J_K9 @ Linux

Binary Drivers May Be Banned

December 14, 2006 on 2:42 am | In Linux, Realistic Ideas |

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. Instead of giving the user - you and I - a choice to be free (and potentially break the law), 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 - unless, of course, the driver developers release the source code under the GPL, which is highly unlikely due to Intellectual Property (IP). This is especially the case with graphics card manufacturers, as their technology is constantly advancing and the precise details of their cards could reveal secrets to their competitors.

I am all against binary blobs but I do recognise the fact that there isn’t another viable option at this time - even if this patch has not yet been implemented or even written, is locking the user down the right way to go about this? What is the ultimate aim?

A paintball gun is a recreational item but can be used to kill someone if you shoot them in the temple from point-blank range. The former is its intended use; the latter is an unintended and illegal use, but it is not prevented. So, why prevent the use of binary blobs?

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Well, while I am all for Free Software and such, it’s just not practical to prevent installation of 3rd party drivers at this particular point of time.

Luckily it affects only a very small percentage of hardware out there, the main ones being affected will be the 3D acceleration in the most popular cards - nvidia and ati.

I think this might be a blessing in disguise and hasten the development of full-fledged 3D FOSS drivers for nVidia and ATi. Or it might even force nvidia and ATi to release their code under the GPL (impossible you say? How about Sun releasing Java under as Free Software — you would hardly have expected it a couple of years ago)

Let’s wait and see.

Comment by hari — December 14, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.8 on Linux
Also I think more and more, the hardware manufacturers are realizing that it’s the ultimate product quality that counts… and the so-called argument for protecting their Intellectual Property is increasingly becoming a non-issue. Again, by releasing their drivers using FOSS licenses, they will get a variety of benefits, including community improvements to driver code which might even lead to better performance from existing hardware.

Releasing the drivers under FOSS license will only improve the state of functioning of existing technology and maybe even allow third parties to modify drivers to get the best performance out of the card.

Comment by hari — December 14, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.8 on Linux
I’ve been trying hard to make people aware of this but people just don’t get the clue. FOSS isn’t about Freedom its about Philosophy. Its their version of what they consider “freedom”. It’s nothing more than a different side of the same coin. Close source on one side, FOSS on the other. Flip the coin you get one or the other but the fact remains its still the same coin.

A truly FREE OS would Allow and create an enviroment were both Proprietary and Open Source can co-exist peacefully and equally. From what I see the Proprietary OSes like Windows and Apple are much closer to Freedom than the FOSS world. I can use both Open Source and Close Source Software on both Windows and Apple with no complaints or crying. Yes Microsoft is a control freak but you’ve never ever heard them say they are going to create some patch in Windows to prevent OpenOffice to not install.

What they are suggested is unethical and if implemented I will definitely leave linux for good. I don’t need the Open Source version of Microsoft. I want freedom to use and choose whatever hardware or software I want regardless if the software or hardware company decides to open its source code or not. Its their choice its their freedom and its might choice and my freedom and I don’t like any damn person, whether it be a open source fanatic or close source fanatic tell me what I can or cannot do on my “personal” computer.

Comment by dragonopolis — December 14, 2006 #
Using Internet Explorer 7.0 on Windows XP
dragonopolis, I think you’ve misunderstood the scope and context of the term “Freedom” in FOSS>

Anybody can argue using a general terminology. I think you need to understand it first in order to argue for or against it. From your post, clearly you’ve not understood it.

Nobody took away your right to use Windows in any case so your arguing that the developers of Linux adhere to *your* needs and wants is ridiculous. The Linux developers have every right to implement what they want in their kernel and you cannot do a damn thing about it, whether you like it or not.

Your Freedom in FOSS is limited to modifying Linux and releasing the source and even making money doing so. Nobody said your Freedom is about choosing how Linux is actually developed by the developers.

