Re: [PATCH] USB: mark USB drivers as being GPL only

Alan Cox
2008-02-08T11:44:56Z

> Well, winmodem case is the only I could *almost* understand
> closed-source drivers: the algorithms used *are* the modem. It's not a
> simple firmware upload.

Winmodem is all about patents, the modem standards come from ISO so are
created by all out corporate warfare with the winner getting the patent
money. Its why we had X2 v 56K, its why they took so long to get anything
done 8)

Graphics interfaces can be very clever and critical to performance. 3Dfx
for example had some very clever register layout tricks to get PCI
bursting of commands.

Personally I wish someone would just get around to putting the basic
rasterising ops (including texture scaling/mapping to 2D plane) into the
CPU. It would be more useful than half of MMX to have a "load
texturepointer, load step and angle, rep textureop" sequence in the CPU

Alan