As a long time GNU/Linux user, I applaud RedHat for standing up for Freedom. I know Debian GNU/Linux would not allow these modules to be on the installation system for S/390, since they violate Debian's Social Contract. It's good to see RedHat stand up instead of "selling out" to proprietary software. If IBM is serious about "Peace, Love and Linux" they will open up the OSA/OSA-E driver. It's one thing to see unrequired third party applications to run on top of Linux that are proprietary, it's quite another thing to make a kernel module binary. It's all about control, IBM doesn't want anyone to make an "IBM-compatible" ethernet adapter for the S/390. Even though the technology of an 100Mbs Ethernet adapter isn't anything special, 100Mbs cards for PC's are in the range of $20-30. How much does IBM charge for the OSA card? Peace, Love and Linux? Yeah right. > -----Original Message----- > From: Post, Mark K [mailto:mark.post@eds.com] > Sent: Monday, August 27, 2001 4:13 PM > To: 'Bernhard Rosenkraenzer'; 'Linux390' > Cc: 'redhat390' > Subject: RE: [Redhat-s390-list] OSA/OSA-E Drivers in Red Hat Linux/390 > > > Apologies to anyone on both mailing lists for the > duplication, but I wanted > to make sure this got everyone involved on both lists. > > Bernhard, > > I doubt that you personally made the decision to exclude > these modules from > the Red Hat ramdisks, but since you answered the question, you get my > response. > > This is unacceptable. For people with OSA/OSA-E cards on > their systems, it > creates an additional burden to getting your distribution > installed. The > reason given for not including them is rather weak and, I > suspect, specious. > Every other Linux distributor has found it possible to > include these modules > in a way that didn't severely impact their business. I > thought Red Hat's > way of initially including them in a separate /lib/modules > directory was a > fairly elegant way of accommodating them. Excluding them now looks > particularly political, and I don't appreciate being the > victim of those > kinds of politics. I and John Krogulecki of Lilly spent a > good number of > hours over the last week trying to figure out why his OSA > card suddenly > wasn't being initialized. A subtle "not supported" message > in the README > file is not a very polite way of announcing their removal. > > Again, understand that this is not directed at you > personally, Bernhard. I > just want you to pass on to whomever _did_ make this decision > that the whole > thing stinks. > > Mark Post > > -----Original Message----- > From: Bernhard Rosenkraenzer [mailto:bero@redhat.de] > Sent: Monday, August 27, 2001 5:01 PM > To: Post, Mark K > Cc: 'redhat390' > Subject: Re: [Redhat-s390-list] OSA/OSA-E Drivers in Red Hat Linux/390 > > > On Mon, 27 Aug 2001, Post, Mark K wrote: > > > I found this statement in the 08/18/2001 README file at > > ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/rawhide/s390/README > > > > "- The lcs and the qeth drivers are not supported from Red > Hat as they > > are binary-only drivers that cannot be loaded into our standard > > Red Hat Linux kernel and as they are not Open Source..." > > > > Is this why the lcs.o and qeth.o modules are not included > in either the > > initrd.img or tapeinrd.img files? > > Yes. > > LLaP > bero > > > _______________________________________________ > Redhat-s390-list mailing list > Redhat-s390-list@redhat.com > https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-s390-list >
