Comment by Wowfunhappy

I am also not an expert in this space - but if I understand correctly the reason the linux Nvidia driver sucks so much is that it is not GPL'd (or open source at all).

There is little incentive for Nvidia to maintain a linux specific driver, but because it is closed source the community cannot improve/fix it.

> Why are all drivers expected to use the GPL?

I think the answer to this is: drivers are expect to use the GPL if they want to be mainlined and maintained - as Linus said: other than that you are "on your own".

> Expecting all Linux drivers to be GPL-licensed is unrealistic and just leads to crappy user experiences. nVidia is never going to release full-featured GPL'd drivers, and even corporative vendors sometimes have NDAs which preclude releasing open source drivers.

Nvidia is pretty much the only remaining holdout here on the hardware driver front. I don't see why they should get special treatment when the 100%-GPL model works for everyone else.

ZFS is not really GPL-incompatible either, but it doesn't matter. Between FUD and Oracle's litigiousness, the end result is that there is no way to overcome the impression that it is GPL-incompatible.

But it is a problem that you can't reliably have out-of-tree modules.

Also, Linus is wrong: there's no reason that the ZoL project can't keep the ZFS module in working order, with some lag relative to updates to the Linux mainline, so as long as you stay on supported kernels and the ZoL project remains alive, then of course you can use ZFS. And you should use ZFS because it's awesome.

There's a unique variable here and that's Oracle.

That shouldn't actually matter; it should just depend on the license. But millions in legal fees says otherwise.

>If there is no "approved" method for creating Linux drivers under licenses other than the GPL, that seems like a major problem that Linux should be working to address.

As a Linux user and an ex android user, I absolutely disagree and would add that the GPL requirement for drivers is probably the biggest feature Linux has!

There is a big difference between a company distributing a proprietary Linux driver, and the linux project merging software of a gpl incompatible license. In the first case it is the linux developers who can raise the issue of copyright infringement, and it is the company that has to defend their right to distribute. In the later the roles are reversed with the linux developers who has to argue that they are within compliance of the copyright license.

A shim layer is a poor legal bet. It assumes that a judge who might not have much technical knowledge will agree that by putting this little technical trickery between the two incompatible works then somehow that turn it from being a single combined work into two cleanly separated works. It could work, but it could also very easily be seen as meaningless obfuscation.

> Why are all drivers expected to use the GPL

Because a driver is tightly depended on the kernel. It is this relationship that distinguish two works from a single work. A easy way to see this is how a music video work. If a create a file with a video part and a audio part, and distribute it, legally this will be seen as me distributing a single work. I also need to have additional copyright permission in order to create such derivative work, rights that goes beyond just distributing the different parts. If I would argue in court that I just am distributing two different works then the relationship between the video and the music would be put into question.

A userspace software is generally seen as independent work. One reason is that such software can run on multiple platforms, but the primary reason is that people simply don't see them as an extension of the kernel.

There is an "approved" method - write an publish your own kernel module. However if your module is not GPL licensed it cannot be published in the linux kernel itself, and you must keep up with the maintenance of the code. This is a relatively fair requirement imo.

> If there is no "approved" method for creating Linux drivers under licenses other than the GPL, that seems like a major problem that Linux should be working to address.

It's a feature, not a bug. Linux is intentionally hostile to binary-blob drivers. Torvalds described his decision to go with the GPLv2 licence as the best thing I ever did. [0]

This licensing decision sets Linux apart from BSD, and is probably the reason Linux has taken over the world. It's not that Linux is technically superior to FreeBSD or OpenSolaris.

> Expecting all Linux drivers to be GPL-licensed is unrealistic and just leads to crappy user experiences

'Unrealistic'? Again, Linux took over the world!

As for nVidia's proprietary graphics drivers, they're an unusual case. To quote Linus: I personally believe that some modules may be considered to not be derived works simply because they weren't designed for Linux and don't depend on any special Linux behaviour [1]

> Why are all drivers expected to use the GPL?

Because of the 'derived works' concept.

The GPL wasn't intended to overreach to the point that a GPL web server would require that only GPL-compatible web browsers could connect to it, but it was intended to block the creation of a non-free fork of a GPL codebase. There are edge-cases, as there are with everything, such as the nVidia driver situation I mentioned above.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_Linux&...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Linux_kernel&oldi...

> If there is no "approved" method for creating Linux drivers under licenses other than the GPL, that seems like a major problem that Linux should be working to address.

The problem is already addressed: if someone wants to contribute code to the project then it's licensing must be compatible with the prior work contributed to project. That's it.

> If there is no "approved" method for creating Linux drivers under licenses other than the GPL, that seems like a major problem that Linux should be working to address.

