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GPL-only symbols and ndiswrapper

GPL-only symbols and ndiswrapper

Posted Oct 25, 2006 22:44 UTC (Wed) by lutchann (subscriber, #8872)
In reply to: GPL-only symbols and ndiswrapper by mikov
Parent article: GPL-only symbols and ndiswrapper

People would laugh at my face if I told them that they had to pay money and modify their laptop instead of deleting two lines from the kernel source.

OK, then all you have to do is help them patch and recompile the kernel every time they need to update, and everything will be fine. As many other posters have pointed out, there's nothing in the license that prevents you from doing this.

The best option is for as many people as possible to use Linux (and to want to use it) and to have it as functional as possible. Then those people are more likely to buy Linux-compliant hardware next time.

I'm not sure I follow your reasoning there. It seems more likely that if we compromise and allow them to install proprietary drivers today, they will expect us to compromise and allow them to install proprietary drivers next time.


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GPL-only symbols and ndiswrapper

Posted Oct 26, 2006 12:01 UTC (Thu) by malor (subscriber, #2973) [Link]

They have the right to install proprietary drivers. You're supposed to be giving them freedom, not chaining them to free code.

GPL-only symbols and ndiswrapper

Posted Oct 26, 2006 19:57 UTC (Thu) by AJWM (subscriber, #15888) [Link]

> They have the right to install proprietary drivers.

True. What they don't have the right to is expect somebody else to help them do it, or make it easy for them to do it.

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