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

Boaz Harrosh
2008-01-28T16:45:54Z

On Mon, Jan 28 2008 at 18:13 +0200, Greg KH <greg@kroah.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 28, 2008 at 12:44:19PM +0200, Boaz Harrosh wrote:
>> On Fri, Jan 25 2008 at 20:02 +0200, Greg KH <greg@kroah.com> wrote:
>>> FYI, this is a patch that will be sent out in the next round to Linus
>>> for inclusion in 2.6.25.
>>>
>>> If anyone has any objections about it, please let me know.
>> What about ndiswrapper and its windows binaries
>> are they covered through ndiswrapper by GPL?
>> (Unfortunately I use them, but less and less)
>
> Sorry, but no, they are not going to work, due to the way that
> ndiswrapper is marked by the kernel module loader.
>
I was afraid of that, yes.

> Again, you should be getting a kernel warning every time you try to use
> a USB function today.
>
sigh, yes I do, but it's better then no networking.

> What USB drivers for wireless devices are not yet supported by Linux
> becides the Marvell-based ones (which some of us are actively working
> on...)?
>
I'm not even sure, its an old vaio pII 512MZ. Still works like a charm
with Linux. I use a chokoloku usb dangle that I dismantled and assembled
inside the laptop case. I use the original windows drivers that came with
it.

Last time I checked with 2.6.20 it did not work, but I should now try
2.6.24 as I know things have advanced a lot. (It works and I'm just lazy)

> thanks,
>
> greg k-h

Thank you, I do support what you are doing here. Just the ndiswrapper
is a special case. But I guess I, as a user, can always use it anyway,
right? But not the commercial distros. Don't stop the transition on my
account.

Boaz