Instead of criticizing I’d like you to create your own Free version of an Operating System and implement all your philosophies on it? :rolleyes:

Comment by hari — December 14, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 2.0 on Windows 2000
“A truly FREE OS would Allow and create an enviroment were both Proprietary and Open Source can co-exist peacefully and equally.”
The EULA for OfficeXP prevents you from running it on any platform but Windows.

“I can use both Open Source and Close Source Software on both Windows and Apple with no complaints or crying.”
The EULA for all versions of Vista, except the premium version, prevent you from running another OS in a virtual machine.

Comment by djohnston — December 14, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.7 on Linux
The right attitude would be to be concerned at the development in a mature way and not start crying and running off to mommy complaining “MOMMY THESE BAD LINUX DEVELOPERS TOOK AWAY MY BINARY DRIVERS!”

One can express regret at the development, like J_K9 has done, without completely denouncing FOSS completely and all it stands for and looking like a kid whose lost the lollipop.

There might be excellent sound, technical reasons why Linux developers don’t like binary drivers — stability and security of the kernel being a definite issue.

Be aware that many Linux developers are not FSF/GNU activists, but rather pragmatists, so if *they* think it’s a good idea not to have binary drivers, there is probably a technical reason for it.

Comment by hari — December 14, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.7 on Debian GNU/Linux
Developers should do what they are good at. Not making political statements in their code. They don’t run 3d desktops and don’t use the os from the users point of view. If they take away the availability of such drivers linux will isolate itself from being a good desktop.

Comment by foez — December 14, 2006 #
Using Konqueror 3.5 on Linux
Hari, I think you’re right. However, in the case of graphics drivers, it’s not just the fact that 3D acceleration will be gone until it is implemented into the open source drivers but there are also many cards and many PCs I’ve installed Linux on (particularly those with ATi cards) where X simply will not work unless the proprietary drivers are installed - an example being my own laptop.

It’s obviously up to the developers what they do and I’m sure that, if this patch is implemented, someone will regularly remove the patch and redistribute the modified kernel.

Now what we need to do is to either:

- Infiltrate the binary driver manufacturers’ HQ, work our way up the ladder until we’re managing a driver and release it under an open source license, or, more realistically:
- Create petitions and pester the manufacturers to open source their drivers.
The latter’s not impossible but it is unlikely, unless we can gather a substantial amount of people to sign the petition or beg them to open source their drivers.

As you said, who would have expected Java to be open sourced several years ago, and even under the GPL? There’s still hope

Comment by J_K9 — December 14, 2006 #
Using Flock 0.7.6 on Windows XP
And as a good example of why proprietary drivers cause such headaches see this:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?t=510285

Linux has a Broadcom wireless driver for BCM43xx cards, but guess what? No firmware.

You need to either use ndiswrapper or go with the ugly hack using fw-cutter.

See? Unless we find a solution to the device driver problem, end users will be forced to adopt ugly solutions with (often) unreliable and unstable binary-only drivers (or ndiswrapper in my example).

Comment by hari — December 14, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.7 on Debian GNU/Linux
Developers should do what they are good at. Not making political statements in their code. They don’t run 3d desktops and don’t use the os from the users point of view. If they take away the availability of such drivers linux will isolate itself from being a good desktop.

political statement? Don’t assume that the reasons are political.

As I said, device drivers are a complex subject and often the issue may be stability or security related.

How much do you know about driver development that you immediately assume things? There is a tendency for third party binary drivers to make your system unstable. Even the ATi fgrlx proprietary drivers aren’t 100% effective with Linux and often cause OpenGL 3d accelerated games to crash.

Comment by hari — December 14, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.7 on Debian GNU/Linux
It’s obviously up to the developers what they do and I’m sure that, if this patch is implemented, someone will regularly remove the patch and redistribute the modified kernel.

Precisely! That’s where the “Freedom” lies in… take the code and change it if you’re not happy about it. That’s the power of FOSS… right? Who’s preventing *anybody* from modifying the kernel source code. You can put any shit in it if you like and it works for you.

