Unfortunately, Linux needs the ability to support proprietary drivers...
> I disagree. Inevitably what it would come down to is that somebody
> would have to be able to convince a judge somewhere that the closed
> source BIOS is a derived work of the GPL'ed kernel. That would be
> quite a stretch if the "BIOS" uses no GPL'ed functions or header
> files and can compile and be useful without Linux or an OS at all.
>
> I believe Linux has an NDIS wrapper driver to allow closed source
> Windows network drivers to be used with Linux on the PC. Does this
> mean that these Windows drivers must now be made GPL? This is really
> the same thing.
>
>
NVidia drivers anyone?
At least the NVidia drivers rock.
>>> PCs have close source BIOSes.
>>>
>> Some do, some do not.
>>
>
> True, 99.9% do, .1% do not. Seriously, this seems a ridiculous
> statement-- what brand PC currently ships with an open-source BIOS?
>
Yeah. Agreed. I have never seen a PC using an open source bios.
>> That's not true, we have SD drivers in the Linux kernel now.
>>
>
> They are probably MMC drivers, not full SD. SD cards are backward
> compatible with MMC. Either that or they were developed illegally or
> reverse engineered in a country that allows that. SD association
> licenses are pretty clear. You might be able to get away with it if
> you don't use the word "SD" in any marketing, advertising, or
> documentation for your product but that seems a dishonest way to do
> business.
>
The SD drivers in the kernel are painfully slow. I've used them on
x86-64 - plugging a SD card into a Dell 24" monitor with USB - the SD
card runs at about 30 kilobytes per second. Its totally useless.
-Brett
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