The Sad State Of GPU Drivers For BSD, Solaris

[kusuriya]

If you feel that is the point of the license, why not take that part and add an additional clause that forces people to contribute back? I'll tell you why, because that's not the point. The point is that others are allowed to take the code and use it freely. Then when it happens, you whine about it.

Actually the point of the license is like all academic works, and to learn from it. The license is pretty standard fare. The point of the license is to allow for people to make use of stuff that was originally created with public funds. If you would like more info feel free to google it. As for the whining that happens its more idle griping and frustration .

I actually code for a company, and I can tell you flat out that I've taken BSD code and used it internally. Never contributed back, and my company would never pay me to do so. I've avoided GPL code when doing this, and my company would not let me break a license if they found out about it. It's rather nice to be able to borrow code like that, so I like the fact that the BSD exists and people use it. But you are really naive if you think that the BSD gets higher contribution rates from corporations than the GPL does.

You are correct that a lot of people steal GPL code anyway, but for the most part people just ignore it if they can't use it.

Well good for you how does it feel to be a leech and work for a company that for the time being has morals? I bet your company is in a pretty slim minority. and that is actually pretty well documented that at least up until the recent surge BSD had a better rate of voluntary contribution. Linux only gets the rate they do at this point because the companies haven't found a way to get away with stealing it yet and its mostly because they are wary of being caught. Its hard to keep a team quiet.

[bridgman]

I don't get the last page of this thread. The Linux graphics drivers are almost entirely X11 licensed, which basically means "BSD without the requirement to give credit or the restriction on using developers name in advertising". It's as portable as they come.

The issue w.r.t moving to BSD is that the new KMS/GEM/TTM stack has relatively more interaction with the OS memory and process management code and therefore porting the kernel driver is a non-trivial amount of work. Once that work has been done, however, the driver stack should be as portable as it ever was.

[smitty3268]

Actually the point of the license is like all academic works, and to learn from it. The license is pretty standard fare. The point of the license is to allow for people to make use of stuff that was originally created with public funds. If you would like more info feel free to google it. As for the whining that happens its more idle griping and frustration .

That sounds about like what I said.

The point is:
coder: i want people to be able to learn from and use this code i made, so i'm going to license it under the BSD
company: that looks interesting, i think i'll use it
coder: cool, i'm glad my code was useful. see how awesome the bsd is, that company never would have looked at GPL code
linux: hey, i think we'll use that code too
coder: hey, wait a second. are you going to send back all the changes you make?
linux: well, no. i mean you can look at the code and still learn from it, but we're using our own license. just like you were happy for that other company to do
coder: what? seriously? you're just stealing my code?
wah, wah, wah.

Well good for you how does it feel to be a leech

See, that's what I don't get. The point of the license is to share the code. I'm using it the way it was intended. Do you really expect me to contribute code back in my time off? If I were forced to contribute back on the clock, my company would prefer i just rewrote the code from scratch so they owned it, or in the case where it is a large project they would likely just license a proprietary solution. As a company that is not involved in creating software, only using it internally, we have a small team and not nearly enough manpower to contribute to external projects.

work for a company that for the time being has morals? I bet your company is in a pretty slim minority.

I really don't think so. We may even use something illegally for a week or two if it's convenient, but always with the intention of quickly fixing it. For the same reason, we license a set of icons to use in apps rather than just googling and stealing the first results that come up. It's extremely unlikely we would ever get caught, but it's a simple cost-benefit analysis to show that a 1 in a million chance of a costly lawsuit isn't worth paying a couple hundred dollars here and there to stay legal.

and that is actually pretty well documented that at least up until the recent surge BSD had a better rate of voluntary contribution.

How in the world could you ever determine this? Unless you can explain it better, I have to assume any survey? study? would have to be completely flawed. This sounds like one of those "proof global warming doesn't exist" studies the oil companies put out.

Linux only gets the rate they do at this point because the companies haven't found a way to get away with stealing it yet and its mostly because they are wary of being caught. Its hard to keep a team quiet.

Right, that's the point.

[kusuriya]

I don't get the last page of this thread. The Linux graphics drivers are almost entirely X11 licensed, which basically means "BSD without the requirement to give credit or the restriction on using developers name in advertising".

The issue w.r.t moving to BSD is that the new KMS/GEM/TTM stack has relatively more interaction with the OS memory and process management code and therefore porting the kernel driver is a non-trivial amount of work. Once that work has been done, however, the driver stack should be as portable as it ever was.

The X11 portions are licensed MIT style. but they rely on KMS and GEM which rely in the kernel. Im mostly responding the the general sentiment that was on there earlier of linux did it and BSD needs to follow more in Linuxes foot steps, and the general thing that every time the BSD people start kinda griping about not being able to do things or borrow code to help the entire community along it seems like the GPL zelots come out of the woodwork and are like "See this is why GPL and by extension Linux are better and we dont get anything useful from BSD" instead of trying to foster community. Because once you Exit the kernel land, and the lower end of the user land, and get up into X 99% of everything is pretty much the same, and we all can benefit from working together.

[kusuriya]

That sounds about like what I said.

