Re: [PATCH 2.6.25] module: allow ndiswrapper to use GPL-only symbols

Ingo Molnar
2008-02-29T21:16:55Z

* Pavel Roskin <proski@gnu.org> wrote:

> I already know what USB folks will say. They want proprietary drivers
> to be in the userspace. I doubt ndiswrapper will ever be ported to
> the userspace. It's much more likely that some other approach will be
> used.

btw., what are the technical reasons why ndiswrapper cannot be done in
userspace, much like the (wildly successful) FUSE concept?

what's the main hardware access method of ndiswrapper - only PIO, or
mmio as well? In the former case, ioperm() should work, in the latter
case, mmap()ing the device aperture should work.

Frankly, it would be a great approach for the following reason: it would
be _far_ easier for people to write a proper free driver, if the NDIS
driver was in user-space, in a nicely debuggable, traceable, observable
environment. I dont really see what the technical difficulties there are
here.

Ingo