On Sun, Nov 21, 2010 at 10:44 PM, Ted Ts'o <tytso@xxxxxxx> wrote: > On Sun, Nov 21, 2010 at 08:31:24PM +0000, Alan Cox wrote: >> >> Which we know in practice they won't. They'll sit on fixes (often >> security fixes) and tweak and add private copies of features. In turn the >> Linux one could then only keep up by adding features itself - which would >> have to be GPL to stop the same abuse continuing. >> >> It's a nice idea but the corporations exist to make money and adding >> proprietary custom stack add-ons is clearly a good move on their part to >> do that. > > Hence my recommendation that if someone is going to do the work to > create a 802.11 layer that has shims that work on multiple operating > systems, it be GPL with explicit exceptions to allow said layer to > work on legacy operating systems like QNX, et. al. That way it forces > the hardware specific code to be released under the GPL --- if they > want to take advantage of the "write onces, work on multiple operating > systems" feature. > > If someone is going to go through all of this work to make it possible > --- particularly if it's at a company such as Luis's employer, or any > other wifi chipset provider --- why should it allow their competitors > to do closed source drivers? Better to structure the driver licensing > such that (a) there is benefit for companies to make a Linux driver by > using this common stack, and (b) but in exchange, it forces them to > make a driver which is guaranteed to be usable by Linux by virtual of > the fact that (1) the native interface is Linux's wireless stack, and > (2) the license forces them to GPL their driver. By forcing the driver to be GPL, you automatically exclude Windows from the list of platforms supported by such a cross-OS driver, as the Windows NDIS headers are AFAIK under a GPL-incompatible license, so no GPL driver can be written for Windows. > > - Ted > -- > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-wireless" in > the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html > -- Vista: [V]iruses, [I]ntruders, [S]pyware, [T]rojans and [A]dware. :-) -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-wireless" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
