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Binary-only kernel modules may be bannedBinary-only kernel modules may be bannedPosted Dec 14, 2006 0:04 UTC (Thu) by alriddoch (guest, #2249)Parent article: Binary-only kernel modules may be banned
From my perspective I would have no choice but to refuse to accept this change. I would either have to stay with older versions of the kernel or use versions of the kernel that had been patched to remove this restriction. My day to day use of Linux in my own time absolutely requires that drivers for modern 3D hardware work, and support all the features of the hardware. Despite some excellent work, the DRI project have not shipped anything that really comes close yet.
I also feel that my freedom is being tweaked here. As a free software author who uses the GPL, I absolutely respect that the GPL forbids _distribution_ of derived works which contain proprietary code, and I believe this includes distributions that ship binary modules, but if I choose to create a derivative work for my own use, which I will not distribute, the software should not restrict what I can do through technical means. When I use a graphics companies installer to build and install a proprietary driver and install it in my kernel, the derivative work is never distributed.
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Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 14, 2006 0:21 UTC (Thu) by martinfick (subscriber, #4455) [Link] When I use a graphics companies installer to build and install a proprietary driver and install it in my kernel, the derivative work is never distributed.Uhmm, that proprietary driver is being distributed to you isn't it? That is the issue, if that proprietary driver is a derivative work of ther kernel than it is against the GPL to distribute it to you in the first place. And, unless that driver was written for some other OS and ported to linux later, it is most likely considered a derivative work. Just because that driver is not distributed along with the linux kernel does not make it not a derivative work. -INAL.
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 14, 2006 1:10 UTC (Thu) by mrshiny (subscriber, #4266) [Link] Conversely, just because it's a linux kernel module doesn't mean it's a derivative work of the kernel. I'd be interested to see a court rule on that; strong arguments could be made either way about what constitutes a derivative work. IANAL either.
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 14, 2006 2:02 UTC (Thu) by einstein (subscriber, #2052) [Link] > Uhmm, that proprietary driver is being distributed to you isn't it? That is the issue, if that proprietary driver is a derivative work of ther kernel than it is against the GPL to distribute it to you in the first place.
I've heard this statement before, and it is *really* a stretch to say that nvidia porting their accelerated OpenGL driver to linux somehow constitutes a derivative work.
If this takes effect, linux desktop adoption will stagnate, and Linux will generally be used only in server rooms until replaced by microsoft boxes. On the desktop, linux will be used only by hobbyists or others with no requirement for good graphics performance, or possibly used by shrill extremists. It's a shame really, Linux had the potential to be a world class desktop, and gain a foothold in the market - Solaris and BSD are beginning to look like the best last hope for a non-microsoft dominated future.
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 14, 2006 2:12 UTC (Thu) by moxfyre (subscriber, #13847) [Link] I've been using Linux exclusively on my desktop for a few years, and without using proprietary graphics drivers.
The open-source NV and ATI x11 drivers support NVidia and ATI graphics cards very well, including 2D acceleration.
It's true that they don't support 3D acceleration, but frankly how many typical desktop users use 3D acceleration? I can watch DVDs, play SNES games, compile software, use OpenOffice apps, and watch video clips all without the need for 3D acceleration. Who exactly needs 3D acceleration besides gamers and CAD professionals?
Frankly, I don't think the impact of removing the proprietary NVidia and ATI drivers would be as large as you think... I for one wouldn't even notice it. I don't think it's the best choice for the kernel, but I don't think it would be the end of the world for Desktop Linux.
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 14, 2006 2:21 UTC (Thu) by sbaker3 (guest, #41924) [Link] > Who exactly needs 3D acceleration besides gamers and CAD professionals?
The next release of Ubuntu will have a compositing window manager enabled by default - which would make 3D acceleration a high priority for most desktop users.
Granted, there will be a fallback to a 2D window manager if acceleration is not available.
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 14, 2006 2:35 UTC (Thu) by jbailey (subscriber, #16890) [Link] Sure. But with any luck Ubuntu would still be able to do this with at least the Intel drivers, the Free ATI drivers, and some work out of the Nouveau project.
This would also provide incentive for people to produce those free drivers, where there's almost no incentive now.
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 14, 2006 2:53 UTC (Thu) by sbaker3 (guest, #41924) [Link] Nothing the linux community does seems to sway the minds of the video vendors one way or the other.