The kernel developers are in the best damn position to judge the feasibility of binary drivers and the code *they* wrote… End users have this habit of jumping up and down for every small decision that they make, but ultimately most (99%) of the end users don’t have the ability to change a damn thing. So I politely ask the whiners and complainers to STFU.

What I detest is that some people keeping whining and complaining about every damn thing when they are in no position to change things. They should head straight back to the Redmond Operating System where everything is dictated from the top and suck their thumbs…

Sorry to be so worked up, but I get heated up when some people think that “Freedom” means that you get every damn thing you want handed to you on a platter by somebody else doing all the work for you according to *your* specifications…

Comment by hari — December 14, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.7 on Debian GNU/Linux
J_K9, to clarify, none of my posts target you directly. I appreciate your mature debate - my post was aimed at the people who keep grumbling all the time that life is unfair and they haven’t got a good deal…

Comment by hari — December 14, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.7 on Debian GNU/Linux
This is certainly one of the most stupid ideas that I’ve ever heard. When it comes to 3D graphics and gaming Linux is clearly several years behind Windows. Why make things even worse?

Comment by dark_myself — December 14, 2006 #
Using Internet Explorer 7.0 on Windows XP
I totally agree.

Comment by paulll — December 14, 2006 #
Using Internet Explorer 7.0 on Windows XP
You say I’m clueless. I think you are clueless. I use Linux not Windows. We are talking about Open Philosophies vs Close not operating systems. Yes, MS may have OS sharing issues but MS hasn’t stopped Open Source Software/drivers from running on its platform.

Also you told me to go make my own operating system. Well instead of shoving your philosophies down ATI and Nvidia’s throat go make your own open source Graphic Hardware Company instead. Education and Competition is a better more Open way to prove that Open Source works than to choose the same tactics our Close/DRM loving brothers love to do.

We should never force someone to have to conform to one way of doing
things. I very confident that open source will prove itself without the need for these silly limiting tactics. Right now there is no major Graphic Hardware Company willing to open source. So we as users have a few choices -
- accept ATI or Nvidia choices and be allowed to use it
- Choose not have 3d Graphics at all but that choice should be left to the users not the developers (won’t bode
well for Linux in the Desktop Market without GPU access. Which is sad since the open source community have produce some excellent software that takes advantage of GPUs)

- or gather a few hardware Guru’s and form a Graphic Hardware Company that will open source its drivers and Compete “Fairly” with ATI and Nvidia. If open source is “the way” and the Hardware is competitive then that hardware company should do well.

Forcing a company or people to a certain standard with limited choices is not Freedom. Also to assume that ATI and Nvidia would “bend” to the will of the Open Source Community is foolish - I’m sorry but Linux, while a great OS, is not that significant in the world of 3D Graphics - potential yes! significant no….

Comment by dragonopolis — December 14, 2006 #
Using Internet Explorer 7.0 on Windows XP
I am sorry Hari, but it does appear to be a political statement rather than a concern for the stability and assurance of the system. If it were the latter, don’t you think a message discouraging the use of binary drivers because the stability of the system could be at risk would be more appropriate than a kernel patch would allow GPL-only drivers (not even drivers under other open source licences, by the looks of it)?

Linus appears not to be as narrow-minded as the people who came up with this idea, thank God. From his reply to the thread:

Btw, I really think this is shortsighted.

It will only result in _exactly_ the crap we were just trying to avoid, namely stupid “shell game” drivers that don’t actually help anything at all, and move code into user space instead.

[…]

The silly thing is, the people who tend to push most for this are the exact SAME people who say that the RIAA etc should not be able to tell people what to do with the music copyrights that they own, and that the DMCA is bad because it puts technical limits over the rights expressly granted by copyright law.

Doesn’t anybody else see that as being hypocritical?

