Re: General Questions about New Drivers and Driver Changes
On Wed, 2005-09-28 at 10:10 -0700, Allyn, Mark A wrote:
> Folks:
>
> I have been recently put into a position where I might need
> to add and/or change device drivers in the kernel.
>
> I have some questions about protocol and preferences within
> the Debian community.
>
> First of all, I do understand that anything I submit to be
> added to Debian must be covered by the GPL or the LGPL
> license. Is that correct?
It must meet the Debian Free Software Guidelines, and the GPL is a
license that does. Code meant to be included in the kernel must be GPL
because the kernel is GPL. However, please note that we only accept
patches that have already gone upstream, so you probably want to be
working with the appropriate upstream maintainer directly.
http://wiki.debian.net/?DebianKernelPatchAcceptanceGuidelines
> I hear of something called the ABI number, which is used
> to determine if a particular module has been compiled
> for a specific version/configuration of the kernel. Is
> this true, and where do I find the ABI number in the
> sources or the compiled binaries?
See http://people.debian.org/~dannf/debconf5/debconf5-kernel.html,
section 6.
Modules in our kernel tree don't have to worry about this - they
automatically match - only external modules will potentially conflict.
> Having read this email list for a while, I am under the
> impression that it is best for me to try to get any driver
> changes or new drivers into the upstream kernel (at www.kernel.org)
> and then let them 'trickle down' into the Debian kernel,
> rather than try to insert them into the Debian kernel directly.
Correct.
> Is this correct for all drivers? For example, do you 'pull down'
> Alsa audio drivers directly from www.alsa-project.org or do
> you prefer to wait until they have 'percolated' into the
> kernel from www.kernel.org?
The latter.
> How about the kernel level graphics
> drivers such as agpgart.ko? Do these come from www.kernel.org
> or from x.org/xfree86.org?
kernel.org
> Also, once a driver appears in the upstream kernel, how long does it
> take for it to 'percolate' down into the Debian unstable and test
> distributions. I do understand that we may not see a new Debian
> stable distribution until about fourth quarter of 2006.
It depends - we usually have something prepared right off the bat, but
external dependencies usually drive this (as do arch-specific bugs,
etc). Note that if its a trivial backport to the current version in
sid, it meets the guidelines for backporting. For instance, if your
changes had been accepted into Linus' git tree for 2.6.14, you might be
able to get us to include it in Debian 2.6.12.
> Also in regard to the GPL and LGPL licenses; I may find myself
> in a position of having a GPL licensed driver, however that
> driver may require to load in a separate non-GPL licensed
> 'firmware' file for the device. The 'firmware' would be a binary
> only propriatary file. The GPL driver can be made available
> to www.kernel.org and Debian, but the firmware would have to
> be downloaded from a click-to-agree-with-license type of
> site.
>
> What is the preferences/philosophy of Debian and the kernel
> folks in regard to GPL Driver / propriatary firmware situation?
Your licensing would not allow us to include the firmware in Debian, nor
allow it to be included in a kernel.org release. If the driver is
useless without unredistributable firmware, I strongly doubt either
kernel.org or Debian would consider accepting it. I strongly suggest
pushing back against this requirement if you aim for community
acceptance.
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