However I suspect that distros making it easier to include binary drivers will turn out to be a huge source of motivation to the free ATI and Nouveau hackers and as a consequence we may end up with decent free drivers much quicker than we would have otherwise.
There is nothing like polarising peoples opinions to get them into action.
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 14, 2006 3:59 UTC (Thu) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] What has the Linux community done to sway the minds of the video vendors? Other than reluctantly continuing to buy ATI and nvidia graphics cards, of course.
Personally, I made sure my laptop had Intel video but, as a whole, the Linux community has been a very docile bunch. Especially when it finds 2-year-old remote root exploits in its binary-only drivers.
I love this decision. Enough is enough. I can't wait to see what happens.
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 14, 2006 6:14 UTC (Thu) by einstein (subscriber, #2052) [Link] > Personally, I made sure my laptop had Intel video but, as a whole, the Linux community has been a very docile bunch.
Eh? The linux crowd is probably the most cantankerous and demanding group around. nvidia has worked hard to make available free of charge for linux users the best linux video drivers on the planet, and what do they get from the linux crowd? a kick in the teeth.
> Especially when it finds 2-year-old remote root exploits in its binary-only drivers.
Please don't spread FUD, the potential vulnerability was a few months old at most, some poor fool confused it with an X11 vulnerability from 2 years back, and you're merely repeating the error.
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 14, 2006 6:51 UTC (Thu) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] nvidia has worked hard? I don't know about that... Their Linux drivers have always been on the hairy edge of bitrot. Why don't they participate with x.org? Or the Linux kernel? How about some support channels for distros? The occasional random regression-plagued binary drop? No, I think they could work a bit harder.
I'm sorry for continuing the misinformation; I didn't continue following the story. But, it's closer to 3 months isn't it? v8762 was released 22 May, the vulnerability was released 16 Oct, and nvidia silently slipped fix into the beta v9625 of late Sept. Either way, it's too long to have a remote rooter in the wild. Binary drivers or no, I just wish ATI and nvidia would communicate more.
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 14, 2006 8:10 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] The bug that ended up being a security threat was 2 years old.
There is a crapload of bugs that Nvidia isn't going to bother to fix and one of them ended up being a security problem that wasn't disclosed completely until a little bit ago.
If they were open source people would of:
http://www.rapid7.com/advisories/R7-0025.jsp for details.
You see the problem is that nobody can fix this. Nvidia isn't going to bother to much about it as it's not realy a remote root. (It's possible, but not plausable.)
You have to realise about binary drivers is..
1. A lot of security problems and a lot of performance/crashing bugs are caused by drivers in Windows. It's so bad that Microsoft had to impliment their byzzantine WHQL certification system for trying to combat it. That didn't work so they changed their driver model for Vista to isolate the kernel more from buggy drivers. And it's not even protecting against bad hardware support.. it's just protecting kerenl memory space against those bad drivers
2. Propriatory driver makers for Linux are the same people that cause all sorts of problems for Windows users.
3. Their budget for working with Linux is much less then what they have for working for Windows.
4. They don't care nearly as much about their Linux customers as their Windows customers.
Linux, due to the culture of openness and limited resources is never ever going to be able to support hardware as well as Windows does if it has to depend on propriatory drivers.
If the drivers are open source then Linux can provide much higher quality of support.
Linux _can't_ win vs Windows in the desktop market if it needs propriatory drivers. It's just setting linux up to lose.
If push comes to shove then Microsoft will just pull strings in Nvidia or ATI and there goes our drivers. They will be less featurefull then Windows, be buggier, and not support the latest hardware (sound familar?)
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 14, 2006 19:14 UTC (Thu) by emkey (guest, #144) [Link] Linux _can't_ win vs Windows in the desktop market if it needs propriatory drivers. It's just setting linux up to lose.I've been following and using open source software for over 20 years now. I've done the same with commercial software. Based on those observations I'll tell you right now you are wrong. Dangerously wrong. If push comes to shove then Microsoft will just pull strings in Nvidia or ATI and there goes our drivers. They will be less featurefull then Windows, be buggier, and not support the latest hardware (sound familar?) Very doubtful. Especially given the fact that Linux makes up an increasingly large part of their bottom lines. Which is of course the point. Linux must continue to gain market share against Microsoft on the desktop. If it doesn't then odds are good we'll have very little real choice as to which operating system we run on our non server systems in twenty years. The people pushing this agenda just don't get it. Let me spell things out clearly. Open source drivers from vendors are inevitable if Linux continues to gain market share on the desktop. Doing anything to discourage increasing market share puts in danger the long term viability of Linux as a desktop operating system and reduces the odds that the major vendors will ever release open source drivers. It really is that simple.
