So not the whole worls spins around earning money. A lot of motivation
(especially speaking for myself) is just about programming,
self-teaching as well as teaching others and allowing others to use my
work (for money or not for money), as long as they use my rules (which
basically is: use it if you want, don't hide the details and give
something back, please.)

MfG, JBG

-- 
Jan-Benedict Glaw       jbglaw@lug-owl.de    . +49-172-7608481             _ O _
"Eine Freie Meinung in  einem Freien Kopf    | Gegen Zensur | Gegen Krieg  _ _ O
 für einen Freien Staat voll Freier Bürger"  | im Internet! |   im Irak!   O O O
ret = do_actions((curr | FREE_SPEECH) & ~(NEW_COPYRIGHT_LAW | DRM | TCPA));

[-- Attachment #2: Digital signature --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 189 bytes --]

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: GNU/Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-10  7:06                         ` Jeff V. Merkey
  2005-12-10 16:43                           ` Helge Hafting
  2005-12-10 20:04                             ` Sean
@ 2005-12-11  2:12                           ` Horst von Brand
  2005-12-11  5:40                           ` Patrick McLean
       [not found]                           ` <E1ElJMz-00047E-1p@fencepost.gnu.org>
  4 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Horst von Brand @ 2005-12-11  2:12 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jeff V. Merkey; +Cc: rms, Coywolf Qi Hunt, luke-jr, linux-kernel

Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey@wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> Richard M. Stallman wrote:
> > > No proprietary software here, excluding things such as firmware/BIOS
> > > where there is no choice.

> > Why 'excluding'? You can't deny you are using proprietary software.
> > Neither do us.
> >
> >The FSF chose, for its newest server, a machine that supports a
> >free BIOS.  You can make such choices too.
> >
> >We are also trying to help the work to support free BIOS on a laptop
> >so that my next laptop can run a free BIOS.  There are surely ways you
> >can help, too, if you want to be constructive.

> "constructive" is a for profit model that sustains the hi tech industry.
> The current models have created a conduit for socialist disintegration of
> the american hi tech markets, loss of jobs, and have funnelled technology
> out of the country.  Legal defense funds should be the biggest red flags
> of all.  If this system you devised really works, why all the litigation?
> Why all the need for legal defense funds and patent infringement
> insurance?  I've watched the entire market slowly collapse over the years
> as the result of the affect of the GPL on America's hi tech markets.

GPL is just now making a real difference in the marketplace, you can't
blame the 20+ year woes of the industry on it.

> It isn't working, and it isn't sustainable.  non-profit and "temples" of
> GPL "religion" have evolved, with the leaders living in orgnaizations
> that subsist from handouts and donations.  This movement has spawned a
> global attitude that has no respect for IP rights, and it's extended
> itself to no respect for human rights, or any other rights of the
> indivdual.  That's the legacy this has left and the ultimate conclusion.

The "no respect for human rights" movement is way older and deeper than you
could ever credit GPL adherents.
-- 
Dr. Horst H. von Brand                   User #22616 counter.li.org
Departamento de Informatica                     Fono: +56 32 654431
Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria              +56 32 654239
Casilla 110-V, Valparaiso, Chile                Fax:  +56 32 797513

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: GNU/Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-10  7:06                         ` Jeff V. Merkey
                                             ` (2 preceding siblings ...)
  2005-12-11  2:12                           ` Horst von Brand
@ 2005-12-11  5:40                           ` Patrick McLean
       [not found]                           ` <E1ElJMz-00047E-1p@fencepost.gnu.org>
  4 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Patrick McLean @ 2005-12-11  5:40 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jeff V. Merkey, linux-kernel

Sorry to continue this OT thread.

Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
>>
> "constructive" is a for profit model that sustains the hi tech 
> industry.    The current
> models have created a conduit for socialist disintegration of the 
> american hi tech
> markets, loss of jobs, and have funnelled technology out of the 
> country.  Legal
> defense funds should be the biggest red flags of all.  If this system 
> you devised really
> works, why all the litigation?  Why all the need for legal defense funds 
> and patent
> infringement insurance?   I've watched the entire market slowly collapse 
> over the years
> as the result of the affect of the GPL on America's hi tech markets.
> It isn't working, and it isn't sustainable.  non-profit and "temples" of 
> GPL "religion"
> have evolved, with the leaders living in orgnaizations that subsist from 
> handouts and
> donations.   This movement has spawned a global attitude that has no 
> respect
> for IP rights, and it's extended itself to no respect for human rights, 
> or any other rights
> of the indivdual.    That's the legacy this has left and the ultimate 
> conclusion.

If you are totally against "socialist" licenses and the OSS movement, 
what are you doing on this mailing list? I rather doubt many people here 
share your views, and I seriously doubt that you are going to convince 
anyone to change their viewpoints.

I suspect you are simply trolling, and I suppose I am taking the bait.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: GNU/Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
       [not found]                           ` <E1ElJMz-00047E-1p@fencepost.gnu.org>
@ 2005-12-11  8:34                             ` Jeff V. Merkey
  2005-12-12  0:44                               ` Richard M. Stallman
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Jeff V. Merkey @ 2005-12-11  8:34 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: rms; +Cc: coywolf, luke-jr, linux-kernel

Richard M. Stallman wrote:

>	The current
>    models have created a conduit for socialist disintegration of the 
>    american hi tech
>    markets, loss of jobs, and have funnelled technology out of the 
>    country.  Legal
>    defense funds should be the biggest red flags of all.  If this system 
>    you devised really
>    works, why all the litigation?  Why all the need for legal defense funds 
>    and patent
>    infringement insurance?
>
>I think you are combining several different issues that need to be
>addressed separately.  The GNU GPL works well for the problems it was
>designed to solve, especially the problem of having to compete with
>proprietary modified versions of your own free software.  It succeeds,
>to the extent copyright holders enforce it, in ensuring that all users
>of the program get the source code and are free to run, change, and
>redistribute the program.  But it does not solve all the world's
>problems, or even all of software's ethical problems.  That is too
>much to expect.
>
>No software license can make software patents go away, nor can any
>software license by itself change the larger patterns--the
>globalization of business power, the erosion of democracy, the
>increasing concentration of wealth.  Those problems are real, and I
>don't know how to solve them, so I hope someone else finds a way.
>Meanwhile, the GNU GPL does what we can reasonably ask of it.
>
>    This movement has spawned a global attitude that has no 
>    respect
>    for IP rights,
>
>That attitude does not come from me.  I think it comes from the use of
>the biased and misleading term "IP rights".  That term lumps together
>more than a dozen disparate laws, which have little in
>common--including, for instance, copyright law and patent law, whose
>practical effects in the software field are completely different.
>
>Discussing these various laws as "IP" tends to lead people to
>simplistic, across-the-board views.  It also leads people to imagine
>that there is some sort of general "principle of IP" that these
>various laws were designed to embody (which is historically false).
>That's how you get so many people who are "for IP" or "against IP".
>
>To avoid these confusions, I decided not to use the term "IP" (except
>when it means "Internet Protocol").  It is clearer to discuss
>copyright, patents, and trademarks as three separate issues; that way,
>we can think about each of them in terms of how it affects society,
>without being drawn towards simplistic, across-the-board views.
>
>See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.xhtml for more explanation
>of this issue.
>
>
>  
>
Richard,
 
It is within your power to revise the GP L to address these issues.  You 
should consider
doing so.  I would be happy to propose several changes in future 
revisions.  Let me know where,
when, and what to provide.  You can be assured I'll provide some very 
excellent input on
these issues. 

Jeff


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: GNU/Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-10 16:43                           ` Helge Hafting
  2005-12-10 19:05                             ` Jan-Benedict Glaw
@ 2005-12-11 13:24                             ` Bernd Petrovitsch
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Bernd Petrovitsch @ 2005-12-11 13:24 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Helge Hafting; +Cc: Jeff V. Merkey, rms, Coywolf Qi Hunt, luke-jr, linux-kernel

On Sat, 2005-12-10 at 17:43 +0100, Helge Hafting wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 10, 2005 at 12:06:54AM -0700, Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
[....]
> > donations.   This movement has spawned a global attitude that has no 
> > respect
> > for IP rights, and it's extended itself to no respect for human rights, 
> > or any other rights
> > of the indivdual.    That's the legacy this has left and the ultimate 
> > conclusion.
> 
> Less respect for IP rights - possibly.  Perhaps that's a good thing though,

Not at all - *much* more respect for IP rights then ever before.
The problem is the raised awareness yields problems for old economy
corporations which rely on segmented markets with a relatively small
number of competitors (so that you can actually handle all the patent
and license issue[0]) and the rest are private folks which can't afford
going to court after $CORPORATION took some piece of "work" (i.e.
usually software) and sells it as part of a e.g. WLAN access point
without paying for it a cent.

> some of us thinks such rights are a bit overrated.

	Bernd

[0]: And we all know the licenses and patent "fees" are not more than an
     insurance for not getting sued by the issuer of the license.
-- 
Firmix Software GmbH                   http://www.firmix.at/
mobil: +43 664 4416156                 fax: +43 1 7890849-55
          Embedded Linux Development and Services




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: GNU/Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-10 20:44                                   ` Jeff V. Merkey
  2005-12-10 21:47                                     ` Jan-Benedict Glaw
@ 2005-12-11 13:56                                     ` Bernd Petrovitsch
  2005-12-11 15:15                                     ` Erwin Rol
                                                       ` (3 subsequent siblings)
  5 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Bernd Petrovitsch @ 2005-12-11 13:56 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jeff V. Merkey
  Cc: Jan-Benedict Glaw, Helge Hafting, rms, Coywolf Qi Hunt, luke-jr,
	linux-kernel

On Sat, 2005-12-10 at 13:44 -0700, Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
[....]
> I'm married to a German citizen and I visit Germany for 3-4 week stints 

Then you should know more about Europena culture than stated below:

> once a year.  Last year I went to Aachen and Amsterdam on vacation.  
> Every computer store I visited sold pirated copies of Windows XP and 
> Microsoft Office and in Amsterdam people were selling copies on the 
> street corners in the Artis District.

a) Tell MSFT about it, not us.
b) How many stores did you visit (in Amsterdam and in Aachen) and how
   many of them are there?
c) I don't believe that the average store in .at, .de or .nl sells
   pirated copies - this is as illegal here as in the US.

> The entire culture has absolutely no concept of IP rights and I was 
> amazed at how open folks are there about piracy.  If someone did that in 

You should then learn more about the difference (both factual now and
historical) between authors rights as in .at now (in .de years ago) vs
copyright in GB/US.

> the US, they'd
> be in jail.   I have lived in Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Crete, and 

The question of jailing is "illegal vs illegal" - not a moral question.

> I spent about 2 years in the UK when I was a younger man, and I have a 
> really
> good handle on the culture over there.  Even the republic countries 
> which have democratic governments are very much socialist in terms of the
> lifestyle and the governments, and the way people live, so it's no 

"Socialist" or "communist"? These are in Europe two totally different
things (though they usually share the same political color).
And it is probably better than the alternatives.

