Non-opensource drivers

[Colin Watson]

On Sun, Nov 26, 2006 at 10:13:47PM -0500, Hubert Figuiere wrote:
> Colin Watson wrote:
> >   madwifi: (dual-licensed) GPLed driver, but requires the HAL blobs
> >   which have a no-modification licence. These are firmware, though
> >   shipped as objects which end up as kernel modules.
> 
> ath_hal is NOT a firmware. It is code that run in the kernel. It
> *taints* the kernel, it is at risk of posing stability and security
> problems inside the kernel. That make the whole madwifi driver non-free.

My apologies for mistakenly misrepresenting the position, but I did say
it was in restricted, which obviously implies non-freedom. I wasn't
attempting to imply that it could or should be in the main kernel, so
ease off a bit please. :-)

-- 
Colin Watson                                       [cjwatson at ubuntu.com]