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 16, 2006 21:52 UTC (Sat) by grahammm (subscriber, #773) [Link] As has been said many times before, if they were to simply release the hardware interface specification then the open source community would write the drivers. The hardware vendors would not have to spend any of their budget on Linux.
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 17, 2006 2:41 UTC (Sun) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] This presumes that there even ARE understandable hardware specifications. Back when I was writing Mac System 7 display drivers, I had to drive over to S3, sign a boatload of NDAs, then dig through RTL with one of their ASIC guys to try to figure out how to use their colorspace-converting blit.
Proprietary? VERY. If I somehow copied those docs, I probably could have duplicated their chip in a very short amount of time.
Not everybody produces nice, bound documentation with register maps and readable descriptions. Especially when the shelf life of the product is measured in months.
If they'd just open their drivers, though, that might be enough. A few commented header files go a LONG way.
*Snort* Posted Dec 15, 2006 2:04 UTC (Fri) by Arker (guest, #14205) [Link] "nvidia has worked hard to make available free of charge for linux users the best linux video drivers on the planet..."
That's the most ridiculous thing I've heard all day. Nothing in that statement could be further from the truth.
Compositing window managers don't require proprietary drivers Posted Dec 15, 2006 22:43 UTC (Fri) by GreyWizard (subscriber, #1026) [Link] I'm using a compositing window manager on a midrange laptop running Fedora Core 6 with no proprietary drivers. Everything is reasonably snappy.
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 14, 2006 2:52 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] Removing video card support is the ONLY major set back that would practically happen.
Everything else has hardware alternatives that support Linux well. Wifi cards, SATA raid controllers, etc etc.. for every closed source driver you'd loose you'd be able to find a alternative driver or alternative peice of hardware that works just as well and is open source.
But 3d acceleration is the big example were there is no alternative for in the high-end consumer and professional market.
Right now you have very alpha stage driver support for Nvidia.
You have fully open source 3D drivers for all ati cards from 7500 to x800. The r500 and r600 series cards you don't have support for.
I have a ATI 9200 in my Ibook and I have a ATI x800 256M card for my desktop. Both have full open source 2d AND 3d acceleration. Both can run Beryl and Compiz comfortabily.
The biggest problem reverse engineering people have is that the hardware is buggier then shit. These cards are rushed to market and there is a lot of flaws in the GPU and in other parts of the hardware. Driver developers working for Nvidia and ATI have the ability to get information on these bugs from the engineers that designed the hardware when they find them.
Linux reverse engineering developers do not, so even when they do everything 100% correct they can still be wrong.
Right now Linux is used in high-end visualization workstations. Stuff that people use to make movies.
Linux is very popular and those movie studios have a LOT of money to spend on hardware.
These people ARE THE ONLY REASON why Linux has 3d driver support from Nvidia and ATI.
_period_
If it wasn't for them Linux would of never had supported propriatory drivers in the first place. ATI and Nvidia never gave a shit about the Linux consumer or the Linux user, they cared about high end Unix visualization and met customer's demands for high end 3d workstation cards.
This is why ATI drivers are called fglrx. For 'FireGL', which is their wokstation cards.
Seriously. This is a big deal for ATI and Nvidia.
It can be ATI or Nvidia.
Or it can be S3 or Matrix or 3Dlabs, and even Intel. All those manufacturers are capable of producing high-quality 3d graphics cards. But they can't get a foothold into the market because of the dominance of ATI/Nvidia.
This would allow them to gain a foothold again by being the only company that produces high-speed graphics cards for Linux.
Also ATI has been making noise about supporting open source developers. They could do it like Intel did were they originally hired outside developers to produce open source Linux drivers under NDA.
There is a crapload of money to be made in 3d graphics in Linux, but it isn't consumer gaming cards, it's high-end cards.
Especially when you open source them you open them up for using the GPU as a secondary proccessor for faster rendering and cluster performance. Both for scientific AND graphics work.