> surprise the whole concept of free software and the GPL are so natural 
> to the culture of Europe in general.

Which leads to the immediate question why the concept and license was
born in the US?

> I have been very dismayed at how FOSS has been used as a vehicle to 
> promote anti-american attitudes into our own culture.  It's sad.  I have 

Who uses it this way?

> lived in
> all these places and the only place where people have guaranteed rights 
> as individuals and true freedom is America.  I was in Germany in the late

"freedom" as "anarchy light"?

> 1970's and earlt 1980's when the Bater-Meinhoffs were killing Americans 

The Bader-Meinhoff-Gang was a very extreme left wing terrorist group
which also killed e.g. German minister. Putting this as example for
Germany is like stating that Timothy McVeigh is an average US citizen.

> in the streets and the Grune-Gehfahr (Green Party) was having 

Yes, the Green parties (at least in .at and AFAICT in .de) where a
"threat" to the old established parties since a new competitor came up
the horizon. And the tries several things (which you didn't mention) to
"fight" the new competition (without much success BTW).

> demonstrations burning effigies of Uncle Sam in the Hauptewache District 
> in Frankfurt.    This younger generation has no concept of what they are 

Sorry, no details out of my head.
But apparently some radicals where there. If they were "invited" by the
demo organisers or even organised the demo themselves, is another
question which you should answer if you bring this as an example (or
should we hunt for similar events in the US and present them as
example?).
Or did they just came to make the action and get filmed by journalists
since a peaceful demonstration for cili rights and similar doesn't get
the headlines (and Pulitzer price?) - only the action.

> supporting or how bad things can get.  It is the doom of men that they 
> forget.

Should we now start the "which country got the worst radicals in which
century" listing?

[....]
> German culture.  At any rate, Stallman needs to in the next GPL incorporate
> capitalist provisions which will allow FOSS to become a self sustaining 
> model.   The US markets are abandoning Linux as a commerical offering

You measure FOSS only on old models (and do not question these models).
Successful companies adapt to new models and who cares about the
remaining - and thus - unsuccessful ones?
Can it be more "capitalistic" (the word has probably at least as much
negative as positive meaning - and leftists probably don't agree even to
that).

> and Windows is continuing to get stronger and stronger.  It's tough

Yes, MSFTs propaganda is apparently working in the US.
And it is a pity that no one is questioning the commercial methods and
strategy of such copmpanies (and no, the point is not about "Win*
software is better or worse than free software", we are here at a much
higher layer then technical facts since technical facts are completely
irrelevant regarding these commercial methods).

	Bernd, shutting up again
-- 
Firmix Software GmbH                   http://www.firmix.at/
mobil: +43 664 4416156                 fax: +43 1 7890849-55
          Embedded Linux Development and Services




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: GNU/Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-10 20:44                                   ` Jeff V. Merkey
  2005-12-10 21:47                                     ` Jan-Benedict Glaw
  2005-12-11 13:56                                     ` Bernd Petrovitsch
@ 2005-12-11 15:15                                     ` Erwin Rol
  2005-12-11 16:38                                       ` Florian Weimer
  2005-12-11 16:27                                     ` Florian Weimer
                                                       ` (2 subsequent siblings)
  5 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Erwin Rol @ 2005-12-11 15:15 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jeff V. Merkey; +Cc: linux-kernel

On Sat, 2005-12-10 at 13:44 -0700, Jeff V. Merkey wrote:

> I'm married to a German citizen and I visit Germany for 3-4 week stints 
> once a year.  Last year I went to Aachen and Amsterdam on vacation.  
> Every computer store I visited sold pirated copies of Windows XP and 
> Microsoft Office and in Amsterdam people were selling copies on the 
> street corners in the Artis District.

Did you find those people selling pirated windows copies on the street
before or after you visited a coffeeshop ?

> Jeff

- Erwin (who is Dutch and finds this story highly unlikely, unless there
is another Amsterdam in Asia somewhere).




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: GNU/Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-10 20:44                                   ` Jeff V. Merkey
                                                       ` (2 preceding siblings ...)
  2005-12-11 15:15                                     ` Erwin Rol
@ 2005-12-11 16:27                                     ` Florian Weimer
  2005-12-11 16:49                                     ` Richard M. Stallman
  2005-12-11 23:19                                     ` Helge Hafting
  5 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Florian Weimer @ 2005-12-11 16:27 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jeff V. Merkey
  Cc: Jan-Benedict Glaw, Helge Hafting, rms, Coywolf Qi Hunt, luke-jr,
	linux-kernel

* Jeff V. Merkey:

> I'm married to a German citizen and I visit Germany for 3-4 week stints 
> once a year.  Last year I went to Aachen and Amsterdam on vacation.  
> Every computer store I visited sold pirated copies of Windows XP and 
> Microsoft Office

Usually, they sell unlicensed OEM versions, which is fine because you
don't need a license to sell CDs once they've legally entered the EU.
If Microsoft itself distributed them to 

Theoretically, the situation is the same in the U.S., but maybe
Microsoft has just better means to enforce the OEM/end user price
discrimination.

> Even the republic countries which have democratic governments are
> very much socialist in terms of the lifestyle and the governments,
> and the way people live, so it's no surprise the whole concept of
> free software and the GPL are so natural to the culture of Europe in
> general.

Maybe we are all socialist bastards (I doubt it, some of us are too
good at playing capitalist), but it's not our respect or disrespect of
IP laws that makes a difference.  It's things like social security,
mandatory health insurance, etc., which are backed by actual law, not
very limited private-sector initiatives promoting copyleft schemes.

> I have been very dismayed at how FOSS has been used as a vehicle to 
> promote anti-american attitudes into our own culture.

I don't see what's anti-American about free software.  I assume that
being an American encompasses more than promoting a certain, very
narrowly scoped IP-related agenda.  On the contrary, putting free
speech over IP protection is a very American thing, and most Europeans
do not value freedom of speech that high.

> It's sad.  I have lived in all these places and the only place where
> people have guaranteed rights as individuals and true freedom is
> America.

I'm not sure if Mr Padilla agrees.

> I was in Germany in the late 1970's and earlt 1980's when the
> Bater-Meinhoffs were killing Americans in the streets and the
> Grune-Gehfahr (Green Party) was having demonstrations burning
> effigies of Uncle Sam in the Hauptewache District in Frankfurt.
> This younger generation has no concept of what they are supporting
> or how bad things can get.  It is the doom of men that they forget.

*shrug* You have your own troubles with militias on the far right
(ignoring this WOT thing, which is beyond rational debate anyway).

> At any rate, Stallman needs to in the next GPL incorporate
> capitalist provisions which will allow FOSS to become a self
> sustaining model.  The US markets are abandoning Linux as a
> commerical offering and Windows is continuing to get stronger and
> stronger.

So what?  The Microsoft monopoly is only a temporary thing.  Breaking
it shouldn't be the highest-ranked item on the FSF's agenda.
Eventually, Microsoft will commit a fatal mistake (or a series of
minor ones) which will seal its fate.  Free software matters in the
long run, and short-term considerations shouldn't alter our course too
much.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: GNU/Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-11 15:15                                     ` Erwin Rol
@ 2005-12-11 16:38                                       ` Florian Weimer
  2005-12-12 15:51                                         ` Alan Cox
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Florian Weimer @ 2005-12-11 16:38 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Erwin Rol; +Cc: linux-kernel

* Erwin Rol:

> - Erwin (who is Dutch and finds this story highly unlikely, unless there
> is another Amsterdam in Asia somewhere).

IP enforcements varies quite a lot across Europe.  I'm being told that
in the UK, the DVD situation is as worse as in some Asian countries
(i.e. you can buy illegal copies of current movies on flea markets).
I'm not aware of such a level of open unlicensed for-profit copying in
Germany (beyond the OEM debate).  We have a long history of test
buyers at flea markets, and our culture is generally know for its
tendency to denounce. 8-)

The things we have is (a) professional software counterfeiting, (b)
small-scale movie swapping in firmly established rings for no
commercial gain (c) unlicensed movie distribution at professional
scale, and (d) P2P swapping.  (a) and (d) are world-wide problems, and
(b) and (c) do not happen openly.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: GNU/Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-10 20:44                                   ` Jeff V. Merkey
                                                       ` (3 preceding siblings ...)
  2005-12-11 16:27                                     ` Florian Weimer
@ 2005-12-11 16:49                                     ` Richard M. Stallman
  2005-12-11 23:19                                     ` Helge Hafting
  5 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Richard M. Stallman @ 2005-12-11 16:49 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jeff V. Merkey; +Cc: jbglaw, helgehaf, coywolf, luke-jr, linux-kernel

      At any rate, Stallman needs to in the next GPL incorporate
    capitalist provisions which will allow FOSS to become a self sustaining 
    model.

The GNU General Public License was developed in the US, and follows
the principles that the US proclaims, which include doing business.
That is how I came to the conclusion that selling copies is one of the
things that free software must permit for every user.

However, freedom and community are more fundamental than economics.
The primary goal of the GNU GPL is to defend the freedom of all users,
particularly the freedom to cooperate.  Business questions are
secondary.

Fortunately, we need not to do anything to enable free software to
"become self-sustaining", because it is already sustaining itself just
fine.  If and when we see real problems, rather than speculation
about problems, we might have a reason to try to solve them.

But we could not make radical changes in the GNU GPL, even if we
wanted to.  It would violate the commitment stated in section 9 of the

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: GNU/Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-10 20:44                                   ` Jeff V. Merkey
                                                       ` (4 preceding siblings ...)
  2005-12-11 16:49                                     ` Richard M. Stallman
@ 2005-12-11 23:19                                     ` Helge Hafting
  2005-12-12 13:45                                       ` Bernd Petrovitsch
  5 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Helge Hafting @ 2005-12-11 23:19 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jeff V. Merkey
  Cc: Jan-Benedict Glaw, rms, Coywolf Qi Hunt, luke-jr, linux-kernel

On Sat, Dec 10, 2005 at 01:44:38PM -0700, Jeff V. Merkey wrote:

[...]
> The entire culture has absolutely no concept of IP rights and I was 
> amazed at how open folks are there about piracy.  If someone did that in 
> the US, they'd
> be in jail.   I have lived in Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Crete, and 
> I spent about 2 years in the UK when I was a younger man, and I have a 
> really
> good handle on the culture over there.  Even the republic countries 
> which have democratic governments are very much socialist in terms of the
> lifestyle and the governments, and the way people live, so it's no 
> surprise the whole concept of free software and the GPL are so natural 
> to the
> culture of Europe in general.
> 
Free sw and GPL is not about disrespect for intellectual property. We
want the GPL to be respected - as well as *enforced* when need be.
Free sw people tend to respect IP laws *more* than others - simply because
it is easier for us.  We don't need to choose between piracy
or paying through the nose for an os or an office productivity suite,
whe have all of this and more for free - legally.  Some of us take
pride in not pirating anything.

> I have been very dismayed at how FOSS has been used as a vehicle to 
> promote anti-american attitudes into our own culture.  It's sad.  I have 
> lived in
> all these places and the only place where people have guaranteed rights 
> as individuals and true freedom is America.  

