Re: GPL only modules [was Re: [GIT PATCH] more Driver core patches for 2.6.19]



On Sat, 16 Dec 2006, Rafael J. Wysocki wrote:

I think the most important problem with the binary-only drivers is that we
can't support their users _at_ _all_, but some of them expect us to support
them somehow.

Actually, I do think that we've made our position on that side pretty
clear.

I think people do by-and-large know that if they load a binary module,
they simply can't get supported by the kernel developers.

We make that fairly clear at module loadign time, and I think it's also
something that people who have read linux-kernel or seen other peoples
bug-reports are reasonably aware of.

I realize that a lot of people never read the kernel mailing list, but
they probably don't look at www.kernel.org either - they got their kernel
from their distribution. The only way they realize is probably by looking
at where they got whatever binary modules they use.

That said - it should be noted that a lot of the time when you use a
binary module and have an oops, the oops doesn't necessarily have anything
to do with your binary module. If I recognize the oops from other reports,
I certainly won't say "I'm not going to help you, because you used a
binary module". If I can tell where the problem is, the binary module is a
non-issue.

It's only when we try to debug things that we say "You've got a binary
module, you need to reproduce this problem _without_ it, because otherwise
we can't bother to waste our time on trying to debug something that may be
due to somebody else".

Linus
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