Right now Nvidia and ATI are also in a Antitrust investigation...
So it seems that other companies are wanting to get into the game, but are being forced out.
But it can backfire and cause those movie folks to run to Windows for their support. Windows is much more capable then it used to be for this sort of thing then it used to be.
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 14, 2006 6:55 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] BTW I don't think that they'll actually change anything kernel/gpl-wise
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 14, 2006 3:24 UTC (Thu) by vondo (guest, #256) [Link] I've often used the propiertary drivers and I've never really done it for the 3D acceleration. Here's why I've used them:
1) Support a newer card than the nv driver supports
Now, for all I know, the nv driver does all of this now, but it hasn't always and the way to do it with the nvidia driver has always been very well documented.
I too doubt I will ever run a kernel that blocks my ability to do this
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 14, 2006 5:11 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] You can always just purchase hardware more wisely and avoid all the Nvidia crap.
My motherboard was fairly new when I bought it, Sata, Gigabit ethernet, 2d acceleration, 3d acceleration, power management, hardware sensors, and other onboard features were 100% functional out of the box with using pure open source drivers.(ASUS model with 945g chipset)
It's not that hard to avoid propriatory drivers. The Intel onboard stuff can do everything you described and it costs much less, is much quieter, and uses less electricity to run then some Nvidia card.
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 14, 2006 8:11 UTC (Thu) by mcisely (subscriber, #2860) [Link] I find that the Intel onboard stuff canNOT do everything. It will not render HD quality video via the X-video extension. SD video is fine, but up the resolution and the chip and/or driver chokes.
I'm not arguing in favor of nvidia. Far be it. I'd love to dump nvidia. But first there must be a viable replacement, and Intel isn't it. At least not yet.
-Mike
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 14, 2006 10:54 UTC (Thu) by bni (guest, #27103) [Link] A radeon 9200 with free drivers connected to a HDTV by HDMI (DVI->HDMI cable) renders HDTV stuff just fine. For example h264 content performance is mainly due to having a fast dual core CPU. I am sure the result for Intel would be similar.
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 14, 2006 14:56 UTC (Thu) by vondo (guest, #256) [Link] Right and I could junk my component only 1080i TV and shell out another $3000 for an HDMI TV and then everything would be fine and dandy.
I'm glad your setup works for you and I would welcome decent drivers and reasonably priced hardware that works for me. But the world isn't like that. Sometimes you've got to shoehorn a linux system into an existing setup.
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 14, 2006 11:37 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] Read the man file for the driver.
Option "LinearAlloc" "integer"
Also, I am not sure what is aviable with the GMA chipsets yet, but it can support XvMC for mpeg decoding acceleration, but if you have a fast enough CPU that shouldn't be a problem either way.
I have a GMA 950, but right now it's in storage. I remember watching elephants dream with it and I had to bump up the 'LinearAlloc' to get it to work, but I don't remember exactly how well it worked after that. I think I got it to play fine without the XvMC stuff.
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 15, 2006 0:06 UTC (Fri) by mcisely (subscriber, #2860) [Link]
I know this is getting off-topic, but a followup is briefly needed:
Strange thing. I did look at the man page, a month ago when I was trying to figure this out, and yet I missed this one. Setting LinearAlloc to 6144 indeed enables HD video.
For the record, I still don't have XvMC working. I don't think it's supported on my "Intel 82945G/GZ" (as reported in Xorg.0.log). However this is no great loss; unlike the system it replaced, the Intel E6400 Core 2 Duo I'm running seems to get along just fine using normal xvideo rendering.
Now if I can just get rid of a video noise pattern I'm getting when going through my KVM cable (a problem which didn't exist until switching to this mainboard) then I'll be perfectly happy and can finally say adios to nvidia.
Thanks.
-Mike
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 14, 2006 4:40 UTC (Thu) by mightyduck (subscriber, #23760) [Link] Sorry, but you're dead wrong! We don't do any 3D stuff but we can't livewithout the closed-source nvidia driver. Have you ever tried to get a dual-DVI card with 1600x1200 resolution to work with the free nv driver? Don't waste your time, it doesn't work. And our trading desks have up to 6 monitors and 2 or 3 video cards and noone is playing games there, I can tell you that much.
