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Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2001 22:00:41 +1200
From: Chris Wedgwood <cw@f00f.org>
To: Richard Gooch <rgooch@ras.ucalgary.ca>
Cc: Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>,
        Jeff Garzik <jgarzik@mandrakesoft.com>,
        Matthew Gardiner <kiwiunixman@yahoo.co.nz>,
        "Philip R. Auld" <pauld@egenera.com>,
        kernel <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: binary modules (was Re: ReiserFS / 2.4.6 / Data Corruption)
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On Sun, Jul 29, 2001 at 03:05:06AM -0400, Richard Gooch wrote:

    Yeah, I'd rather see all source open. But that's an ideal world. In
    the meantime, many people want $$$. One of the great things about
    Linux is that it is open and allows different funding models. The
    success of Linux is due to the openness, not some cool technological
    feature.

People all need to appreciate sometimes vendors cannot released open
source drivers even if they wanted too.  Sometimes vendors have the
ability to released binary only drivers which are derived in part from
source-code which they license --- but cannot share.

This is also the case for various SCSI cards and such like, firmware
is provided binary-only because the source for the firmware isn't
something that can be distributed.



  --cw