"The only place!"  Are you just trying to provoke?  Or can you tell me
what freedoms and rights I lack? I live in a democracy, I vote, I
have freedom of speech and press, I can leave if I'm not satisified anyway.
I also have the freedom of going wherever I want, any time of day, without risk.

If you wonder why some people have an anti-american attitude, try listening to
what they say.  It is usually about foreign policies, environmental problems,
or the actions of large America-based multinational corporations. 

> I was in Germany in the late
> 1970's and earlt 1980's when the Bater-Meinhoffs were killing Americans 

Criminals, which were eventually caught.  Seems to me America has enough
of their own criminals killing americans?  

> in the streets and the Grune-Gehfahr (Green Party) was having 
> demonstrations burning effigies of Uncle Sam in the Hauptewache District 

Excercising their freedom of speech?  It'd be sad if they couldn't.
If you love freedom of speech, then you have to put up with people
saying all sorts of things. Even things you don't like.

Helge Hafting


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: GNU/Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-11  8:34                             ` Jeff V. Merkey
@ 2005-12-12  0:44                               ` Richard M. Stallman
  2005-12-12  0:50                                 ` Jeff V. Merkey
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Richard M. Stallman @ 2005-12-12  0:44 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jeff V. Merkey; +Cc: coywolf, luke-jr, linux-kernel

--text follows this line--
      I would be happy to propose several changes in future revisions.
    Let me know where, when, and what to provide.  You can be assured
    I'll provide some very excellent input on these issues.

We accepting comments on the first public draft of GNU GPL v3 once it
is made public on Jan 16.

See gplv3.fsf.org for more information about how this will work.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: GNU/Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-12  0:44                               ` Richard M. Stallman
@ 2005-12-12  0:50                                 ` Jeff V. Merkey
  2005-12-12  3:03                                   ` Luke-Jr
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Jeff V. Merkey @ 2005-12-12  0:50 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: rms; +Cc: coywolf, luke-jr, linux-kernel

Richard M. Stallman wrote:

>--text follows this line--
>      I would be happy to propose several changes in future revisions.
>    Let me know where, when, and what to provide.  You can be assured
>    I'll provide some very excellent input on these issues.
>
>We accepting comments on the first public draft of GNU GPL v3 once it
>is made public on Jan 16.
>
>See gplv3.fsf.org for more information about how this will work.
>-
>To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
>the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
>More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
>Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/
>
>  
>
You can be assured I will submit proposed changes.  Something along the 
same lines as the CDDL.  Needs to protect
receivers of the code from IP claims and also needs to accomodate mixing 
of non-GPL components without
contaminating add on modules and functionality.  I would use the GPL if 
it were more acceptable along these
lines.  In case you haven't noticed, I don't have problem being 
outspoken, nor do I am subject to intimination
by the more vocal element of the FOSS community.  I am using the CDDL at 
present but a revised and more
capitalism oriented GPL would certainly be welcome.

I'll sharpen my pencil.

Jeff

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: GNU/Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-12  0:50                                 ` Jeff V. Merkey
@ 2005-12-12  3:03                                   ` Luke-Jr
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Luke-Jr @ 2005-12-12  3:03 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jeff V. Merkey; +Cc: rms, coywolf, linux-kernel

On Monday 12 December 2005 00:50, Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
> Richard M. Stallman wrote:
> >--text follows this line--
> >      I would be happy to propose several changes in future revisions.
> >    Let me know where, when, and what to provide.  You can be assured
> >    I'll provide some very excellent input on these issues.
> >
> >We accepting comments on the first public draft of GNU GPL v3 once it
> >is made public on Jan 16.
> >
> >See gplv3.fsf.org for more information about how this will work.
>
> You can be assured I will submit proposed changes.  Something along the
> same lines as the CDDL.  Needs to protect receivers of the code from IP
> claims 

IIRC, something like that is planned (assuming you're talking about patents).

> and also needs to accomodate mixing of non-GPL components without 
> contaminating add on modules and functionality.

That's the LGPL (Lesser GPL), not the GPL. The GPL's linkage clauses are by 
design.
-- 
I digitally sign my emails.  If you see an attachment with .asc, then that 
means your email client doesn't support PGP digital signatures.
http://www.gnupg.org/documentation/faqs.html#q1.1

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-08 11:30           ` Luke-Jr
@ 2005-12-12 11:27             ` Helge Hafting
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Helge Hafting @ 2005-12-12 11:27 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Luke-Jr; +Cc: Linux Kernel Mailing List

Luke-Jr wrote:

>On Thursday 08 December 2005 08:14, you wrote:
>  
>
>>Luke-Jr wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>The ATi Radeon 9200 works fine...
>>>      
>>>
>>Lucky you.  Mine doesn't.  Using 3D on it makes the machine unstable,
>>and the performance is apalling too.
>>    
>>
>
>Hm, well I don't have DRI enabled on my primary desktop... just on a second 
>one dedicated to gaming. Not sure if that makes any difference...
>
>  
>
>>So I'm looking for something else - a radeon 7000 is cheap .  . .
>>    
>>
>
>That'll outperform a 9200? ;)
>  
>
Actually yes, because something is clearly wrong.
The pci 9200 SE can run tuxracer at 640x480 - not smooth
but playable until it locks the machine after a few minutes.

The AGP matrox G550 is better, it runs 1280x1024 tuxracer
with a unknown but noticeable higher framerate.  According to
people I talked to before, the 9200SE is supposed to outperform
this, even with a pci bus.  But it is not even close and I don't
bother running 3D on it any more due to the hanging.

>  
>
>>And don't say that a crash during a 3D game isn't important -
>>    
>>
>
>A system crash? Worst I've ever seen was a X crash, back before I got my X 
>configs good. If you mean a game crash, I wouldn't know... half the time it'd 
>probably be my fault. ;)
>  
>
I don't mind a game crash - I can always find another game.  But it will
at least screw up that card so bad that I need a reboot to get
a working xserver running on that display.  Typically, the
crash ends with a 99% cpu loop in the kernel, a blocked display,
and perhaps the other xserver gets in trouble too.

>  
>
>>it is a two-user machine and the other user is not amused when this happens.
>>    
>>
>
>Maybe he would be if it showed a BSOD? :p
>  
>
Nope.  A windows crash isn't any "better", and they are used to
the linux-level of stability anyway.

Helge Hafting

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-08 13:48           ` Nix
@ 2005-12-12 12:01             ` Helge Hafting
  2005-12-12 19:46               ` Nix
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Helge Hafting @ 2005-12-12 12:01 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Nix; +Cc: Linux Kernel Mailing List

Nix wrote:

>On 8 Dec 2005, Helge Hafting said:
>  
>
>>Lucky you.  Mine doesn't.  Using 3D on it makes the machine unstable,
>>and the performance is apalling too. So I'm looking for something
>>else - a radeon 7000 is cheap .  . .
>>    
>>
>
>Backtraces? X version? X config?
>  
>
6.8.2 from debian testing

>(FWIW, my AGP Radeon 9250 works flawlessly as of X.org 6.8.99.901.
>6.8.2 and earlier were wobbly.)
>  
>
Time to try again then, I guess.  Nice to know that something
is happening with the newer servers.

>Whether performance is appalling I don't know because I don't have any
>standards to measure it by, but I get 2000fps or thereabouts out of
>glxgears. That's a hell of a lot better than the 64fps I got out of
>my earlier mach64 :)
>  
>
I have never seen glxgears go into the thousands.  The card is
obviously not supposed to be like this - either card or driver is
faulty.  Most people don't seem to have performance problems,
with their radeons, so perhaps my card is a bit different and
don't fit the driver.

Helge Hafting


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: GNU/Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-11 23:19                                     ` Helge Hafting
@ 2005-12-12 13:45                                       ` Bernd Petrovitsch
  2005-12-12 15:34                                         ` Lee Revell
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Bernd Petrovitsch @ 2005-12-12 13:45 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Helge Hafting
  Cc: Jeff V. Merkey, Jan-Benedict Glaw, rms, Coywolf Qi Hunt, luke-jr,
	linux-kernel

On Mon, 2005-12-12 at 00:19 +0100, Helge Hafting wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 10, 2005 at 01:44:38PM -0700, Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
[...]
> > I have been very dismayed at how FOSS has been used as a vehicle to 
> > promote anti-american attitudes into our own culture.  It's sad.  I have 
> > lived in
> > all these places and the only place where people have guaranteed rights 
> > as individuals and true freedom is America.  
> 
> "The only place!"  Are you just trying to provoke?  Or can you tell me

Obviously.

> what freedoms and rights I lack? I live in a democracy, I vote, I
> have freedom of speech and press, I can leave if I'm not satisified anyway.
> I also have the freedom of going wherever I want, any time of day, without risk.

The last sentence needs to be stressed.

> If you wonder why some people have an anti-american attitude, try listening to
> what they say.  It is usually about foreign policies, environmental problems,
> or the actions of large America-based multinational corporations. 

Or the arrogance to even only think that the whole world must act as the
US administration wishes.

> > I was in Germany in the late
> > 1970's and earlt 1980's when the Bater-Meinhoffs were killing Americans 
> 
> Criminals, which were eventually caught.  Seems to me America has enough
> of their own criminals killing americans?  

Remember the last 3-5 years IIRC about typical tourist robberies in
Florida?
Probably the US don't want any visitors from Europe anymore (and with
the current list of to-be-delivered data before one may enter the so
called "land of the free" I certainly wait for that period to get over).

> > in the streets and the Grune-Gehfahr (Green Party) was having 
> > demonstrations burning effigies of Uncle Sam in the Hauptewache District 
> 
> Excercising their freedom of speech?  It'd be sad if they couldn't.
> If you love freedom of speech, then you have to put up with people
> saying all sorts of things. Even things you don't like.

The so called "freedom of speech" in the so called "land of the free"
can be seen if agents of 3-letter agencies walk into universities to
"avoid" talks on certain topics.

	Bernd
-- 
Firmix Software GmbH                   http://www.firmix.at/
mobil: +43 664 4416156                 fax: +43 1 7890849-55
          Embedded Linux Development and Services


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: GNU/Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-12 13:45                                       ` Bernd Petrovitsch
@ 2005-12-12 15:34                                         ` Lee Revell
  2005-12-12 15:37                                           ` Bernd Petrovitsch
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Lee Revell @ 2005-12-12 15:34 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Bernd Petrovitsch
  Cc: Helge Hafting, Jeff V. Merkey, Jan-Benedict Glaw, rms,
	Coywolf Qi Hunt, luke-jr, linux-kernel

On Mon, 2005-12-12 at 14:45 +0100, Bernd Petrovitsch wrote:
> > If you wonder why some people have an anti-american attitude, try
> listening to
> > what they say.  It is usually about foreign policies, environmental
> problems,
> > or the actions of large America-based multinational corporations. 
> 
> Or the arrogance to even only think that the whole world must act as
> the
> US administration wishes.
> 

Almost as bad as the Jeff Merkeys and George W Bushes of the US, are
Europeans who assume all or even most Americans are a Merkey or a GWB.

