linux-kernel - Re: Free Linux Driver Development!

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Message-ID: <3d57814d0702010103m4d7c3577q35b7f5fff16a716a@mail.gmail.com>
Date:	Thu, 1 Feb 2007 19:03:22 +1000
From:	"Trent Waddington" <trent.waddington@...il.com>
To:	"Nicolas Mailhot" <nicolas.mailhot@...oste.net>
Cc:	"Greg KH" <greg@...ah.com>, "Theodore Tso" <tytso@....edu>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: Free Linux Driver Development!

On 2/1/07, Nicolas Mailhot <nicolas.mailhot@...oste.net> wrote:
> Well, reengineering nvidia/ati DRM is rude to ati/nvidia, so was creating
> tigon3, so was rewriting from scratch the GPL drivers some ATA vendors
> published in the past, so was spurning the SATA/SAS stack adaptec
> offered...

It is rude, but they're writing proprietary modules, and *that* is
rude, so screw 'em.

> If the answer is no, then there is a big pile of device documentation (in
> the form of source code) waiting to be used.

Greg didn't say it was rude to write a new driver without consulting
the author of an existing driver.. just that taking their code without
asking them if they would prefer to put it in the tree themselves is a
bit rude.

Admittably there is a point where this whole politeness thing could
get out of hand, but I think a good rule of thumb is to ask the author
if they're ok with you doing X with their code, and if they say no,
well, try to be gracious about it.  Not that they *should* say no,
this *is* free software after all.

Trent
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@...r.kernel.org
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/