Re: [PATCH] Blacklist binary-only modules lying about their license

Timothy Miller
2004-04-30T18:35:36Z

Keith D Burgess Jr wrote:
> A couple days ago when I stumbled onto this discussion, I was prompted
> to at least post an opinion from a user perspective. Having followed
> along since then, I am beginning to wonder why I am so interested in the
> Linux community in the first place. I have to admit, my chin is still on
> the floor having read some of the personal attacks directed towards
> Marc. Why, for some, has this become a personal issue and not a
> technical one? I think Marc summed it up best (a few times) by saying:

I never felt it was a personal issue. It's a technical problem, and
it's a legal problem.

No one faults Marc for what he wanted to do. We only fault him for the
way he went about doing it.

I'm ambivalent about the future impact of supporting companies who do
not want to develop open-source drivers, but I DO support Marc's right
to develop software which aids in using proprietary drivers under Linux
for the sake of users who otherwise could not use their hardware. That
is to say, there are certain philosophical aspects of developing such a
wrapper that concern me, but I respect Marc's right to do it anyway.

>
>>> I repeat, the \0 is purely a technical workaround, done without any
>
> mischievous intent.
>
> Can't we respect this as his explanation and move on so these efforts
> can be better directed towards improving the kernel?

We respect this explanation, but this explanation has nothing to do with
what we're complaining about, which is why this discussion continues.

It's like being asked why you stubbed your classmate's toe and
responding "because it's Thursday". Well, not THAT far off, but it
demonstrates my point.

We DO accept the fact that he didn't MEAN to break the law. It's just
not a valid excuse!

> Hell - Marc has
> alot of work to-do in order for driverloader to be compatible with 4K
> stacks ;) (BTW I have no idea how you can support Fedora but it is
> appreciated.) There seems to be a couple posters here that understand
> why this workaround was done and agree that there needs to be a better
> way than seeing repeated "tainted" messages. In my opinion, this is the
> perspective that should have been taken from the start. Or at least once
> the list realized the intent and received Marc's appologies.

And that's what's happening. It's Marc's insistence that he's innocent
on the grounds that he didn't mean it that has so many people all riled
up about it.

Yes, we're "letting him off" (ie. not suing for past infractions) on the
grounds that he didn't mean it, but we want him to understand why he
shouldn't have done it and stop doing it. He doesn't seem to understand
why it was wrong, and that bugs us.

If Marc had just said, "OOPS! Sorry. That was a stupid error on my
part. I'll fix it and never do it again," then this argument would
never have happened.

Mistakes happen all the time. We're just used to people who are able to
learn from their mistakes.