From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S264266AbTKTFBg (ORCPT ); Thu, 20 Nov 2003 00:01:36 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S264267AbTKTFBg (ORCPT ); Thu, 20 Nov 2003 00:01:36 -0500 Received: from fw.osdl.org ([65.172.181.6]:54763 "EHLO mail.osdl.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S264266AbTKTFBe (ORCPT ); Thu, 20 Nov 2003 00:01:34 -0500 Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 20:57:39 -0800 From: "Randy.Dunlap" To: Nick Piggin Cc: neilb@cse.unsw.edu.au, wli@holomorphy.com, jgarzik@pobox.com, jt@hpl.hp.com, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, pof@users.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: Announce: ndiswrapper Message-Id: <20031119205739.5ffa5c13.rddunlap@osdl.org> In-Reply-To: <3FBC47C1.6040209@cyberone.com.au> References: <20031120031137.GA8465@bougret.hpl.hp.com> <3FBC3483.4060706@pobox.com> <20031120040034.GF19856@holomorphy.com> <3FBC402E.6070109@cyberone.com.au> <16316.17526.900850.239502@notabene.cse.unsw.edu.au> <3FBC47C1.6040209@cyberone.com.au> Organization: OSDL X-Mailer: Sylpheed version 0.9.4 (GTK+ 1.2.10; i686-pc-linux-gnu) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Thu, 20 Nov 2003 15:49:05 +1100 Nick Piggin wrote: | Neil Brown wrote: | | >On Thursday November 20, piggin@cyberone.com.au wrote: | > | >>You have to admit its good for end users though. And indirectly, what | >>is good for them is good for us. Take the nvidia example: end users get | >>either a binary driver or nothing. If we were somehow able to stop | >>nvidia from distributing their binary driver, they would say "OK". | >> | > | >Is it good for end users? It allows them to buy a computer with an | >nvidia graphics controller because "NVidia supply drivers", and then | >discover that support is only as good as NVidia are willing to make | >it. I'm still waiting for some sort of power management support for | >the nvidia controller in my notebook. If the driver and the specs | >were open, I could possibly do it myself. On the other hand if there | >were no NVidia drivers, I never would have made the (arguable) mistake | >of buying this notebook. | > | | I'm all for open specs, but in reality that doesn't always happen. | (out of interest, are there any OS 3d drivers for any current cards?) | | I know what you mean, but I would find nvidia more at fault for not | providing power management than no OS drivers. | | > | >Ofcourse we cannot and should not stop people from providing the | >option of binary only drivers, but I'm not convinced that we should | >acknowlege that people who provide binary-only drivers are doing a | >useful service for anyone but themselves. | > | | No I wouldn't say that, I meant the Linux Kernel is doing the end users | a favour by allowing binary modules. that's questionable since we can't support them (i.e. fix bugs/problems with them). -- ~Randy