UIO: user-space drivers

Posted May 4, 2007 16:11 UTC (Fri) by zlynx (guest, #2285)
In reply to: UIO: user-space drivers by nlucas
Parent article: UIO: user-space drivers

So what if people do use it to bypass the GPL? Developers were doing user-space drivers *anyway*. And doing it badly in most cases.

It depends on if your goal is to write an excellent, open OS kernel or to force all software in the world to become GPL.

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UIO: user-space drivers

Posted May 4, 2007 17:19 UTC (Fri) by nlucas (subscriber, #33793) [Link] (1 responses)

The kind of user-space drivers people were doing don't compare with the drivers you will be able to do, even if you probably can't do a user-space graphics driver.

Also note that I'm not a GPL zealot, but I agree with the "doomsday scenario for linux in a binary world" (OTOH I don't buy the "stable API nonsense").

Other than that, I don't have problems running the nvidia drivers at my home PC (the few games I still play need 3D).

UIO: user-space drivers

Posted Oct 19, 2007 3:22 UTC (Fri) by ofranja (subscriber, #11084) [Link]

Companies which do not want their work to become GPL'ed just need to make 
a tiny little "wrapper" driver inside the kernel, and then implement 
everything that matters in the userspace. In some (not to say many) 
scenarios, this approach actually is much better and saner than 
implementing everything in the kernel driver. 
 
BTW, one thing "home Linux users" should remember is that Linux is not 
strong in the home PCs as it is strong in the server market. Many 
companies in that scenario do not care about openess of some driver, as 
long as it works and/or you (the seller) fix it in case it breaks. 
Sometimes they prefer not having the source code and buy from someone who 
is more expensive, because the solution is better and more complete. 
 
IMHO, keeping this UIO infrastructure out of the kernel fearing a "binary 
takeover" would be like keeping FUSE out of the kernel fearing 
"proprietary filesystems" from taking over Linux: something we should not 
be afraid of. 
 
And that's it.