Lee


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: GNU/Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-12 15:34                                         ` Lee Revell
@ 2005-12-12 15:37                                           ` Bernd Petrovitsch
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Bernd Petrovitsch @ 2005-12-12 15:37 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Lee Revell
  Cc: Helge Hafting, Jeff V. Merkey, Jan-Benedict Glaw, rms,
	Coywolf Qi Hunt, luke-jr, linux-kernel

On Mon, 2005-12-12 at 10:34 -0500, Lee Revell wrote:
> On Mon, 2005-12-12 at 14:45 +0100, Bernd Petrovitsch wrote:
> > > If you wonder why some people have an anti-american attitude, try
> > listening to
> > > what they say.  It is usually about foreign policies, environmental
> > problems,
> > > or the actions of large America-based multinational corporations. 
> > 
> > Or the arrogance to even only think that the whole world must act as
> > the
> > US administration wishes.
> 
> Almost as bad as the Jeff Merkeys and George W Bushes of the US, are
> Europeans who assume all or even most Americans are a Merkey or a GWB.

ACK.
I didn't want to (or actually did[0]) say that all or most or many are
that way.
But at least a few do nevertheless - and if it's only a clique in
Washington with a few people in Brussels.

	Bernd

[0]: or wanted to. Sorry, if you or anyone had the wrong impression.
-- 
Firmix Software GmbH                   http://www.firmix.at/
mobil: +43 664 4416156                 fax: +43 1 7890849-55
          Embedded Linux Development and Services


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: GNU/Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-11 16:38                                       ` Florian Weimer
@ 2005-12-12 15:51                                         ` Alan Cox
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Alan Cox @ 2005-12-12 15:51 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Florian Weimer; +Cc: Erwin Rol, linux-kernel

On Sul, 2005-12-11 at 17:38 +0100, Florian Weimer wrote:
> IP enforcements varies quite a lot across Europe.  I'm being told that
> in the UK, the DVD situation is as worse as in some Asian countries
> (i.e. you can buy illegal copies of current movies on flea markets).

It isnt quite as bad. However there is a lack of interest in enforcement
from local government who have better things to spend their money on,
and also because the IP rules have been abused so much in the UK
including to charge rip off prices that local goverment serves voters
who are likely to vote against not for any local government
representative who decides to go on an anti-piracy crusade. I've heard
people in the trading standards area (which tackles counterfeiting)
who've been told by their elected "masters" to concentrate solely on the
other areas of their duties like product safety if they want to have an
operating budget next year.

Unfortuantely the bad behaviour of the big media companies that
triggered much of this gets reflected back at everything even
disinterest in GPL violation enforcment or large scale violations by big
business.

Alan


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-07 21:38                     ` David S. Miller
  2005-12-07 21:47                       ` Andrew Walrond
  2005-12-07 21:53                       ` Gerrit Huizenga
@ 2005-12-12 17:52                       ` Ric Wheeler
  2005-12-13  8:17                         ` Andrew Walrond
  2 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Ric Wheeler @ 2005-12-12 17:52 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: David S. Miller
  Cc: gh, davej, geert, arjan, rdunlap, riel, andrea, wli,
	linux-kernel, ogasawara



David S. Miller wrote:

>From: Gerrit Huizenga <gh@us.ibm.com>
>Date: Wed, 07 Dec 2005 13:30:18 -0800
>
>  
>
>>OSDL.org has no desire to advocate binary drivers in any way and I
>>don't expect that they will do anything to educate or influence their
>>members or the global vendor/IHV/developer communities to use binary
>>drivers.  Further, I expect they will do exactly the opposite, in
>>particular, educate members, developers, IHV's on how to deploy
>>open source drivers and the benefits of doing so.
>>    
>>
>
>You might want to read the following before stating such
>things:
>
>	http://www.kroah.com/log/2005/11/03/#osdl_gkai
>
>Thanks.
>  
>

Did you also read Greg's follow up posting:

     http://www.kroah.com/log/2005/11/07#osdl_gkai2

where he says that he was wrong about OSDL pushing for binary drivers? 
(Not that the update was a glowing review of OSDL in general ;-))

I agree with Gerrit - from where I sit on OSDL's DCL tech forum, I have 
not seen any push for binary drivers and have seen consistent pressure 
pushing towards GPL'ed only drivers.

That position is strongly spelled out in the OSDL sponsored open drivers 
page as well. 

Regards,

ric


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-12 12:01             ` Helge Hafting
@ 2005-12-12 19:46               ` Nix
  2005-12-13  8:10                 ` Helge Hafting
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Nix @ 2005-12-12 19:46 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Helge Hafting; +Cc: Linux Kernel Mailing List

On Mon, 12 Dec 2005, Helge Hafting said:
> Nix wrote:
>>(FWIW, my AGP Radeon 9250 works flawlessly as of X.org 6.8.99.901.
>>6.8.2 and earlier were wobbly.)
>>
>>
> Time to try again then, I guess.  Nice to know that something
> is happening with the newer servers.

Yep :) modular X is on its way...

>>Whether performance is appalling I don't know because I don't have any
>>standards to measure it by, but I get 2000fps or thereabouts out of
>>glxgears. That's a hell of a lot better than the 64fps I got out of
>>my earlier mach64 :)

Hm, retrying I see 500fps. I wonder what I was doing differently
earlier... :/

> I have never seen glxgears go into the thousands.  The card is
> obviously not supposed to be like this - either card or driver is
> faulty.

FWIW when glxgears is running, X consumes about 2% more CPU time
than normal: it's almost impossible to detect.

It sounds to me almost like direct rendering is disabled, which will of
course have catastropic effects on performance. What does glxinfo say?

FWIW, on my box it says

name of display: :0.0
display: :0  screen: 0
direct rendering: Yes
server glx vendor string: SGI
server glx version string: 1.2
server glx extensions:
    GLX_ARB_multisample, GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_visual_rating,
    GLX_EXT_import_context, GLX_OML_swap_method, GLX_SGI_make_current_read,
    GLX_SGIS_multisample, GLX_SGIX_hyperpipe, GLX_SGIX_swap_barrier,
    GLX_SGIX_fbconfig
client glx vendor string: SGI
client glx version string: 1.4
client glx extensions:
    GLX_ARB_get_proc_address, GLX_ARB_multisample, GLX_EXT_import_context,
    GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_visual_rating, GLX_MESA_allocate_memory,
    GLX_MESA_swap_control, GLX_MESA_swap_frame_usage, GLX_OML_swap_method,
    GLX_OML_sync_control, GLX_SGI_make_current_read, GLX_SGI_swap_control,
    GLX_SGI_video_sync, GLX_SGIS_multisample, GLX_SGIX_fbconfig,
    GLX_SGIX_pbuffer, GLX_SGIX_visual_select_group
GLX extensions:
    GLX_ARB_get_proc_address, GLX_ARB_multisample, GLX_EXT_import_context,
    GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_visual_rating, GLX_MESA_allocate_memory,
    GLX_MESA_swap_control, GLX_MESA_swap_frame_usage, GLX_OML_swap_method,
    GLX_SGI_video_sync, GLX_SGIS_multisample, GLX_SGIX_fbconfig
OpenGL vendor string: Tungsten Graphics, Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI R200 20041207 AGP 4x x86/MMX+/3DNow!+/SSE TCL
OpenGL version string: 1.3 Mesa 6.4
OpenGL extensions:
    GL_ARB_imaging, GL_ARB_multisample, GL_ARB_multitexture,
    GL_ARB_texture_border_clamp, GL_ARB_texture_compression,
    GL_ARB_texture_cube_map, GL_ARB_texture_env_add,
    GL_ARB_texture_env_combine, GL_ARB_texture_env_dot3,
    GL_ARB_texture_mirrored_repeat, GL_ARB_texture_rectangle,
    GL_ARB_transpose_matrix, GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object, GL_ARB_window_pos,
    GL_EXT_abgr, GL_EXT_bgra, GL_EXT_blend_color,
    GL_EXT_blend_equation_separate, GL_EXT_blend_func_separate,
    GL_EXT_blend_minmax, GL_EXT_blend_subtract, GL_EXT_clip_volume_hint,
    GL_EXT_compiled_vertex_array, GL_EXT_convolution, GL_EXT_copy_texture,
    GL_EXT_draw_range_elements, GL_EXT_fog_coord, GL_EXT_histogram,
    GL_EXT_packed_pixels, GL_EXT_polygon_offset, GL_EXT_rescale_normal,
    GL_EXT_secondary_color, GL_EXT_separate_specular_color,
    GL_EXT_stencil_wrap, GL_EXT_subtexture, GL_EXT_texture, GL_EXT_texture3D,
    GL_EXT_texture_edge_clamp, GL_EXT_texture_env_add,
    GL_EXT_texture_env_combine, GL_EXT_texture_env_dot3,
    GL_EXT_texture_filter_anisotropic, GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias,
    GL_EXT_texture_mirror_clamp, GL_EXT_texture_object,
    GL_EXT_texture_rectangle, GL_EXT_vertex_array, GL_APPLE_packed_pixels,
    GL_ATI_blend_equation_separate, GL_ATI_texture_env_combine3,
    GL_ATI_texture_mirror_once, GL_IBM_rasterpos_clip,
    GL_IBM_texture_mirrored_repeat, GL_INGR_blend_func_separate,
    GL_MESA_pack_invert, GL_MESA_ycbcr_texture, GL_MESA_window_pos,
    GL_NV_blend_square, GL_NV_light_max_exponent, GL_NV_texture_rectangle,
    GL_NV_texgen_reflection, GL_OES_read_format, GL_SGI_color_matrix,
    GL_SGI_color_table, GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap, GL_SGIS_texture_border_clamp,
    GL_SGIS_texture_edge_clamp, GL_SGIS_texture_lod
glu version: 1.3
glu extensions:
    GLU_EXT_nurbs_tessellator, GLU_EXT_object_space_tess

   visual  x  bf lv rg d st colorbuffer ax dp st accumbuffer  ms  cav
 id dep cl sp sz l  ci b ro  r  g  b  a bf th cl  r  g  b  a ns b eat
----------------------------------------------------------------------
0x23 16 tc  0 16  0 r  .  .  5  6  5  0  0 16  0  0  0  0  0  0 0 None
0x24 16 tc  0 16  0 r  .  .  5  6  5  0  0 16  8  0  0  0  0  0 0 Slow
0x25 16 tc  0 16  0 r  .  .  5  6  5  0  0 16  0 16 16 16  0  0 0 Slow
0x26 16 tc  0 16  0 r  .  .  5  6  5  0  0 16  8 16 16 16  0  0 0 Slow
0x27 16 tc  0 16  0 r  y  .  5  6  5  0  0 16  0  0  0  0  0  0 0 None
0x28 16 tc  0 16  0 r  y  .  5  6  5  0  0 16  8  0  0  0  0  0 0 Slow
0x29 16 tc  0 16  0 r  y  .  5  6  5  0  0 16  0 16 16 16  0  0 0 Slow
0x2a 16 tc  0 16  0 r  y  .  5  6  5  0  0 16  8 16 16 16  0  0 0 Slow
0x2b 16 dc  0 16  0 r  .  .  5  6  5  0  0 16  0  0  0  0  0  0 0 None
0x2c 16 dc  0 16  0 r  .  .  5  6  5  0  0 16  8  0  0  0  0  0 0 Slow
0x2d 16 dc  0 16  0 r  .  .  5  6  5  0  0 16  0 16 16 16  0  0 0 Slow
0x2e 16 dc  0 16  0 r  .  .  5  6  5  0  0 16  8 16 16 16  0  0 0 Slow
0x2f 16 dc  0 16  0 r  y  .  5  6  5  0  0 16  0  0  0  0  0  0 0 None
0x30 16 dc  0 16  0 r  y  .  5  6  5  0  0 16  8  0  0  0  0  0 0 Slow
0x31 16 dc  0 16  0 r  y  .  5  6  5  0  0 16  0 16 16 16  0  0 0 Slow
0x32 16 dc  0 16  0 r  y  .  5  6  5  0  0 16  8 16 16 16  0  0 0 Slow


>          Most people don't seem to have performance problems,
> with their radeons, so perhaps my card is a bit different and
> don't fit the driver.

