Linus Puts Kibosh On Banning Binary Kernel Modules

microbee writes "On LKML's periodic GPL vs. binary kernel module discussion, Andrew Morton hinted that he favors refusing to load binary modules in 12 months. Greg Kroah-Hartman then posted a patch to do exactly that. Surprisingly Linus chimed in and called it 'stupid' and a 'political agenda,' and even compared it with the RIAA's tactics. Later in the same thread Greg withdrew his patch and apologized for not having thought it through."

Quote from the patch withdrawl

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'm so sorry Mr. Linus! Please forgive me! I was a bad wittle boy."

LKML could be a soap opera

[suso]

This week on LKML 24. Andrew and Linus get into it over politics, while Greg watches from the closet. Watch it Friday at 8, 7 central, 6 a mountain.

Re:Linus was wrong on one point

[Shakrai]

I think he was referring to the RMS crowd, who won't.

You mean the GNU/Linux crowd, right?

Re:Torvalds needs to get over himself.

[DaveV1.0]

Linus didn't name Linux, the community did. It was to honor the fact that he started it all.

Perhaps you should actually learn the history of Linux before you open your mouth and prove your ignorance to the world.

Re:Quote from the patch withdrawl

[grahamlee]

That's exactly what I thought, too. Andrew Morton says "we should do blah". Weenie says "Huzzah! For I have done blah!" Linus Torvalds says "doing blah is stupid". Weenie says "I never did blah! Or at least, I didn't really mean it."

Re:LKML could be a soap opera

[shawngarringer]

Did he ask what he had to do to get it included, kill someone?

Bad joke, bad joke I know...

Re:Torvalds needs to get over himself.

[OrangeTide]

Ari made up about half the Linux community at the time.

Re:Torvalds needs to get over himself.

[bogado]

We all know that the correct nomenclature should been "Gnu/Freax", and that is why it got renamed. :-P

Re:And of course Linus is right...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't get this reasoning. "The driver made by $MANUFACTURER is very complex, therefore it's useless for anyone else to know the interface it uses". Seriously, WTF? It's SOFTWARE, not MAGIC. If the interface was known there is NO reason the apparently holy driver couldn't be replaced. It might not be *easy*, but claiming flat out it's impossible doesn't stand to reason at all. After all, where did original driver come from to begin with? Representatives from the design departement climbed a mountain and got it on an usb-stick from God?

Re:Torvalds needs to get over himself.

[SnowZero]

Excuse me, but GNU must be capitalized to emphasize its importance over all other open source projects -- as well as the fact that it is a recursive acronym.

Re:Torvalds needs to get over himself.

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course not, GNU is not UNIX.