Closed source userspace graphics drivers with an open source kernel component

Saravana Kannan skannan at codeaurora.org
Thu Jul 1 17:18:46 PDT 2010


Dave Airlie wrote:
> This is more about initial development stages. We maintain kernel
> API/ABI for all in-tree drivers, however before we put a driver into
> mainline, we usually need to redo the crazy interfaces that vendors
> have come up with. Like 32/64 alignment, passing userspace addresses
> into the kernel, passing phy addresses to userspace etc. If the
> userspace binary is closed that process becomes next to impossible.

My 2 cents:
I think we should leave the onus of fixing the userspace to work with 
the sane kernel API with the entity trying to get their drivers into the 
kernel. I think it's a better approach (as in, more likelihood of 
getting device support) than saying, we will only allow fully open 
sourced kernel drivers.

-Saravana


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