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Why five years? Modules (precisely speaking about Linux) shall be open-source upon sale! Nothing new for AMD and Intel. But we have likely a new field below

Why five years? Modules (precisely speaking about Linux) shall be open-source upon sale! Nothing new for AMD and Intel. But we have likely a new field below, firmware. Nvidia (and both from above) push a lot of stuff there now. Firmware often contains security and bugfixes nowadays. PS: Hoping right now that the newest firmware for RDNA2 fixes issues with PSR (backlight turns off).

mlyle 3y ago
> Modules (precisely speaking about Linux) shall be open-source upon sale! Linux's interpretation of the GPL allows closed source and proprietary modules (providing you conform to a somewhat limited set of interfaces). There's a lot of closed source binary lumps out there for different hardware.
- teddyh 3y ago
  > Linux's interpretation of the GPL allows closed source and proprietary modules Not officially, IIUC. If they were officially allowed, this is what would happen: <https://lwn.net/Articles/162686/ https://lwn.net/Articles/162686/>
  - mlyle 3y ago
    http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Kernel/proprietary-kernel-modules.html http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Kernel/proprietary-kernel-modules.... Linus said it was okay long ago; that's as close to official as one can get. Later his views became more nuanced, but still largely authorize binary-only drivers. It may still be legally problematic (as there are many contributors who may be able to make a claim); but 28 years of policy precedent make such an attempt at enforcement difficult. There's all the EXPORT_SYMBOL/EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL infrastructure for this exact reason.
    - teddyh 3y ago
      > Linus said it was okay long ago You and I have a very different understanding of the very long text at that link.
      - mlyle 3y ago
        > > long ago > understanding of the very long text You have the original statement in 1995, which is nice and short. You clipped from my statement: > > Later his views became more nuanced Waffling starts in 2002. IMO, the fact that there's an interface maintained for the explicit purpose of marking symbols for non-GPL compatible code makes it pretty damn difficult to enforce.
pjmlp 3y ago
Contrary to popular beliefs, AMD and Intel only do that for some of their cards, not all of them.

mlyle 3y ago

> Modules (precisely speaking about Linux) shall be open-source upon sale! Linux's interpretation of the GPL allows closed source and proprietary modules (providing you conform to a somewhat limited set of interfaces). There's a lot of closed source binary lumps out there for different hardware.

teddyh 3y ago
> Linux's interpretation of the GPL allows closed source and proprietary modules Not officially, IIUC. If they were officially allowed, this is what would happen: <https://lwn.net/Articles/162686/ https://lwn.net/Articles/162686/>
- mlyle 3y ago
  http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Kernel/proprietary-kernel-modules.html http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Kernel/proprietary-kernel-modules.... Linus said it was okay long ago; that's as close to official as one can get. Later his views became more nuanced, but still largely authorize binary-only drivers. It may still be legally problematic (as there are many contributors who may be able to make a claim); but 28 years of policy precedent make such an attempt at enforcement difficult. There's all the EXPORT_SYMBOL/EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL infrastructure for this exact reason.
  - teddyh 3y ago
    > Linus said it was okay long ago You and I have a very different understanding of the very long text at that link.
    - mlyle 3y ago
      > > long ago > understanding of the very long text You have the original statement in 1995, which is nice and short. You clipped from my statement: > > Later his views became more nuanced Waffling starts in 2002. IMO, the fact that there's an interface maintained for the explicit purpose of marking symbols for non-GPL compatible code makes it pretty damn difficult to enforce.

pjmlp 3y ago

Contrary to popular beliefs, AMD and Intel only do that for some of their cards, not all of them.