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Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 22:15:13 +0100
From: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
To: Pavel Roskin <proski@gnu.org>
Cc: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>, Zan Lynx <zlynx@acm.org>,
       linux-kernel <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
       Jon Masters <jcm@jonmasters.org>, Rusty Russell <rusty@rustcorp.com.au>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 2.6.25] module: allow ndiswrapper to use GPL-only
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Message-ID: <20080229211513.GI27212@elte.hu>
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* Pavel Roskin <proski@gnu.org> wrote:

> I already know what USB folks will say.  They want proprietary drivers 
> to be in the userspace.  I doubt ndiswrapper will ever be ported to 
> the userspace.  It's much more likely that some other approach will be 
> used.

btw., what are the technical reasons why ndiswrapper cannot be done in 
userspace, much like the (wildly successful) FUSE concept?

what's the main hardware access method of ndiswrapper - only PIO, or 
mmio as well? In the former case, ioperm() should work, in the latter 
case, mmap()ing the device aperture should work.

Frankly, it would be a great approach for the following reason: it would 
be _far_ easier for people to write a proper free driver, if the NDIS 
driver was in user-space, in a nicely debuggable, traceable, observable 
environment. I dont really see what the technical difficulties there are 
here.

	Ingo