Kier wrote:
On Sat, 10 Jun 2006 17:35:35 +0100, Roy Schestowitz wrote:
Its inclusion of several binaries makes it sheer violation the GPL.
The Kororaa maintainer is still awaiting a proper examination of
whether or not this is the case - in may in fact turn out to be, but
it's by no means settled yet.
From the many, many discussions I've been following on the subject,
AFAICT there is no proof that the "blob" is either linked to nor derived
from the kernel, or any other GPL work. However, *proof* is the problem,
since in it's binary (closed) form, there is no way to tell other than
by guesswork, debugging and taking nVidia's word as faith.
Instead, the FSF and other GPL gurus are taking the "collective works"
tack, which is IMHO a catch all for "anything we are suspicious of".,
i.e. - anything they don't like.
Don't get me wrong; I'm not anti-GPL, but I think there needs to be some
easier way of dealing with binary-only driver distributions, for as long
as those necessary-evil drivers are needed for full hardware functionality.
I'll see XGL adopted in actual businesses where play is
distraction.
True enough, the eye candy aspect is definitely for the mainstream
desktop user
Where a company or even an individual decides to standardise on one
distribution, there will undoubtedly be a range of systems designed for
a range of purposes, some of which will have no need of XGL or even X at
all, but some inevitably will.
This degree of flexibility is necessary for widespread adoption, where
standardisation is perceived as important, particularly from the point
of view of maintenance, so I see no contradiction in a "business"
solution incorporating a degree of "end-user" functionality, regardless
of how "eye-candy" it is. Ultimately, it is up to the sysadmin to decide
what (if anything) is deployed (pending approval from upstairs).
-
K.
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