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Re: drivers in linux



On 1/12/07, Kevin Mark <kevin.mark@verizon.net> wrote:
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On Thu, Jan 11, 2007 at 08:00:02PM -0500, celejar wrote:

[snip]

> Module-assistant is a Debian-specific tool for the building and
> installing of drivers that Debian packages as source code
                                               ^^^^^^^^^^^
- -------------------------------------------------||||||||||
The reason that some drivers are packages as source code as opposed to
being included in the kernel or as binary modules is because of
licenseing, being experimental and not being able to be redistributed in
binary form. This means that those can not be distrubuted the way 99% of
everything else in Debian can be. This includes nvidia video modules,
ISDN modem modules, wifi modules, webcam modules, ...
Debian is different than other distros. Other distros are meant to be
'end user' products. We want others to be able to reuse what we do, this
makes it possible for others like Ubuntu, Knoppix and a 100 others to
exist. This means that everything must be redistutable and not just free
to use.
cheers,
Kev

I understand, but I believe that some things are packaged separately
for reasons other than licensing (perhaps because they are
experimental, as you suggest). E.g. I believe spca / gspca is Free
Software. The kernel devs have their own criteria in addition to
licensing (stability, etc) for including stuff in the official kernel
tree, and IIUC, anything they don't include for any reason will be
packaged separately, unless Debian does it as a patch, which I imagine
is unlikely for a completely new module.

My $.02,
Celejar



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