LWN: Linux In a Binary World... A Doomsday Scenario

"On December 6th, 2005 the kernel developers en mass decide that binary modules are legally fine and also essential for the progress of linux, and are as such a desirable thing. At first, the development process of the linux kernel doesn't change much other than a bunch more symbols getting exported, and EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL removed.

"Within 3 weeks, distributions like Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SuSE's SLES distribution start to include a wide variety of binary modules on their installation CDs. Debian renounces this and stays pure to the cause, as do other open distributions like Fedora Core and openSuSE..."

Complete Story

Related Stories:

• KernelTrap: hotplug-ng, Tiny Binaries for Autoloading Modules(Feb 13, 2005)
• Linux Journal: Critical Server Needs and the Linux Kernel(Oct 23, 2004)
• LinuxDevices: An Approach to Solving the "Device Driver Crisis"(Nov 25, 2003)