The X startup log can also be useful here. I've noticed that if you
get the AGPMode wrong in either direction, the results can be
catastrophic: if it's too low the card is terribly slow and if it's
too high you soon get the X server hanging as it waits forever for
the card to respond to something it hasn't had time to receive (or
something like that, anyway).

-- 
`Don't confuse the shark with the remoras.' --- Rob Landley


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Runs with Linux (tm)
  2005-12-07 18:22                 ` Jesse Barnes
@ 2005-12-12 21:13                   ` David Lang
  2005-12-12 21:20                     ` Randy.Dunlap
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: David Lang @ 2005-12-12 21:13 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jesse Barnes; +Cc: Randy.Dunlap, Benjamin LaHaise, Dirk Steuwer, linux-kernel

On Wed, 7 Dec 2005, Jesse Barnes wrote:

> Now, who's in a position to make this happen?  Maybe Linux International?
> (I think Maddog mentioned something like this at a Kernel Summit a few
> years ago.)

I don't remember tha name of the orginization, but the group that Linus 
setup to enforce the trademark would be perfect for this. licensing a 
'runs with linux' sticker would be exactly the type of thing the trademark 
is designed to protect.

I think it's obvious that anything with in-kernel drivers would qualify 
(new versions of hardware may need driver updates before they could use 
the sticker) and if Linus could define a suitable level of documentation 
of the hardware I think that that should very quickly lead to an in-kernel 
driver (and given hardware lead time it may be reasonable to allow the 
sticker based on the release of documentation)

I would not like to see it for external drivers, especially ones that work 
only with specific kernels from specific distros. even if the source is 
available, unless it can be merged into the kernel it's going to be a 
ongoing problem (although the open-source-but-external driver code could 
end up being deemed 'sufficiant documentation')

David Lang

-- 
There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies.
  -- C.A.R. Hoare


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Runs with Linux (tm)
  2005-12-12 21:13                   ` David Lang
@ 2005-12-12 21:20                     ` Randy.Dunlap
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Randy.Dunlap @ 2005-12-12 21:20 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: David Lang
  Cc: Jesse Barnes, Randy.Dunlap, Benjamin LaHaise, Dirk Steuwer, linux-kernel

On Mon, 12 Dec 2005, David Lang wrote:

> On Wed, 7 Dec 2005, Jesse Barnes wrote:
>
> > Now, who's in a position to make this happen?  Maybe Linux International?
> > (I think Maddog mentioned something like this at a Kernel Summit a few
> > years ago.)
>
> I don't remember tha name of the orginization, but the group that Linus
> setup to enforce the trademark would be perfect for this. licensing a
> 'runs with linux' sticker would be exactly the type of thing the trademark
> is designed to protect.

That's the Linux Mark Institute:
  http://www.linuxmark.org/

> I think it's obvious that anything with in-kernel drivers would qualify
> (new versions of hardware may need driver updates before they could use
> the sticker) and if Linus could define a suitable level of documentation
> of the hardware I think that that should very quickly lead to an in-kernel
> driver (and given hardware lead time it may be reasonable to allow the
> sticker based on the release of documentation)
>
> I would not like to see it for external drivers, especially ones that work
> only with specific kernels from specific distros. even if the source is
> available, unless it can be merged into the kernel it's going to be a
> ongoing problem (although the open-source-but-external driver code could
> end up being deemed 'sufficiant documentation')
>
> David Lang

-- 
~Randy

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 15:17       ` Pavel Machek
@ 2005-12-13  2:00         ` Rob Landley
  2005-12-13  7:56           ` Arjan van de Ven
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Rob Landley @ 2005-12-13  2:00 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Pavel Machek
  Cc: Brian Gerst, Andrea Arcangeli, William Lee Irwin III,
	Arjan van de Ven, linux-kernel

On Tuesday 06 December 2005 09:17, Pavel Machek wrote:
> Actually, yes it does cost them. If you refuse to buy $2000 notebook,
> because its 3D graphics card ($100) is not supported properly... well
> notebook vendor is going to put pressure on graphics card vendor.

One thing about understanding large companies: if they can't measure it, it 
doesn't exist.

And yes, this sometimes leads to really stupid behavior.  I remember an old 
businessweek article from 1998 about how Pizza Hut responded to the 
encroachment of Papa Johns by measuring salami slices with a micrometer and 
timing how long it took the sauce to flow down an incline.  The fundamental 
problem was, a large chunk of their customer base preferred the other guy's 
pizza, but they couldn't _measure_ that.  Responding to concerns about 
aesthetics and usability by focusing on "six nines" of reliability is a 
common mistake.  Because it's easy to _measure_.  The squeaky wheel, and all 
that...

So if they don't know _why_ you refused to buy the $2000 notebook (and telling 
a salesbeing with no way to propogate it up the chain of command doesn't 
help), then it doesn't mean anything to them.  For all they know you didn't 
like the color, the CPU fan was too loud, the battery didn't last long 
enough, the touchpad was uncomfortable...

Yes, you can write letters to them to inform them of your concerns.  But what 
they care about is money, and correlating your concerns to aggregate sales 
figures is hand waving at best.

> And you don't have to be Linux user to refuse closed hardware. Having
> option in future is always good.x

If Linux desktop users are less than 5% of the laptop buying population, a 
more effective technique would be to focus purchases on small companies that 
_do_ provide things we can use.  Trimming $25 million off of a $1 billion 
market niche is a lot less noticeable than creating and sustaining a new $25 
million market niche.  (That's something that's easy to measure.  Here's $x 
dollars that could go to us, but doesn't.)

Of course getting a $1 billion company excited over a $25 million niche...  
You might want to read "the innovator's dilemma", by clayton christensen.  
_Marvelous_ book...

>         Pavel

Rob
-- 
Steve Ballmer: Innovation!  Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word.
I do not think it means what you think it means.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-13  2:00         ` Rob Landley
@ 2005-12-13  7:56           ` Arjan van de Ven
  2005-12-13  9:07             ` Rob Landley
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Arjan van de Ven @ 2005-12-13  7:56 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Rob Landley
  Cc: Pavel Machek, Brian Gerst, Andrea Arcangeli,
	William Lee Irwin III, linux-kernel

>                                t best.
> 
> > And you don't have to be Linux user to refuse closed hardware. Having
> > option in future is always good.x
> 
> If Linux desktop users are less than 5% of the laptop buying population, a 
> more effective technique would be to focus purchases on small companies that 
> _do_ provide things we can use.  

however, in areas where margins are really thin, like consumer PC
hardware, 5% of revenue is the difference between a loss and a profit.

And if we can have official 'works well' and 'don't buy' lists, the PR
around that can help make that impact, especially if people who don't
run linux yet but might in the future also start to pay attention to
this list.



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-12 19:46               ` Nix
@ 2005-12-13  8:10                 ` Helge Hafting
  2005-12-13 22:21                   ` Nix
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Helge Hafting @ 2005-12-13  8:10 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Nix; +Cc: Linux Kernel Mailing List

Nix wrote:
[...]

>FWIW when glxgears is running, X consumes about 2% more CPU time
>than normal: it's almost impossible to detect.
>  
>
Sure - the load is low - and so is performance.  As if the machine
isn't really trying - perhaps the driver is waiting when there is
no need to wait.

>It sounds to me almost like direct rendering is disabled, which will of
>course have catastropic effects on performance. What does glxinfo say?
>  
>
No.  While it is bad, it is not as bad as sw rendering. Tuxracer
with sw rendering is unbearable - 2 seconds per frame or so!

>>         Most people don't seem to have performance problems,
>>with their radeons, so perhaps my card is a bit different and
>>don't fit the driver.
>>    
>>
>
>The X startup log can also be useful here. I've noticed that if you
>get the AGPMode wrong in either direction, the results can be
>catastrophic: if it's too low the card is terribly slow and if it's
>too high you soon get the X server hanging as it waits forever for
>the card to respond to something it hasn't had time to receive (or
>something like that, anyway).
>  
>
Well, there is no AGPmode for a PCI card, is there?

Helge Hafting

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-12 17:52                       ` Ric Wheeler
@ 2005-12-13  8:17                         ` Andrew Walrond
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Andrew Walrond @ 2005-12-13  8:17 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: linux-kernel

On Monday 12 December 2005 17:52, Ric Wheeler wrote:
>
> Did you also read Greg's follow up posting:
>
>      http://www.kroah.com/log/2005/11/07#osdl_gkai2
>
> where he says that he was wrong about OSDL pushing for binary drivers?
> (Not that the update was a glowing review of OSDL in general ;-))
>
> I agree with Gerrit - from where I sit on OSDL's DCL tech forum, I have
> not seen any push for binary drivers and have seen consistent pressure
> pushing towards GPL'ed only drivers.
>
> That position is strongly spelled out in the OSDL sponsored open drivers
> page as well.
>

Useful. Thanks for pointing it out.

Andrew Walrond

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-13  7:56           ` Arjan van de Ven
@ 2005-12-13  9:07             ` Rob Landley
  2005-12-13 10:18               ` Felix Oxley
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Rob Landley @ 2005-12-13  9:07 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Arjan van de Ven
  Cc: Pavel Machek, Brian Gerst, Andrea Arcangeli,
	William Lee Irwin III, linux-kernel

On Tuesday 13 December 2005 01:56, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> >                                t best.
> >
> > > And you don't have to be Linux user to refuse closed hardware. Having
> > > option in future is always good.x
> >
> > If Linux desktop users are less than 5% of the laptop buying population,
> > a more effective technique would be to focus purchases on small companies
> > that _do_ provide things we can use.
>
> however, in areas where margins are really thin, like consumer PC
> hardware, 5% of revenue is the difference between a loss and a profit.

