Re: [SLE] And another 10.1 showstopper

Now this idea of removing all this non-GPL stuff.... what was
gained by
that? And that is a Novell-only decision, right?


Firstly, a good introductory article here (this one specifically about
video drivers)
http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/software/0,39044164,39352584,00.htm (
http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/software/0,39044164,39352584,00.htm )
This article is from April 18, 2006.
Basically says that some of the hardware manufacturers' drivers are
closed-source; because
A: some choose not to offer an open source version
B: some don't have a choice (in the case of ATI it's because they have
IP obligations)
and as far as the Free Software Foundation (who wrote the GPL) are
concerned, proprietary drivers and the GPL don't mix... and the GPL
applies to all flavours of Linux, not just SuSE.

So what was gained...? compliance to the GPL "standard"... meeting legal
requirements... <insert other answers here>...

Actually it was the kernel devs that dictated it, they didn't ask it
to
be so they made it mandatory.


a post on the kernel developers*
http://lwn.net/Articles/159313/
This article is from Nov 9, 2005
"Linux kernel developers will not help users who have proprietary
drivers loaded into their systems.... the developers have no way to
track down problems when closed-source code is running."

Is this just a "dictatorial" attitude, or reasonable good sense?
And if you had your own linux distro, would you choose to include
proprietary drivers if it meant losing support from the kernel
developers?

*Don't miss the posting (apparently) by Linus himself, referenced in
this article, WELL WORTH SHARING, dated Feb 7, 1999 (find it here:
http://lwn.net/1999/0211/a/lt-binary.html )
(NB this post was made in 1999, his views may have changed, and hey, we
all need to let off steam occasionally)

I am open-minded and open to being educated, by all means point out my
mistakes so that I can learn from them.

Vaughan
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