[linux-audio-dev] Getting out of the software game

[Christian Schoenebeck]

Am Mittwoch, 14. März 2007 16:16 schrieb Lee Revell:
> With binary drivers kernel debugging requires the cooperation of the
> vendor in the best case, and lots of guesswork and reverse engineering
> in the worst case.  The main technical argument in favor of open
> source is that anyone can fix a bug.  With binary drivers, you're at
> the mercy of the vendor.  At that point you might as well run Windows.

Fons already gave you the appropriate argument on this one. And the very last 
sentence is once again a very exaggerated statement. :)

> Another technical argument for open source drivers is that vendors
> will put all kinds of garbage like AC3 encoding in the kernel if
> they're allowed to keep the code secret.  Have you ever
> disassembled/decompiled a Windows driver?  It's shocking what you
> find...

I think most of the people on this list know these kind of issues. And I 
totally agree that this is an argument to avoid using binary drivers, but 
it's definitely NOT a sufficient argument to completely reject a BDI.

> > Not Linux' stability might suffer, but what you fear is that its
> > reputation could do.
>
> Who says it's about reputation?  I am talking about real world stability.

It's not the kernel, but the binary driver that might introduce the 
instability. So in that case the user would have the option to use, or not to 
use that potential buggy binary driver. But when you reject a BDI at all, you 
just want to protect the stability reputation of a software piece 
called "Linux". And that was actually one of the reasons why I jumped on the 
OSS train, because I didn't like "wise" developers to tell me what's good for 
me or what's not. That should be up to the judgement of the respective user.

We all know the bad sides of binary drivers, but at the end it's simply this: 
rejecting a BDI takes away some of the users' freedom.

CU
Christian