With thin margins, 5% of volume isn't the same thing as 5% revenue.  It may be 
5% of _profit_, but unless fixed costs being amortized are a dominant factor 
the whole point of thin margins is that it costs you almost as much to 
produce as you sell it for.

More importantly, if they can't trace the loss back to what made the 
difference, then it doesn't matter.  And very few things at this level have 
only one cause.  When less than 1% of the planet's population ever bought the 
product in the first place, a few more not buying it really doesn't register 
easily.  Making a change may net you $5 million and cost you $10 million 
elsewhere.  (Hence boycotts either not being noticed or being attributed to 
tidal forces and brownian motion.  And most of them simply _aren't_ big 
enough to make a difference.  There are groups out that regularly claim 
responsibility for the sun coming up.  Decision makers learn to filter this 
stuff out.)

Now large customers that purchase lots of stuff in blocks can easily get their 
needs noticed at the negotiating table.  "Not supporting X will cost your 
company this $$$ million contract".  They don't have to find this out via 
data mining or surveys, there's a big check with explicit strings attached.

> And if we can have official 'works well' and 'don't buy' lists, the PR
> around that can help make that impact, especially if people who don't
> run linux yet but might in the future also start to pay attention to
> this list.

Bad publicity, and good publicity for competitors, is something that can get 
noticed, yes.  But being able to translate it into actual dollar values is 
noticeably more effective.  Showing an $x dollar market that wouldn't exist 
without Linux-motivated purchases is one way to do that.

Expecting windows users to make purchasing decisions based on a Linux 
compatability list goes a bit beyond wishful thinking, though.

Rob
-- 
Steve Ballmer: Innovation!  Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word.
I do not think it means what you think it means.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-13  9:07             ` Rob Landley
@ 2005-12-13 10:18               ` Felix Oxley
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Felix Oxley @ 2005-12-13 10:18 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Rob Landley
  Cc: Arjan van de Ven, Pavel Machek, Brian Gerst, Andrea Arcangeli,
	William Lee Irwin III, linux-kernel


On 13 Dec 2005, at 09:07, Rob Landley wrote:

> On Tuesday 13 December 2005 01:56, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
>>>                                t best.
>>>
>>>> And you don't have to be Linux user to refuse closed hardware.  
>>>> Having
>>>> option in future is always good.x
>>>
>>> If Linux desktop users are less than 5% of the laptop buying  
>>> population,
>>> a more effective technique would be to focus purchases on small  
>>> companies
>>> that _do_ provide things we can use.
>>
>> however, in areas where margins are really thin, like consumer PC
>> hardware, 5% of revenue is the difference between a loss and a  
>> profit.
>
> With thin margins, 5% of volume isn't the same thing as 5%  
> revenue.  It may be
> 5% of _profit_, but unless fixed costs being amortized are a  
> dominant factor
> the whole point of thin margins is that it costs you almost as much to
> produce as you sell it for.
>
> More importantly, if they can't trace the loss back to what made the
> difference, then it doesn't matter.  And very few things at this  
> level have
> only one cause.  When less than 1% of the planet's population ever  
> bought the
> product in the first place, a few more not buying it really doesn't  
> register
> easily.  Making a change may net you $5 million and cost you $10  
> million
> elsewhere.  (Hence boycotts either not being noticed or being  
> attributed to
> tidal forces and brownian motion.  And most of them simply _aren't_  
> big
> enough to make a difference.  There are groups out that regularly  
> claim
> responsibility for the sun coming up.  Decision makers learn to  
> filter this
> stuff out.)
>
> Now large customers that purchase lots of stuff in blocks can  
> easily get their
> needs noticed at the negotiating table.  "Not supporting X will  
> cost your
> company this $$$ million contract".  They don't have to find this  
> out via
> data mining or surveys, there's a big check with explicit strings  
> attached.
>
>> And if we can have official 'works well' and 'don't buy' lists,  
>> the PR
>> around that can help make that impact, especially if people who don't
>> run linux yet but might in the future also start to pay attention to
>> this list.
>
> Bad publicity, and good publicity for competitors, is something  
> that can get
> noticed, yes.  But being able to translate it into actual dollar  
> values is
> noticeably more effective.  Showing an $x dollar market that  
> wouldn't exist
> without Linux-motivated purchases is one way to do that.

Hence the justification for a Linux logo. As I said in another thread  
"Linux Hardware Quality Labs":

"The primary motivation for this is that it leverages the individual  
power of each purchaser (of a system or individual piece of hardware)  
be they a consumer, SME, system builder, tier 1 or 2 PC manufacturer,  
government dept., or Linux distro company, into a single point of  
pressure that can be applied to OEMs to ensure that they provide open  
source drivers."

regards,
Felix


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-13  8:10                 ` Helge Hafting
@ 2005-12-13 22:21                   ` Nix
  2005-12-14  8:14                     ` Helge Hafting
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Nix @ 2005-12-13 22:21 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Helge Hafting; +Cc: Linux Kernel Mailing List

On Tue, 13 Dec 2005, Helge Hafting mused:
> Nix wrote:
> [...]
> 
>>FWIW when glxgears is running, X consumes about 2% more CPU time
>>than normal: it's almost impossible to detect.
>>
> Sure - the load is low - and so is performance.  As if the machine
> isn't really trying - perhaps the driver is waiting when there is
> no need to wait.

If it gets it wrong X deadlocks, but yes, it does seem... odd.

>>It sounds to me almost like direct rendering is disabled, which will of
>>course have catastropic effects on performance. What does glxinfo say?
>>
> No.  While it is bad, it is not as bad as sw rendering. Tuxracer
> with sw rendering is unbearable - 2 seconds per frame or so!

Ah, yes, tuxracer does have fairly high demands, doesn't it.

[delay]

I just installed the latest ppracer alpha (the closest out there to
tuxracer)

OK, I see 25-40fps with that, with DRI. If I turn on stencil buffering
it gets unbearable, but that's just asking too much of the card I think.

>>The X startup log can also be useful here. I've noticed that if you
>>get the AGPMode wrong in either direction, the results can be
>>catastrophic: if it's too low the card is terribly slow and if it's
>>too high you soon get the X server hanging as it waits forever for
>>the card to respond to something it hasn't had time to receive (or
>>something like that, anyway).
>>
> Well, there is no AGPmode for a PCI card, is there?

Ah, this is a pure-PCI 9250, is it? (I wasn't aware you could get hold
of those anymore... I think X supports them, but textured stuff is
necessarily going to be slower.)

-- 
`I must caution that dipping fingers into molten lead
 presents several serious dangers.' --- Jearl Walker

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-13 22:21                   ` Nix
@ 2005-12-14  8:14                     ` Helge Hafting
  2005-12-16  7:38                       ` Nix
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Helge Hafting @ 2005-12-14  8:14 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Nix; +Cc: Linux Kernel Mailing List

Nix wrote:

>>No.  While it is bad, it is not as bad as sw rendering. Tuxracer
>>with sw rendering is unbearable - 2 seconds per frame or so!
>>    
>>
>
>Ah, yes, tuxracer does have fairly high demands, doesn't it.
>
>[delay]
>
>I just installed the latest ppracer alpha (the closest out there to
>tuxracer)
>
>OK, I see 25-40fps with that, with DRI. If I turn on stencil buffering
>it gets unbearable, but that's just asking too much of the card I think
>
At what resolution?  25fps is nice enough - as good as movies.
I no longer remember exactly, but I had to use 640x480 to get
anything close to playable - lucky to get 10 or so fps.

I have been in touch with DRI developers before - this card isn't
supposed to be "great",  but it _is_ supposed to beat the
matrox G550 which it isn't even close to.  The matrox has its
own problems - it sometimes looses the font in this game, and
the fps reporting is wrong.  But the game is smooth at 1280x1024 . . .

>>Well, there is no AGPmode for a PCI card, is there?
>>    
>>
>
>Ah, this is a pure-PCI 9250, is it? (I wasn't aware you could get hold
>of those anymore... I think X supports them, but textured stuff is
>necessarily going to be slower.)
>  
>
Yes - it is a pure pci thing, because the AGP slot is taken by the matrox.
As for textured stuff being slower, I was under the impression that tuxracer
use something like a total of 3 different textures, that surely should fit
in the 64MB of onboard memory?  Now ppracer have more textures, but
old tuxracer levels don't actually use them.

Getting drawing commands into the card will of course also be slower
with PCI, but 'I hope that is a small part of the work.

Helge Hafting

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-06 14:09               ` linux-os (Dick Johnson)
@ 2005-12-14 16:33                 ` Eric W. Biederman
  2005-12-14 17:01                   ` linux-os (Dick Johnson)
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Eric W. Biederman @ 2005-12-14 16:33 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: linux-os (Dick Johnson)
  Cc: Brian Gerst, Arjan van de Ven, M.,
	Andrea Arcangeli, William Lee Irwin III, linux-kernel

"linux-os \(Dick Johnson\)" <linux-os@analogic.com> writes:

> When the linux-BIOS group started, few knew where to start. Then,
> mysteriously, there was a complete directory tree of a well-known
> BIOS that appeared on the web. That was a start.

Nope it wasn't.  None of the developers even read the code.
We needed to keep our hands clean.

Eric

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-14 16:33                 ` Eric W. Biederman
@ 2005-12-14 17:01                   ` linux-os (Dick Johnson)
  2005-12-14 17:20                     ` Eric W. Biederman
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: linux-os (Dick Johnson) @ 2005-12-14 17:01 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Eric W. Biederman
  Cc: Brian Gerst, Arjan van de Ven, M.,
	Andrea Arcangeli, William Lee Irwin III, Linux kernel


On Wed, 14 Dec 2005, Eric W. Biederman wrote:

> "linux-os \(Dick Johnson\)" <linux-os@analogic.com> writes:
>
>> When the linux-BIOS group started, few knew where to start. Then,
>> mysteriously, there was a complete directory tree of a well-known
>> BIOS that appeared on the web. That was a start.
>
> Nope it wasn't.  None of the developers even read the code.
> We needed to keep our hands clean.
>
> Eric
>

Standard disclaimer #123

Cheers,
Dick Johnson
Penguin : Linux version 2.6.13.4 on an i686 machine (5589.56 BogoMips).
Warning : 98.36% of all statistics are fiction.
.

****************************************************************
The information transmitted in this message is confidential and may be privileged.  Any review, retransmission, dissemination, or other use of this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited.  If you are not the intended recipient, please notify Analogic Corporation immediately - by replying to this message or by sending an email to DeliveryErrors@analogic.com - and destroy all copies of this information, including any attachments, without reading or disclosing them.

