From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S935811AbXHHXDt (ORCPT ); Wed, 8 Aug 2007 19:03:49 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1762368AbXHHXDl (ORCPT ); Wed, 8 Aug 2007 19:03:41 -0400 Received: from el-out-1112.google.com ([209.85.162.177]:16437 "EHLO el-out-1112.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1759431AbXHHXDk (ORCPT ); Wed, 8 Aug 2007 19:03:40 -0400 DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=beta; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=taWLh6YSaX5/XEXWt9uFeEJhpfY+iG2q87C36QZoGzMjpw2GrommReE93cGpheHmfzpxSVvjVLPuw70zGgpgIyAENYUJhORSuiGoHPbZFacMkI1GJHNka5kfSFVL+B/WMZbTtKoSakzJDXLuPsYB6J5nig11NxxWqBFD8dR0ZXA= Message-ID: <9a8748490708081603k65746311sad595947fd5ab971@mail.gmail.com> Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 01:03:39 +0200 From: "Jesper Juhl" To: "Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu" Subject: Re: [PATCH 2/3] UIO: Documentation Cc: "Greg Kroah-Hartman" , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, "Hans J. Koch" In-Reply-To: <14166.1186611154@turing-police.cc.vt.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline References: <20070718232332.GA4620@kroah.com> <11848012053678-git-send-email-gregkh@suse.de> <11848012122374-git-send-email-gregkh@suse.de> <9a8748490708081436g23c8f01cga585d6612b380f16@mail.gmail.com> <14166.1186611154@turing-police.cc.vt.edu> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On 09/08/2007, Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote: > On Wed, 08 Aug 2007 23:36:00 +0200, Jesper Juhl said: > > > Do we really want this? > > > > In my oppinion we run the risk here of encouraging behaviour akin to > > what NVidia is doing - release a small kernel "glue" module and then > > keep the driver proper in a binary blob (in userspace, but still a > > binary blob). > > If the company goes out of business and take their driver source with > > them then users are left with a useless, un-debugable, un-maintainable > > binary blob. > > Don't we instead want to encourage/pressure people to release specs > > and/or source code for their hardware/drivers so open, modifiable > > drivers can be written? > > > > This opens the door for people to start writing closed drivers. In the > > long run that seems to me like a bad deal for our users. > > On the other hand, given that we've always said that closed-source stuff in > userspace is OK, the only way to not let *that* horse out of the barn is to > not merge UIO at all. > Exactely. > If you have UIO in the kernel talking to stuff in userspace, you're going to > have to deal with closed-source stuff at the userspace end of the pipe. > Naturally. I just wanted to get people to think about whether or not this is something that we are willing to accept for device drivers - I guess it is since UIO is already merged - I just think it's a potential step back in terms of encouraging open source drivers for Linux, that's all. > Unless somebody can come up with some great feat of sophistry to avoid that? > I think the only way to avoid it is to not provide something like UIO. -- Jesper Juhl Don't top-post http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/T/top-post.html Plain text mails only, please http://www.expita.com/nomime.html