Re: Announcing free software graphics drivers for Intel i965 chipset

[Keith Packard <keith.packard@intel.com>]

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On Wed, 2006-08-09 at 23:21 -0700, Nicholas Miell wrote:

> More importantly, where's the source to intel_hal.so?

This module contains stuff which Intel can't publish in source form,
like Macrovision register stuff and other trade secrets. It's optional,
so if you don't want to use a binary module, you don't get to use code
written by Intel agents for these features. And, we also haven't figured
out how and when to release this binary blob, so there's no way you can
use it today. The driver remains completely functional in the absense of
the binary piece, and in fact has no reduction in functionality from
previous driver releases.

One important note -- the interface for the binary module exists only in
user-mode code which is licensed under the MIT license, not the GPL.

-- 
keith.packard@intel.com

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