Messages in this thread | | | Date | Tue, 21 Jul 2009 00:33:40 +0100 | From | Matthew Garrett <> | Subject | Re: DRM drivers with closed source user-space: WAS [Patch 0/3] Resubmit VIA Chrome9 DRM via_chrome9 for upstream |
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On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 12:28:35AM +0100, Alan Cox wrote: > > I think "tightly integrated" could do with some clarification here. > > qcserial was accepted despite not being functional without a closed > > userspace component - an open one's since been rewritten to allow it to > > It got as far as staging with a good deal of complaint. I am not sure it > would have gotten further unfixed (with my serial/tty maintainers hat > on ;)). That however was about firmware - so a lot less tightly coupled.
? It was merged directly into drivers/usb/serial.
> > work. Do we define "tightly integrated" as "likely to cross the GPL > > line" (potentially the case with Poulsbo, not the case with qcserial), > > or is it a pragmatic issue? What about specialised hardware drivers that > > only have closed applications? > > Ultimately - ask a lawyer, ultimately this is a question about works and > copyright boundaries. If the hardware has only some specific proprietary > app then it sounds to me like it's not a general kernel interface so > probably isn't a good interface anyway, let alone what the code may do.
I was more wondering about whether we had issues with code that wasn't a GPL concern but still depended on a closed component.
-- Matthew Garrett | mjg59@srcf.ucam.org
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