And if you look at the newest ATI cards, they don't work AT ALL with the
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 14, 2006 5:13 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] hint:
You don't need to use propriatory ATI or Nvidia drivers if your not using ATI or Nvidia hardware.
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 14, 2006 13:29 UTC (Thu) by mightyduck (subscriber, #23760) [Link] You seem to know more than I know. Please name the vendor which makes adual or better (quad?) DVI video card with support for 1600x1200 resolution on all DVI outputs, 2D acceleration, and an open-source driver. We already tried Matrox (the Parhelia and friends) and 3D Labs (the Wildcat) and neither do they have an open-source driver nor is their closed-source driver any usable under Linux. We don't care about 3D but we need as much screen real estate as possible.
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 14, 2006 14:08 UTC (Thu) by k8to (subscriber, #15413) [Link] The obvious choice for these basic features is intel.
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 14, 2006 14:24 UTC (Thu) by mightyduck (subscriber, #23760) [Link] I'm not aware of any Intel video card which has the features we need. Infact, they don't even make discrete video cards.
Believe me, I'm also sick and tired of the closed-source ATI and NVIDIA
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 14, 2006 20:42 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] Ya well you don't have much choice then.
I have a ATI x800 that I have use Free software drivers for because I need 3d acceleration more then what the onboard Intel offers. I use the DRI r300 driver, which are mostly stable and give good performance.
It can do dual out. But I haven't tried it yet, but I've seen people online that successfully run that configuration.
Beleive me when I say that I've been seriously considuring getting a nvidia card because the free software drivers just aren't that fast, but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 15, 2006 0:25 UTC (Fri) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] Oh another option, probably kinda insane (like you realy want to have 4 computers to build one display)
But if you realy want MEGA displays its worth looking at.
DMX + Chromium.
Distributed multihead X will turn a cluster of machines into one big display.
Chromium will make 3d acceleration work across all of them.
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 14, 2006 5:42 UTC (Thu) by markhb (guest, #1003) [Link] Who exactly needs 3D acceleration besides gamers and CAD professionals?
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 14, 2006 10:52 UTC (Thu) by tajyrink (subscriber, #2750) [Link] > People who want to use Google Earth and have it work halfway decently> People who would like to be able to use the rotating-desktop eyecandy being provided these days
Yeah, but those needs don't need _high-end_ 3D performance. Any intel onboard stuff works on open source drivers and provides you that. Any ATI Radeon 7000 - X850 should provide you that with an open source 3D driver, even though the performance of the open source driver would not be 100% of the current closed source driver performance.
NVIDIA is in the "tough luck"-category, ie. if you buy hardware that does not support open source software, you will have problems at some point.
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 14, 2006 13:11 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] A comparision of open source R300 drivers vs Closed FGLRX is aviable at:http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=56...
Very simplistic benchmarking, unfortunately.. but you get a 40-60% performance hit by going open source. (phoronix website is a bit of a ATI fanboy site sometimes, which makes life difficult to be Linux oriented I suppose)
But keep in mind that this is reverse engineered drivers, this has to be hugely difficult. As far as I am concerned this proves beyond a doubt that open source developers (or at least the guy reverse engineering this stuff!) can make 3d drivers.
But you can't do it without manufacturer assistance. At least not to the level of existing Nvidia drivers.
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 14, 2006 17:52 UTC (Thu) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] I believe that the "we don't own all the source" is a smoke screen. OK graphics companies, if that's true then just release the source you DO own! Let's see if the community can fill in the missing bits (I'd bet money that it can).
No, I am convinced that the real reason that manufacturers don't want to open the specs is because then all their corner-cutting will be exposed for all to see. Graphics technology tends to hover at 110% of semiconductor technology:
http://techreport.com/etc/2001q4/radeon-q3/index.x?pg=1
Heck, I reluctantly wrote some "optimizations" for SuperMac ThunderII and Thunder/24 drivers in 1993 to cheat on Ziff-Davis benchmarks (look closely at those round-corner rectangles as they blit by; it was the second-to-last time I coded something against my morals). Companies have been pulling these shenanigans since day one.
The problem is, the market is set up so that companies are required to cheat like this. So it's 13 FPS slower, so what? You can't see the difference between 122 and 135 FPS! Well, that's how Anandtech readers choose what to buy. If you're 5% slower, you lose 40% of your sales.
