[olug] Tiny computers

[Eric Penne]

off topic to this thread please start new thread.

Eric

On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 9:36 AM, Luke-Jr <luke at dashjr.org> wrote:
> On Wednesday 07 April 2010 11:03:20 pm T. J. Brumfield wrote:
>> On Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 9:26 PM, Luke-Jr <luke at dashjr.org> wrote:
>> > But then it's no longer Linux, but a proprietary fork thereof and not
>> > much better than NTKRNL.
>>
>> On the Linux kernel and trademark, the ultimate authority is Linus. He
>> said specifically that the Nvidia driver can not be considered a
>> derived work (which would be different from a fork to begin with)
>> because it was a Windows driver first, and then ported over to Linux.
>
> On the Linux trademark, you are correct. However, Linus has no authority to
> change the terms of the kernel, nor the nature and relationships of the code
> involved. While the nVidia blob itself is undoubtedly an independent work, the
> source code shim tying it to Linux is undeniably derived and infringes on the
> GPL terms.  Furthermore, all legal matters aside, it still makes a proprietary
> kernel and defeats the purpose of GNU/Linux in the first place.
>
>> Linus also specifically allows tons and tons of proprietary firmware
>> blobs to be included in the mainline kernel. So is the mainline kernel
>> itself also not Linux?
>
> Firmware does not link or run as part of Linux ever. The fact that they are
> included in the tree is mere aggregation, not any kind of derivation at all.
>
>> > Video cards run the same regardless of architecture on (real) Linux.
>>
>> So a GPU paired with an ARM, MIPS, PPC, x86, or x86_64 architecture
>> will all behave the same?
>
> Sure, at least I've never seen otherwise... I know that my AGP Radeon card
> works in my EFIKA (PowerPC) and that RouterBoard (MIPS) takes generic Mini PCI
> Express cards... x86_64 certainly works the same as x86_32 in pretty much
> anything driver-related.
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