"I also don't have a lot of interest in being a good person or bad person, from what I can tell either way you are screwed." This is what Georgia Lass, lead character of my favourite television production "Dead Like Me", says, when she introduces herself in the pilot episode. I cannot speak for the developers behind the Kororaa Xgl live CD, but I'd think Georgia nailed the situation they must be in pretty well. Note: this is the Mon... Err, Sunday Eve Column. My apologies for the delay, but I was... Incapacitated yesterday eve.
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Member since:2005-07-24
I don't even know how the GPL fits into this, since these drivers are modules of X.org and not the kernel directly.
Err, we're talking about the linux kernel modules that allow userspace (in casu X.org) to access the nvidea/ati hardware. Unforuntately I don't think this can be done entirely in userspace 
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Member since:2005-07-06
no it cant, or atleast it cant be done under the linux kernel without work. but look at the usb drivers, there one have a cooperation between kernel and user space.
i wonder if not one could write some kind of generic graphics card drivers that could allow a user space program to send custom control signals to the card. this way the nvidia driver could be a daemon rather then a kernel module. still, i worry about the performance for a setup like that...
Member since:
2005-06-29
Your argument is besides the point, if not totally irrelevant. The right question is, do the developers have the right to distribute the ATI and Nvidia drivers?
If not, they are in bigger trouble. The ATI and Nvidia drivers are not licensed under a free software license, and I'm pretty sure it is illegal to distribute these drivers unless the developers have a distribution license from ATI and Nvidia themselves.
I don't even know how the GPL fits into this, since these drivers are modules of X.org and not the kernel directly. Last time I check X.org was not licensed under the GPL.
So do the Korora developers have the right do distribute the proprietary drivers?