OSNews > Thread > "RE[2]: disagree" by archiesteel

Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 28th Dec 2006 17:47 UTC, submitted by elsewhere

"Proprietary kernel modules are flaky, out of date, and the bane of a Linux professional's existence - right? Maybe not. This three-part (part I | part II | part III) series makes a case for formalizing the uneasy truce between GPL-clean and 'tainted' modules."

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RE[2]: disagree

by archiesteel on Thu 28th Dec 2006 18:54 UTC in reply to "RE: disagree"

Member since:
2005-07-02

IMO, the problem with proprietary drivers in Linux now is the fact that they are so frowned upon that is extremely difficult to make one that will work with many distributions.

Is it? I think you meant to say "...make one that will work with many kernels", because in fact both Nvidia and Ati make only one Linux driver, not many. AFAIK the driver's interaction with the kernel and the OS is pretty much standardized.

A "shim" such as the one used by Nvidia is not a "bizarre abstraction layer", and it's not that hard to do. Do you have any example of companies who would produce such drivers but don't due to technical difficulty (and not simply because there are already open-source drivers that do the job)?

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