The point is:
coder: i want people to be able to learn from and use this code i made, so i'm going to license it under the BSD
company: that looks interesting, i think i'll use it
coder: cool, i'm glad my code was useful. see how awesome the bsd is, that company never would have looked at GPL code
linux: hey, i think we'll use that code too
coder: hey, wait a second. are you going to send back all the changes you make?
linux: well, no. i mean you can look at the code and still learn from it, but we're using our own license. just like you were happy for that other company to do
coder: what? seriously? you're just stealing my code?
wah, wah, wah.

SOOO close, yep you seem to have the BSD community nailed Ill just go kill my self now thanks. Also its rare that linux takes the code to learn from it. But my point which you are totally missing even when I have flat out said it is we need to not be fighting and should be working with each other. But then again I don't expect some one with an agenda to get that soo. Also in the end, you expect us to give back to your community, why is it unreasonable to expect the same?

See, that's what I don't get. The point of the license is to share the code. I'm using it the way it was intended. Do you really expect me to contribute code back in my time off? If I were forced to contribute back on the clock, my company would prefer i just rewrote the code from scratch so they owned it, or in the case where it is a large project they would likely just license a proprietary solution. As a company that is not involved in creating software, only using it internally, we have a small team and not nearly enough manpower to contribute to external projects.




I really don't think so. We may even use something illegally for a week or two if it's convenient, but always with the intention of quickly fixing it. For the same reason, we license a set of icons to use in apps rather than just googling and stealing the first results that come up. It's extremely unlikely we would ever get caught, but it's a simple cost-benefit analysis to show that a 1 in a million chance of a costly lawsuit isn't worth paying a couple hundred dollars here and there to stay legal.


How in the world could you ever determine this? Unless you can explain it better, I have to assume any survey? study? would have to be completely flawed. This sounds like one of those "proof global warming doesn't exist" studies the oil companies put out.


Right, that's the point.

Here comes the old line of just because you can do something doesn't make it right, doesn't mean you should do it, and doesn't mean you are not a leech/etc.
I can download torrents and not give back to the network because I cant afford the upstream, does that make it right and not make me a leech?

/fin

[bridgman]

The X11 portions are licensed MIT style. but they rely on KMS and GEM which rely in the kernel.

KMS and GEM/TTM code is X11 licensed as well AFAIK, at least for the drivers I have looked at (mostly radeon, go figure). The X11 license is GPL-compatible so there's no problem using it in the kernel.

[smitty3268]

Ok, like i said i didn't want to start a licensing war so i'm letting this thread die

But as Bridgman said, all the KMS and GEM code inside the linux kernel is MIT licensed. It can be ported over to the BSDs without any licensing issues cropping up, it's just that the kernel's are different enough to make that a project rather than a straightforward copy and paste.

[XorEaxEax]

Actually the point of the license is like all academic works, and to learn from it. The license is pretty standard fare. The point of the license is to allow for people to make use of stuff that was originally created with public funds.

Hate to tell you this but these days are soon gone. Nowadays more and more universities requires copyright assignment for work done by students, and then we have research licences like Microsoft's MRL which allows you to work on MRL licenced code only in a academic setting, meanwhile Microsoft can use your MRL licenced code in any capacity they want, like selling it.

coder: hey, wait a second. are you going to send back all the changes you make?
linux: well, no. i mean you can look at the code and still learn from it, but we're using our own license. just like you were happy for that other company to do
coder: what? seriously? you're just stealing my code?
wah, wah, wah.

Heh, yes this is the thing that really destroys the 'moral high ground' thing you often hear from BSD advocates. They generally have no problem with their code used in proprietary solutions with no chance of them ever getting anything back, but they get all worked up if it's used in GPL code and the changes made to are also GPL-licenced. It makes no sense, GPL is even the better of the two since even if you can't directly incorporate it into a BSD project you will have a MUCH easier time should you want to reverse-engineer those changes. That said, I find those who licence their code as BSD/MIT-style incredibly generous, except of course when they start to whine about not getting code contributed back which instead makes them look kinda stupid.

[bridgman]

That said, I find those who licence their code as BSD/MIT-style incredibly generous, except of course when they start to whine about not getting code contributed back which instead makes them look kinda stupid.

This is one of those situations where case-by-case context is incredibly important. My personal view is that if someone takes BSD code and makes significant enhancements, and wants their changes to be GPL licensed and so forks a copy of the code, that is their right.

Where I see the complaints, however, is where more-or-less unmodified BSD code is relicensed under GPL for the sole purpose of capturing any *future* changes by others under GPL. That action seems harder to defend.

[AnonymousCoward]

When I see the complaints, they are usually from FreeBSD users and/or license zealots, not so much from developers.

Fact1: The sad state of GPU drivers for FreeBSD has nothing to do with the GPL, because as already stated the relevant Linux code isn't even GPL licensed. It has everything to do with lack of manpower.

Fact2: FreeBSD hardly has any developers, so there isn't much code being written, nor has FreeBSD any modern features waiting to be 'stolen' by Linux developers. The notion that Linux developers are en masse stealing BSD code and slapping a GPL license header on it is just plain ridiculous and not based on facts.

Fact3: BSD license zealots often haven't got a clue what they are talking about (see fact1 and fact2).