make kernel driver closed

Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu
Sat Jan 25 23:10:34 EST 2014


On Sat, 25 Jan 2014 15:43:19 +0200, Alexandru Juncu said:

> That is not true. Technically speaking, you could do that. Think of
> drivers from vmware or nvidia.

The only reason NVidia gets away with it is because it's not actually
a Linux driver.

To save Phani the trouble, I'll point at this quote:

> Description: I have driver, I want make it non-open source. how can I do it?

The fact you have a Linux driver means you can't use the NVidia loophole.

But let's step back a bit - what business problem are you trying to solve
by making it non-open?  What does that buy you, beside the fact that you get
to support it alone, without the community helping?  Here's a nice bonus:

If you open source it and get it in the mainline kernel, you no longer have
to spend programmer time updating your driver to newer kernels - because every
time some maintainer breaks an API you used, it's now *their* job to fix your
code for you. :)
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