Thank you.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-14 17:01                   ` linux-os (Dick Johnson)
@ 2005-12-14 17:20                     ` Eric W. Biederman
  2005-12-14 18:51                       ` linux-os (Dick Johnson)
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 275+ messages in thread
From: Eric W. Biederman @ 2005-12-14 17:20 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: linux-os (Dick Johnson)
  Cc: Brian Gerst, Arjan van de Ven, M.,
	Andrea Arcangeli, William Lee Irwin III, Linux kernel

"linux-os \(Dick Johnson\)" <linux-os@analogic.com> writes:

> On Wed, 14 Dec 2005, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
>
>> "linux-os \(Dick Johnson\)" <linux-os@analogic.com> writes:
>>
>>> When the linux-BIOS group started, few knew where to start. Then,
>>> mysteriously, there was a complete directory tree of a well-known
>>> BIOS that appeared on the web. That was a start.
>>
>> Nope it wasn't.  None of the developers even read the code.
>> We needed to keep our hands clean.
>>
>> Eric
>>
>
> Standard disclaimer #123

And it is true.

It's not like a mess of 20 year old spaghetti assembly is a useful
starting point for anything.

I sat down and I read the relevant standards documents and what
chipset documentation there was and I manged to write code.

It's not like there is anything fundamentally hard about what bootstrap
firmware does.

Not to be insulting but disbelief here sounds a lot like SCO's assertion
that Linus couldn't written linux.

Eric

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-14 17:20                     ` Eric W. Biederman
@ 2005-12-14 18:51                       ` linux-os (Dick Johnson)
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: linux-os (Dick Johnson) @ 2005-12-14 18:51 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Eric W. Biederman
  Cc: Brian Gerst, Arjan van de Ven, M.,
	Andrea Arcangeli, William Lee Irwin III, Linux kernel


On Wed, 14 Dec 2005, Eric W. Biederman wrote:

> "linux-os \(Dick Johnson\)" <linux-os@analogic.com> writes:
>
>> On Wed, 14 Dec 2005, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
>>
>>> "linux-os \(Dick Johnson\)" <linux-os@analogic.com> writes:
>>>
>>>> When the linux-BIOS group started, few knew where to start. Then,
>>>> mysteriously, there was a complete directory tree of a well-known
>>>> BIOS that appeared on the web. That was a start.
>>>
>>> Nope it wasn't.  None of the developers even read the code.
>>> We needed to keep our hands clean.
>>>
>>> Eric
>>>
>>
>> Standard disclaimer #123
>
> And it is true.
>
> It's not like a mess of 20 year old spaghetti assembly is a useful
> starting point for anything.
>
> I sat down and I read the relevant standards documents and what
> chipset documentation there was and I manged to write code.
>
> It's not like there is anything fundamentally hard about what bootstrap
> firmware does.
>
> Not to be insulting but disbelief here sounds a lot like SCO's assertion
> that Linus couldn't written linux.

No, no. If you know that there is information available that you
could read and use as a reference, then you would certainly read
that information, wouldn't you?  There are many things about
the PC/AT architecture that could not possibly be known without
using some kind of reference because of "compatibility" issues.

For instance, how do you link the two interrupt controllers
together? You can't see it in the old PC/AT handbook schematics,
and its not in the documentation of the chips. Also, reading
a register won't give you the answer because the register values
are dynamic. So, you look to see what others have done. You
can start with the AT BIOS that's published, but it won't work
(I know because I have written two AT Class BIOS). You really
need to see what others have done in a few cases.

When we started to use the AMD SC520, we found out that the
BIOS vendor wanted to charge a large fee per "label".
So, I wrote a BIOS for it. Using all of the available
documentation for the SC520 plus the PC/AT would not result
in a few things working. So I had to peek. Just like
everybody else.

So, if you claim that you have written a PC/AT BIOS without
ever seeing how others have done it, you are in a world of
hurt, sort of beating yourself up for no good reason at all.

Also, since the basic architecture accesses things from software
interrupts, it's pretty easy to debug stuff. You just keep
substituting your code for the BIOS code. Eventually, you
have everything working except the raw initialization stuff
which can only be tested by throwing it off the cliff and
seeing if it will fly! That's when you find that the cascaded
interrupt controller doesn't work, BYW.

Cheers,
Dick Johnson
Penguin : Linux version 2.6.13.4 on an i686 machine (5589.56 BogoMips).
Warning : 98.36% of all statistics are fiction.
.

****************************************************************
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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

* Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
  2005-12-14  8:14                     ` Helge Hafting
@ 2005-12-16  7:38                       ` Nix
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 275+ messages in thread
From: Nix @ 2005-12-16  7:38 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Helge Hafting; +Cc: Linux Kernel Mailing List, Dave Airlie

[My Radeon 9250-AGP is fine, Helge's 9250-PCI is dog slow]

On Wed, 14 Dec 2005, Helge Hafting wrote:
> Nix wrote:
> 
>>OK, I see 25-40fps with that, with DRI. If I turn on stencil buffering
>>it gets unbearable, but that's just asking too much of the card I think
>>
> At what resolution?  25fps is nice enough - as good as movies.
> I no longer remember exactly, but I had to use 640x480 to get
> anything close to playable - lucky to get 10 or so fps.

1280x1024.

I think we can fairly say that there's a system config difference here
of some kind. :)

> I have been in touch with DRI developers before - this card isn't
> supposed to be "great",  but it _is_ supposed to beat the
> matrox G550 which it isn't even close to.  The matrox has its
> own problems - it sometimes looses the font in this game, and
> the fps reporting is wrong.  But the game is smooth at 1280x1024 . . .

... as with my 9250.

>>Ah, this is a pure-PCI 9250, is it? (I wasn't aware you could get hold
>>of those anymore... I think X supports them, but textured stuff is
>>necessarily going to be slower.)
>>
> Yes - it is a pure pci thing, because the AGP slot is taken by the matrox.
> As for textured stuff being slower, I was under the impression that tuxracer
> use something like a total of 3 different textures, that surely should fit
> in the 64MB of onboard memory?  Now ppracer have more textures, but
> old tuxracer levels don't actually use them.

True enough.


I'll admit I'm not sure why you're seeing such a speed difference if
hardware rendering is on; an order of magnitude seems a bit much just
for PCI versus AGP. Perhaps Dave knows?

-- 
`I must caution that dipping fingers into molten lead
 presents several serious dangers.' --- Jearl Walker

