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From: terry@cs.weber.edu (Terry Lambert)
Message-Id: <9504210059.AA00941@cs.weber.edu>
Subject: Re: DIGIBOARD driver in ~julian
To: dufault@hda.com (Peter Dufault)
Date: Thu, 20 Apr 95 18:59:40 MDT
Cc: julian@freefall.cdrom.com, hackers@freefall.cdrom.com
In-Reply-To: <199504202207.SAA12905@hda.com> from "Peter Dufault" at Apr 20, 95 06:07:50 pm
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> No, I meant an organization would sign the NDA, pay Digiboard
> the $200.00 for the documentation, and produce a shareware object only
> driver.  The Linux driver ALLEGEDLY is incomplete in its support.

Oh.  This is a *definite* goal in my mind -- the ability to use
binary drivers means the ability to ship those drivers on hardware
vendor's disks.

I don't think it's too far off when a CDROM will be cheaper media
than several floppies (after mastering and duplication costs) and
I fully expect hardware to come with a CDROM.

And there's a lot of room on a CDROM.  Enough room for lotsa drivers
for your hardware, even if you didn't write them.


My point about LGPL is how do you leverage GPL drivers in a non-GPL
kernel while keeping the distribution and code release restrictions
and not restricting the kernel they go into.

I've thought more than a little bit on the topic, and am close to
being willing to distribute LGPL drivers for various things that
aren't critical to system boot to the point that they can be
installed.


					Terry Lambert
					terry@cs.weber.edu
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.