I really hope that open source will encourage customers to not be so fickle and choose cards based based on more than absolute frame rate and artificial benchmarks.
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 14, 2006 7:32 UTC (Thu) by amando (guest, #36597) [Link] > Who exactly needs 3D acceleration besides gamers and CAD professionals?
Developers of graphical simulations and advanced user interfaces.
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 14, 2006 10:24 UTC (Thu) by alriddoch (guest, #2249) [Link] > Who exactly needs 3D acceleration besides gamers and CAD professionals?
How about developers of games and professional CAD software?
My day to day use absolutely requires good 3D acceleration. Unless I can get this from Linux I will have to change to a different platform. It would be a great source of sadness to have to switch to a proprietary OS, but I would have no choice other than to abandon my career.
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 17, 2006 10:05 UTC (Sun) by rqosa (guest, #24136) [Link] > The open-source NV and ATI x11 drivers support NVidia and ATI graphics cards very well, including 2D acceleration. > It's true that they don't support 3D acceleration The open-source ATI driver does support 3D acceleration. See here: Several 3D accelerated drivers have been written to the DRI specification, including drivers for chipsets produced by ATI, Matrox, 3DFX, and Intel.
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 14, 2006 3:16 UTC (Thu) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link] If this takes effect, linux desktop adoption will stagnate, and Linux will generally be used only in server rooms until replaced by microsoft boxes. On the desktop, linux will be used only by hobbyists or others with no requirement for good graphics performance, or possibly used by shrill extremists. It's a shame really, Linux had the potential to be a world class desktop, and gain a foothold in the market - Solaris and BSD are beginning to look like the best last hope for a non-microsoft dominated future.Your doomsday prediction seems to be based on the assumption that we all play games, or have some other need for fast 3D graphics, but many of us don't. This change could be in effect for a year or more before I even noticed it. So my prediction is much less dramatic: I think a few people might go back to dual-booting Windows, but that's about it. Linux isn't a great gaming platform anyway, so at this point there isn't a big gaming community to defect. People can't leave it they aren't even here.
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 14, 2006 6:32 UTC (Thu) by einstein (subscriber, #2052) [Link] > Your doomsday prediction seems to be based on the assumption that we all play games, or have some other need for fast 3D graphics, but many of us don't. This change could be in effect for a year or more before I even noticed it. So my prediction is much less dramatic: I think a few people might go back to dual-booting Windows, but that's about it.
Actually, the death of linux on the desktop is not a doomsday prediction - it's sad, but life will go on, and another platform will take the place of linux. It would have been great if the linux developers could have either created drivers that people would want to use instead of the proprietary ones, or learned to work with 3rd parties like nvidia. But instead of working to address the problems, they instead are going to tell the 3rd party vendors to go take a hike, and leave the users high and dry. Not a good situation.
BTW you're mistaken in thinking that "nobody cares about good graphics anyway, except for a handful of gamers". Yeah, who wants to watch DVDs or use google earth anyway? I'll bet you also thought 640k or RAM ought to be enough for anybody, right?
> Linux isn't a great gaming platform anyway, so at this point there isn't a big gaming community to defect. People can't leave it they aren't even here.
Actually linux is a marvelous gaming platform - I've been playing hardware accelerated networked 3D FPS games on linux for years, and it absolutely rocks. The fact that you either don't play games, or choose to use a windoze peecee for all your gaming, doesn't really earn you any credibility points to talk about gaming on linux...
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 14, 2006 8:48 UTC (Thu) by kune (subscriber, #172) [Link] I don't think that the Linux community is to blame for the situation. It's pretty damn hard to write a driver for a complex hardware, for which you don't have access to the hardware developers. Even if you have some documentation and source code available, it's incomplete, might have errors and doesn't tell you about hardware bugs. It's pretty difficult if you know that hundreds of registers are filled with some values and you have no bloody idea, what the function of 95% of those registers are.
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 14, 2006 9:50 UTC (Thu) by seyman (subscriber, #1172) [Link] > I don't think that the Linux community is to blame for the situation.
It's interesting to note the blame-shifting that occurs where NVidia's binary video drivers are concerned.
- The free drivers suck. This apparently isn't NVidia's fault (which is strange since they maintain it) but the kernel developers'.
There has got to be a reason for the amount of support NVidia gets from their linux user crowd but I can't see it.
