GPL flag for x.org drivers

[Andreas Girlich]

On Tue, 15 May 2007 12:06:10 -0400
Ross Vandegrift <ross at kallisti.us> wrote:
> I am as frustrated with binary-only drivers as you.  However, the X
> culture is substantially different than the GPL/FSF culture that Linux
> is more directly associated with.
Yes, I know there are differences in politics and licensing and in
fact, I don't want "my plan" to be compared with the development of
Linux.

> It's always been an explicit goal of X to allow binary-only
> distributions and parts.  So when you say "current politics must not
> be an obstacle" and you call your plan an "improvement", you are
> explicitly going against the culture and history of X.
I'm not going against the culture and history of X. It's over. You
can't change history, but you can do future (...).
The culture of X changes with its user/developer/requirements or it
should change. I would compare it to break in a pair of shoes which
become tighter and more flexible after hours of "development". If you
do not change them or give it to your shoemaker for rework, they will
break.
Fact is, that vendors call their drivers "Linux compliant". So I expect
a program which runs fine under Linux _and_ X. This is a pair you
cannot bisect after such statement.

And nobody needs to be sulky. When anybody thinks that this discussion
will change the basement of X, he errs.

> The place to change this is to encourage Intel and AMD's announcements that
> they'll be producing more drivers with source available.  Hopefully,
> this will snowball into such practices becoming more and more common.
> But you need to realize that you're in a very different context with
> X.
Ok, i realized :-).

Greets,
Andreas