Binary-only kernel modules may be banned [LWN.net]

Binary-only kernel modules may be banned

Posted Dec 14, 2006 6:51 UTC (Thu) by bronson (subscriber, #4806)
In reply to: Binary-only kernel modules may be banned by einstein
Parent article: Binary-only kernel modules may be banned

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.

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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:
A. fixed the bug over a year ago
B. realised the security problem almost imediately.

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.
(Think: Creative, ATI)

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.

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.