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 14, 2006 10:09 UTC (Thu) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] But instead of working to address the problems, they instead are going to tell the 3rd party vendors to go take a hike, and leave the users high and dry.I would say that Linux developers have given a fair amount of support and have tried to address the problems with graphics cards vendors. In fact devs have cried out loud for card specs for years, which is everything vendors would need to release. Or release their drivers under the GPL. Their decision to release binary drivers is the worst of both worlds. The fact that you either don't play games, or choose to use a windoze peecee for all your gaming, doesn't really earn you any credibility points to talk about gaming on linux...There are other alternatives, you know. I don't want to risk my credibility points, but I hear consoles are pretty popular these days.
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 14, 2006 15:25 UTC (Thu) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link] BTW you're mistaken in thinking that "nobody cares about good graphics anyway, except for a handful of gamers". Yeah, who wants to watch DVDs or use google earth anyway? I'll bet you also thought 640k or RAM ought to be enough for anybody, right?You must have misread my post. I was speaking specifically about "fast 3D graphics" -- I made no mention of watching DVDs, and I sure didn't say anything about memory requirements.
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 14, 2006 2:32 UTC (Thu) by Arker (guest, #14205) [Link] I don't think there's any doubt that many distros will patch to remove this, unfortunately, so you probably won't be affected by it. At least it will give people using vanilla kernels a warning that's harder to ignore than the little 'tainted kernel' thing that most people never notice.
If your day to day work requires 3d drivers, I would suggest you might investigate whether there is properly supported hardware that meets your need (there are some good Free 3d drivers already, although they aren't for the top performing hardware) and if not, think about doing something to improve that situation.
What Nvidia and others are doing is trying to skirt the letter of the GPL. It's, at best, an exploit like Tivo uses, and in ways it's worse, since it's encouraging and expecting *other people* to violate copyright so they can keep their hands technically clean. It's also an open question whether a court would or would not hold them blameless - if Kazaa can be hit for contributory copyright infringement then Nvidia certainly should be vulnerable to that charge as well.
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 14, 2006 2:59 UTC (Thu) by charris (subscriber, #13263) [Link] If your day to day work requires 3d drivers, I would suggest you might investigate whether there is properly supported hardware that meets your needWell, there are always Intel boxes running OSX or Windows; I'm a bit tempted by Apple myself just for the convenience. It seems to me that forbidding proprietary binary modules could make linux a niche operating system. I suppose the IP in 3d video cards will eventually be wrung out and it might make sense to make the drivers GPL at that point. But then the next cool thing will come along and only run on other systems. Linux could end up looking like a model T, crank included.
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 15, 2006 2:06 UTC (Fri) by Arker (guest, #14205) [Link] Many video solutions are well supported under linux as well. If you buy carefully, and don't actually require the horsepower of the latest top of the line cards, you're fine.
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 14, 2006 2:59 UTC (Thu) by sepreece (subscriber, #19270) [Link] Well, it's only a copyright violation if every loadable kernel module is inherently a derivative work. I'm not a lawyer, but from what I've read, that's an undecided question. [And there's no point in debating it here, unless we've got enough IP lawyers in the readership to have an interesting debate.]
Note, too, that if your hands are "technically clean", that would presumably mean you're not infringing. Either you're infringing, and your hands are dirty, or you're not.
Whether it's polite is another question...
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 15, 2006 2:12 UTC (Fri) by Arker (guest, #14205) [Link] From what I've seen, the vast majority of lawyers familiar with that area of the law are of the opinion that any kernel module does qualify as a derivative work of the kernel. You're correct that until there is precedent on the issue it's still an open question.
"Note, too, that if your hands are "technically clean", that would presumably mean you're not infringing. Either you're infringing, and your hands are dirty, or you're not."
I don't agree. Courts have often taken a very dim view of people who try to split hairs and comply with only the letter while blatantly violating the clear intent. So even in a legalistic sense this is not necessarily true.
In a more important sense, the community is not and shouldn't be hung up on splitting legal hairs. Even if the courts were to rule that there's no legal repurcussions from their actions, that doesn't mean they are coöperating with the community and it doesn't mean we should tolerate their behaviour.
Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 15, 2006 23:00 UTC (Fri) by GreyWizard (subscriber, #1026) [Link] Well said.
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