[…]

The fact is, the reason I don’t think we should force the issue is very simple: copyright law is simply _better_off_ when you honor the admittedly gray issue of “derived work”. It’s gray. It’s not black-and-white. But being gray is _good_. Putting artificial black-and-white technical counter-measures is actually bad. It’s bad when the RIAA does it, it’s bad when anybody else does it.

If a module arguably isn’t a derived work, we simply shouldn’t try to say that its authors have to conform to our worldview.

We should make decisions on TECHNICAL MERIT. And this one is clearly being pushed on anything but.

(bold emphasis added by me)

The last point I quoted is, in my opinion, the most important part of the message: this proposed patch was quite clearly not intended to ameliorate the kernel but rather to prevent the use of non-GPL drivers because of the problem of derivative works, although Linus (and others) have quite clearly outlined this as a grey area.

In any case, the patch has been withdrawn because Greg has realised that it could actually prevent some legal uses of the kernel as well:

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

Crisis averted

Comment by J_K9 — December 14, 2006 #
Using Flock 0.7.6 on Windows XP
Well that solves that. Like it or not, at the moment, a fair number of users: i.e. those who use wireless or ATI video cards, _need_ to use non-free kernel drivers. It’s a sad fact, but it’s true.

As you said, who would have expected Java to be open sourced several years ago, and even under the GPL? There’s still hope

On the of-Java-became-open-source-why-not-nvidia/ati/linksys/etc issue, are you willing to wait seven years for XGL? I’m certainly not. Even if it means using properitary software.

Comment by Gunny — December 14, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 2.0 on Windows XP
I’m not “shoving” my philosophy down anybody’s throat. I just think that people who spend all their time complaining and whining should do something about it or shut the hell up.

Oh, by the way, I’m very amused that you’re more concerned about the freedom of major corporations Sun Microsystems, nVidia and ATi to make business decisions that might affect *yours*. That shows your priorities.

Comment by hari — December 15, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.8 on Linux
Er…is that directed at me or someone else?

Comment by Gunny — December 15, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 2.0 on Windows XP
Not at anybody in particular. Anyway, I’ve love debating stuff but I think I get heated sometimes…

In any case, since it’s most unlikely that the status quo will be disturbed, I think we all can be happy and not worried.

And having enjoyed playing UT 2004 over the network with my brother using a proprietary driver (fglrx) I think I shouldn’t make any more comment on this topic

But I still think that FOSS drivers are the long-term future of hardware. It has benefits both for the vendor/manufacturers as well as the end users.

So while we choose convenience in the short term, I think the FOSS community should continue pushing for vendors to release their drivers as FOSS over a period of time…

Comment by hari — December 15, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.7 on Debian GNU/Linux
Is it just me, or is freedom more about our freedom to use (not as much to modify) software?

Personally, I’m a software developer (be it amateur, personal software). I see 2 kinds of freedom:
1. the freedom to use
2. the freedom to modify

While the second obviously requires the first, the vice versa doesn’t apply — one can have the total freedom to use software without any freedom to modify it. Binary drivers, even proprietary ones, with only binary form for linux (e.g. FGLRX) don’t tell me I can’t run this game, that program, or that I have to do this particular action using the card — it just happens to be that I can’t modify them.

Comment by jakykong — February 7, 2007 #
That is true, but another problem is that you have no way of patching the driver yourself if it has a stability of security problem. These two characteristics are not guaranteed with proprietary drivers either, whereas the Open Source community does its best to make each driver as stable and as secure as possible. If there were a problem, you’d have to wait for an update for as long as the developers take, which could be quite a while, as their focus might be on fixing the equivalent hole in Windows (if there is one) or coding a Windows driver for a new card.

Using binary blobs is also against the GPL (although it is a grey area), which is part of the reason. This search turns up some interesting results

Comment by J_K9 — February 8, 2007 #
Using Internet Explorer 6.0 on Windows XP
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