It's less a think Linux can work on then a think lawmakers/courts would have to make binding decisions on, which would make it clear if this usage is Ok or not. But in practice this can only be decided on a case-by-case basis.

The only way Linux could work on this is by:

1. Adding a exception to there GPL license to exclude kernel modules from GPL constraints (which obviously won't happen for a bunch of reasons).

2. Turn Linux into a micro kernel with user-land drivers and interfaces for that drivers which are not license encumbered (which again won't happen because this would be a completely different system)

3. Oracle re-licensing ZFS under a permissible Open Source license (e.g. dual license it, doesn't need to be GPL, just GPL compatible e.g. Apache v2). Guess, what that won't happen either, or at last I would be very surprised. I mean Oracle is running out of products people _want_ to buy from them and increasingly run into an area where they (ab-)use the license/copyright/patent system to earn their monny and force people to buy there products (or at last somehow pay license fees to them).

>[...] that seems like a major problem that Linux should be working to address [...] Why are all drivers expected to use the GPL?

Vendors are expected to merge their drivers in mainline because that is the path to getting a well-supported and well-tested driver. Drivers that get merged are expected to use a GPL2-compatible license because that is the license of the Linux kernel. If you're wondering why the kernel community does not care about supporting an API for use in closed-source drivers, it's because it's fundamentally incompatible with the way kernel development actually works, and the resulting experience is even more crappy anyway. Variations of this question get asked so often that there are multiple pages of documentation about it [0] [1].

The tl;dr is that closed-source drivers get pinned to the kernel version they're built for and lag behind. When the vendor decides to stop supporting the hardware, the drivers stop being built for new kernel versions and you can basically never upgrade your kernel after that. In practice it means you are forced to use that vendor's distro if you want things to work properly.

>[...] nVidia is never going to release full-featured GPL'd drivers.

All that says to me is that if you want your hardware to be future-proof, never buy nvidia. All the other Linux vendors have figured out that it's nonsensical to sell someone a piece of hardware that can't be operated without secret bits of code. If you ever wondered why Linus was flipping nvidia the bird in that video that was going around a few years ago... well now you know.

[0]: https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/process/kernel-driver...

[1]: https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/process/stable-api-no...

> Linux is able to run proprietary userspace software. Even most open source zealots agree that this is necessary. Why are all drivers expected to use the GPL?

To answer your excellent question (and ignore the somewhat unfortunate slam on people who seem to differ with your way of thinking), it is an intentional goal of software freedom. The idea of a free software license is to allow people to obtain a license to the software if they agree not to distribute changes to that software in such a way so that downstream users have less options than they would with the original software.

Some people are at odds with the options available with licenses like the GPL. Some think they are too restrictive. Some think they are too permissive. Some think they are just right. With respect to you question, it's neither here nor there if the GPL is hitting a sweet spot or not. What's important is that the original author has decided that it did and has chosen the license. I don't imagine that you intend to argue that a person should not be able to choose the license that is best for them, so I'll just leave it at that.

The root of the question is "What determines a change to the software". Is it if we modify the original code? What if we add code? What if we add a completely new file to the code? What if we add a completely new library and simply link it to the code? What if we interact with a module system at runtime and link to the code that way?

The answers to these questions are not well defined. Some of them have been tested in court, while others have not. There are many opinions on which of these constitutes changing of the original software. These opinions vary wildly, but we won't get a definitive answer until the issues are brought up in court.

Before that time period, as a third party who wishes to interact with the software, you have a few choices. You can simply take your chances and do whatever you want. You might be sued by someone who has standing to sue. You might win the case even if you are sued. It's a risk. In some cases the risk is higher than others (probably roughly ordered in the way I ordered the questions).

Another possibility is that you can follow the intent of the original author. You can ask them, "How do you define changing of the software". You may agree with their ideas or not, but it is a completely valid course of action to choose to follow their intent regardless of your opinion.

Your question is: why are all drivers expected to use the GPL? The answer is because drivers are considered by the author to be an extension of the software and hence to be covered by the same license. You are absolutely free to disagree, but it will not change the original author's opinion. You are also able to decide not to abide by the author's opinion. This may open you up to the risk of being sued. Or it may not.

Now, the question unasked is probably the more interesting question. Why does Linus want the drivers to be considered an extension of the original software? I think the answer is that he sees more advantages in the way people interact in that system than disadvantages. There are certainly disadvantages and things that we currently can't use, but for many people this is not a massive hardship. I think the question you might want to put to him is, what advantages have you realised over the years from maintaining the license boundaries as they are? I don't actually know the answer to this question, but would be very interested to hear Linus's opinion.