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Binary Drivers May Be Banned

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Linux

Greg Kroah-Hartman appears to be working on a kernel patch which will only allow drivers licensed under the GPL to be loaded into the kernel - at least, that’s what he said in passing in a longer conversation about driver core patches.

While I respect free software and what that freedom stands for, if this patch were to be included into the Linux kernel in the future (which may stop us from using proprietary drivers such as those for some graphics and wireless cards), this would almost be a form of entrapment.

Full Story.

It's over. Crisis averted.

"If we change the kernel this way, it prevents valid and legal
usages of the kernel. So I am wrong, sorry."

Full Post.

----
You talk the talk, but do you waddle the waddle?

Shouldn't we keep this quiet?

I hate missing a crisis, especially when I don't understand it. We were going to be prevented from doing something illegal but not any more.

J_K9 wrote:
it would stop us from doing something illegal by preventing the loading of binary modules but at the same time would stop us from enjoying a complete user experience

We can't have that, can we?

For seekers only

re: Shouldn't we keep this quiet?

I don't know. I guess there are valid reasons for the developers' wish (and gpl-only mod), but all I could think about was 'nooooo, I gotta have my NVIDIA drivers!' So, I wasn't very objective.

PCLOS developers said they'd just back out of the patch so they could continue to support some of the hardware in question, and it was said we all could do the same, but when the web is overflowing with howtos on how to apt-get some piece of software or see which group a user belongs to, I don't think too many folks gonna know how.

I guess my viewpoint was quite selfish, in fact. Even after all the reasons for the developers' first action was explained to me, still all I can think was 'thank goodness Linus put an end to that.'

For all of my fair play and do-what's-right morals, gaming wins out!

----
You talk the talk, but do you waddle the waddle?

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