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 275+ messages in thread

end of thread, other threads:[~2005-12-16  7:38 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 275+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed)
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2005-12-05 10:52 Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario Arjan van de Ven
2005-12-05 11:39 ` Dave Airlie
2005-12-05 13:55   ` Xavier Bestel
2005-12-08 14:27   ` Graham Murray
2005-12-05 12:18 ` William Lee Irwin III
2005-12-05 13:07   ` Pekka Enberg
2005-12-05 18:44     ` Alistair John Strachan
2005-12-05 19:47       ` Gene Heskett
2005-12-06 10:51       ` Luke-Jr
2005-12-06 12:29         ` Ralf Baechle
2005-12-07  0:01       ` William Lee Irwin III
2005-12-06 17:03     ` Jon Masters
2005-12-06  1:18   ` Andrea Arcangeli
2005-12-05 14:31     ` Brian Gerst
2005-12-06  3:08       ` Andrea Arcangeli
2005-12-05 16:23         ` Brian Gerst
2005-12-06 18:42           ` David Woodhouse
2005-12-06 19:23             ` Alan Cox
2005-12-06 21:33               ` Jeff Garzik
2005-12-06 22:25               ` David Woodhouse
2005-12-06 22:49                 ` Alan Cox
2005-12-06 23:03                   ` David Woodhouse
2005-12-06 23:25                 ` Andrew Grover
2005-12-07  0:56                   ` David Woodhouse
2005-12-06 10:42         ` Sander
     [not found]         ` <f0cc38560512060307m2ccc6db8xd9180c2a1a926c5c@mail.gmail.com>
2005-12-06 11:44           ` Arjan van de Ven
2005-12-06  1:43             ` Brian Gerst
2005-12-06 14:09               ` linux-os (Dick Johnson)
2005-12-14 16:33                 ` Eric W. Biederman
2005-12-14 17:01                   ` linux-os (Dick Johnson)
2005-12-14 17:20                     ` Eric W. Biederman
2005-12-14 18:51                       ` linux-os (Dick Johnson)
2005-12-06 14:13               ` Rudolf Randal
2005-12-06 14:49               ` Arjan van de Ven
2005-12-06 21:39                 ` Nicolas Mailhot
2005-12-08  0:58                   ` Kasper Sandberg
2005-12-08  2:24                     ` Diego Calleja
2005-12-08  6:21                       ` Zwane Mwaikambo
2005-12-08 12:31                         ` Diego Calleja
2005-12-08 12:39                           ` Arjan van de Ven
2005-12-08 13:01                             ` Matan Peled
2005-12-08 16:55                           ` Kasper Sandberg
2005-12-08 19:32                     ` Horst von Brand
2005-12-08 21:10                       ` linux-os (Dick Johnson)
2005-12-09  6:12                         ` Ben Greear
2005-12-07  7:02                 ` Luke-Jr
2005-12-07  7:03                   ` Arjan van de Ven
2005-12-06 15:16               ` Andrea Arcangeli
2005-12-06 15:30               ` Florian Weimer
2005-12-06 15:49                 ` Paweł Sikora
2005-12-06 19:00                   ` Tomasz Torcz
2005-12-06 19:11                     ` Paweł Sikora
2005-12-06 19:34                       ` Tomasz Torcz
2005-12-06 20:29                       ` Dave Jones
2005-12-06 23:25                         ` Bernd Petrovitsch
2005-12-06 19:13               ` Jeff Garzik
2005-12-06 19:37                 ` Lee Revell
2005-12-06 19:41                   ` Jeff Garzik
2005-12-06 19:55                     ` Lee Revell
2005-12-06 20:25                       ` Alan Cox
2005-12-06 21:55                         ` Dave Airlie
2005-12-06 21:49                       ` Reverse engineering (was Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario) Jeff Garzik
2005-12-06 20:54                         ` Jeff V. Merkey
2005-12-06 23:13                           ` Reverse engineering Bernd Petrovitsch
2005-12-06 23:19                             ` Lee Revell
2005-12-06 22:21                         ` Reverse engineering (was Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario) Lee Revell
2005-12-06 23:48                           ` Jeff Garzik
2005-12-06 22:44                       ` Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario Florian Weimer
2005-12-06 22:56                         ` Andrea Arcangeli
2005-12-06 23:17                         ` Lee Revell
2005-12-06 21:00               ` Francois Romieu
2005-12-08  1:04                 ` Kasper Sandberg
     [not found]             ` <6f6293f10512060404x57cfb97dqaa469f2701cd2528@mail.gmail.com>
2005-12-06 12:11               ` Arjan van de Ven
2005-12-06 15:09               ` Andrea Arcangeli
2005-12-06  9:07       ` Dirk Steuwer
2005-12-06 10:46         ` Sander
2005-12-06 16:41           ` Dirk Steuwer
2005-12-06 18:48             ` Lee Revell
2005-12-06 21:35               ` Grahame White
2005-12-07  8:09                 ` Dirk Steuwer
2005-12-07 12:47                   ` Lars Marowsky-Bree
2005-12-07  0:45             ` Horst von Brand
2005-12-07 14:17             ` Runs with Linux (tm) Benjamin LaHaise
2005-12-07 14:34               ` linux-os (Dick Johnson)
2005-12-07 18:13               ` Randy.Dunlap
2005-12-07 18:22                 ` Jesse Barnes
2005-12-12 21:13                   ` David Lang
2005-12-12 21:20                     ` Randy.Dunlap
2005-12-07 19:12               ` Lee Revell
2005-12-07 19:47                 ` Benjamin LaHaise
2005-12-07 22:23                   ` Jeffrey Hundstad
1970-01-02  3:28                     ` Pavel Machek
2005-12-07 22:29                     ` Michael Poole
2005-12-08  8:08                       ` Helge Hafting
2005-12-07 22:49                     ` Benjamin LaHaise
2005-12-08  3:28                     ` Magnus Damm
2005-12-08  2:07               ` Richard Knutsson
2005-12-08  2:38                 ` Benjamin LaHaise
2005-12-08  4:15                   ` Richard Knutsson
2005-12-08  8:50                     ` free Driver proposal (tm) Dirk Steuwer
2005-12-08  9:42               ` Runs with Linux (tm) jerome lacoste
2005-12-08 11:04                 ` Felix Oxley
2005-12-08 11:48                   ` jerome lacoste
2005-12-08 12:23                     ` Felix Oxley
2005-12-09  5:49         ` Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario Miles Bader
2005-12-09  9:49           ` Felix Oxley
2005-12-09  9:53             ` Bernd Petrovitsch
2005-12-06 15:17       ` Pavel Machek
2005-12-13  2:00         ` Rob Landley
2005-12-13  7:56           ` Arjan van de Ven
2005-12-13  9:07             ` Rob Landley
2005-12-13 10:18               ` Felix Oxley
2005-12-07 15:06       ` Rik van Riel
2005-12-08  7:14       ` Andrew McGregor
2005-12-06  8:29     ` Arjan van de Ven
2005-12-07 18:39       ` Rik van Riel
2005-12-07 18:44         ` Randy.Dunlap
2005-12-07 18:55           ` Arjan van de Ven
2005-12-07 19:53             ` Geert Uytterhoeven
2005-12-07 20:22               ` Gerrit Huizenga
2005-12-07 20:30                 ` Arjan van de Ven
2005-12-07 20:56                   ` Andrea Arcangeli
2005-12-07 21:02                 ` Dave Jones
2005-12-07 21:30                   ` Gerrit Huizenga
2005-12-07 21:38                     ` David S. Miller
2005-12-07 21:47                       ` Andrew Walrond
2005-12-07 21:53                       ` Gerrit Huizenga
2005-12-12 17:52                       ` Ric Wheeler
2005-12-13  8:17                         ` Andrew Walrond
2005-12-07 20:16             ` Andrea Arcangeli
2005-12-07 20:19               ` Arjan van de Ven
2005-12-07 20:40                 ` Andrea Arcangeli
2005-12-08 13:23                   ` Dirk Steuwer
2005-12-08 14:03                     ` Diego Calleja
2005-12-08 18:44                 ` Dave Neuer
2005-12-07 20:51               ` Rik van Riel
2005-12-07 19:34           ` Lee Revell
2005-12-07 23:17           ` Horst von Brand
2005-12-09  6:17             ` Ben Greear
2005-12-08 10:58           ` Sander
2005-12-06 12:26     ` Denis Vlasenko
2005-12-06 15:36       ` Hannu Savolainen
2005-12-06 18:51         ` Lee Revell
2005-12-06 20:26           ` Hannu Savolainen
2005-12-07 15:18         ` Avi Kivity
2005-12-07 20:10       ` Geert Uytterhoeven
     [not found]         ` <f0cc38560512071322m1d370589vd9f8a7684fa2ee1d@mail.gmail.com>
2005-12-08 12:19           ` Geert Uytterhoeven
2005-12-06 17:23     ` Jon Masters
2005-12-05 17:18 ` Jeff Garzik
2005-12-05 17:29   ` Jan-Benedict Glaw
2005-12-05 22:52     ` Bernd Petrovitsch
2005-12-06  6:28     ` Rob Landley
2005-12-05 18:26 ` Andrew Walrond
2005-12-05 18:34   ` Arjan van de Ven
2005-12-05 19:41     ` jmerkey
2005-12-06  9:26     ` [OT] " Alexander E. Patrakov
2005-12-06 16:27     ` Simon Oosthoek
2005-12-06 18:50       ` Luke-Jr
2005-12-08  8:14         ` Helge Hafting
2005-12-08 11:30           ` Luke-Jr
2005-12-12 11:27             ` Helge Hafting
2005-12-08 13:48           ` Nix
2005-12-12 12:01             ` Helge Hafting
2005-12-12 19:46               ` Nix
2005-12-13  8:10                 ` Helge Hafting
2005-12-13 22:21                   ` Nix
2005-12-14  8:14                     ` Helge Hafting
2005-12-16  7:38                       ` Nix
2005-12-05 21:19   ` David Woodhouse
2005-12-05 21:24     ` Arjan van de Ven
2005-12-05 21:54       ` David Woodhouse
2005-12-05 23:56         ` Tim Bird
2005-12-06  0:10           ` Dave Airlie
2005-12-06  0:23             ` Tim Bird
2005-12-06  0:26               ` Tim Bird
2005-12-06  4:08               ` Greg KH
2005-12-06  6:07                 ` Willy Tarreau
2005-12-06  7:06                   ` Neil Brown
2005-12-06  8:13                   ` David Woodhouse
2005-12-06  9:10                     ` Bernd Petrovitsch
2005-12-06 16:47                   ` Greg KH
2005-12-06  7:58                 ` Coywolf Qi Hunt
2005-12-06 16:11                   ` Greg KH
2005-12-07  1:38                     ` Coywolf Qi Hunt
2005-12-07  2:40                       ` Greg KH
2005-12-07  3:23                         ` Coywolf Qi Hunt
2005-12-07  5:29                           ` Greg KH
2005-12-07 18:57                           ` Horst von Brand
2005-12-10  5:17                       ` GNU/Linux " Richard M. Stallman
2005-12-06 18:56                   ` Linux " Luke-Jr
2005-12-07  1:42                     ` Coywolf Qi Hunt
2005-12-07  2:06                       ` Wed, 7 Dec 2005 03:06:35 +0100
2005-12-07  5:25                         ` Jeff Garzik
2005-12-10  5:16                       ` GNU/Linux " Richard M. Stallman
2005-12-10  7:06                         ` Jeff V. Merkey
2005-12-10 16:43                           ` Helge Hafting
2005-12-10 19:05                             ` Jan-Benedict Glaw
2005-12-10 18:44                               ` Jeff V. Merkey
2005-12-10 19:15                                 ` Jan-Benedict Glaw
2005-12-10 20:44                                   ` Jeff V. Merkey
2005-12-10 21:47                                     ` Jan-Benedict Glaw
2005-12-11 13:56                                     ` Bernd Petrovitsch
2005-12-11 15:15                                     ` Erwin Rol
2005-12-11 16:38                                       ` Florian Weimer
2005-12-12 15:51                                         ` Alan Cox
2005-12-11 16:27                                     ` Florian Weimer
2005-12-11 16:49                                     ` Richard M. Stallman
2005-12-11 23:19                                     ` Helge Hafting
2005-12-12 13:45                                       ` Bernd Petrovitsch
2005-12-12 15:34                                         ` Lee Revell
2005-12-12 15:37                                           ` Bernd Petrovitsch
2005-12-11 13:24                             ` Bernd Petrovitsch
2005-12-10 20:04                           ` [way OT] " Sean
2005-12-10 20:04                             ` Sean
2005-12-11  2:12                           ` Horst von Brand
2005-12-11  5:40                           ` Patrick McLean
     [not found]                           ` <E1ElJMz-00047E-1p@fencepost.gnu.org>
2005-12-11  8:34                             ` Jeff V. Merkey
2005-12-12  0:44                               ` Richard M. Stallman
2005-12-12  0:50                                 ` Jeff V. Merkey
2005-12-12  3:03                                   ` Luke-Jr
2005-12-06  4:18               ` Linux " Al Viro
2005-12-06  2:22             ` Gene Heskett
2005-12-06  3:56               ` Zwane Mwaikambo
2005-12-06  4:27                 ` Gene Heskett
2005-12-06 18:33                 ` Jesper Juhl
2005-12-06 19:12                   ` Zwane Mwaikambo
2005-12-06 19:15                     ` Jesper Juhl
2005-12-08 21:49                 ` Rob Landley
2005-12-10  2:38                   ` Lee Revell
2005-12-10  5:51                 ` Luke-Jr
2005-12-06 11:38               ` Jean-Christian de Rivaz
2005-12-06 19:12                 ` Jesper Juhl
2005-12-06 21:13                   ` Jon Masters
2005-12-06  0:14           ` Bernd Petrovitsch
2005-12-06  0:34           ` David Woodhouse
2005-12-06  0:53           ` Andrea Arcangeli
2005-12-06  1:20             ` Tim Bird
2005-12-06  1:35               ` Andrea Arcangeli
2005-12-06  1:55                 ` Jeff Garzik
2005-12-06  9:16               ` Xavier Bestel
2005-12-06  9:26               ` Bernd Petrovitsch
2005-12-06  9:56                 ` David Woodhouse
2005-12-06 10:09                   ` Jeff Garzik
2005-12-06 14:50                   ` Andrea Arcangeli
2005-12-06 15:25                     ` David Woodhouse
2005-12-06 19:58                       ` Alan Cox
2005-12-06 19:20                     ` Jeff Garzik
2005-12-06  4:12           ` Greg KH
2005-12-06  4:18             ` Michael Poole
2005-12-06 17:21               ` Benjamin LaHaise
2005-12-07 12:39                 ` Helge Hafting
2005-12-07 12:41                   ` Christoph Hellwig
2005-12-07 14:25               ` Rik van Riel
2005-12-07 15:56                 ` Michael Poole
2005-12-06 18:19             ` Theodore Ts'o
2005-12-06 19:27               ` Alan Cox
2005-12-06 19:38                 ` Theodore Ts'o
2005-12-06 20:18                   ` Alan Cox
2005-12-06 20:53                     ` Theodore Ts'o
2005-12-07 14:30           ` Rik van Riel
2005-12-05 23:24 ` Matthieu CASTET
2005-12-06 13:28   ` Ralf Baechle
2005-12-06  2:58 ` Andre Hedrick
2005-12-06 13:13 ` Rudolf Randal
2005-12-06 15:09   ` Mark Lord
2005-12-06 16:16 ` Jon Smirl
2005-12-06 16:32   ` Florian Weimer
2005-12-07 12:44     ` Helge Hafting
2005-12-07 12:49       ` Alan Cox
2005-12-07 16:15       ` Jon Smirl
2005-12-07 12:55     ` Lars Marowsky-Bree
2005-12-07 21:46   ` Chase Venters
2005-12-07 23:07     ` Alan Cox
2005-12-07 23:41       ` Jon Smirl
2005-12-07 23:59         ` Chase Venters
2005-12-08  8:24           ` Helge Hafting

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