Pontus Fuchs recently announced "ndiswrapper", a kernel module that begins to implement the NDIS API used by Windows network device drivers. Pontus explains:

"Since some vendors refuses to release specs or even a binary Linux-driver for their WLAN cards I decided to try to solve it myself by making a kernel module that can load Ndis (windows network driver API) drivers. I'm not trying to implement all of the Ndis API but rather implement the functions needed to get these unsupported cards working."

The announcement of ndiswrapper quickly lead into a discussion about the merits and disadvantages of binary-only drivers. William Lee Irwin III [interview] explained, "basically, I don't see many benefits left. The additional drivers we got out of this were highly version-dependent, extremely fragile, and have been generating massive numbers of bugreports nonstop on a daily basis since their inception." During the discussion he goes on to add, "I'm not convinced it is good for end users. They _think_ they're getting something that's supported by Linux, but are instead getting something highly problematic that ties them to specific kernel versions and cuts off most, if not all, avenues of support available."

From: Pontus Fuchs [email blocked]
To:  linux-kernel
Subject: Announce: ndiswrapper
Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2003 12:02:20 +0100

Hi,

Since some vendors refuses to release specs or even a binary
Linux-driver for their WLAN cards I desided to try to solve it myself by
making a kernel module that can load Ndis (windows network driver API)
drivers. I'm not trying to implement all of the Ndis API but rather
implement the functions needed to get these unsupported cards working.

Currently it works fine with my Broadcom 4301 but I would like to get in
touch with people that have similar cards that are willing to do some
testing/hacking.

Visit this page for more info: http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/

Please! I don't want to start a flamewar if this is a good thing to do.
I'm just trying to scratch my own itch and I doubt that this project
changes the way Broadcom treats Linux users.

Pontus Fuchs



From: Jeff Garzik [email blocked]
Subject: Re: Announce: ndiswrapper
Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2003 08:59:41 -0500

Pontus Fuchs wrote:
> Please! I don't want to start a flamewar if this is a good thing to do.
> I'm just trying to scratch my own itch and I doubt that this project
> changes the way Broadcom treats Linux users.


Then help us reverse engineer the driver :)

	Jeff




From: Jean Tourrilhes [email blocked]
Subject: Re: Announce: ndiswrapper
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 19:11:37 -0800

Jeff Garzik wrote :
> Then help us reverse engineer the driver :)
> 
> 	Jeff

	Even better :
		1) go to the Wireless LAN Howto
		2) find a card are supported under Linux that suit your needs
		3) buy this card
	I don't see the point of giving our money to vendors that
don't care about us when there are vendors making a real effort toward
us.
	Regards,

	Jean



From: Jeff Garzik [email blocked]
Subject: Re: Announce: ndiswrapper
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 22:26:59 -0500

Jean Tourrilhes wrote:
> 
> 	Even better :
> 		1) go to the Wireless LAN Howto
> 		2) find a card are supported under Linux that suit your needs
> 		3) buy this card
> 	I don't see the point of giving our money to vendors that
> don't care about us when there are vendors making a real effort toward
> us.


Unfortunately that leaves users without support for any recent wireless 
hardware.  It gets more and more difficult to even find Linux-supported 
wireless at Fry's and other retail locations...

	Jeff



From: Jean Tourrilhes [email blocked]
Subject: Re: Announce: ndiswrapper
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 19:34:22 -0800

On Wed, Nov 19, 2003 at 10:26:59PM -0500, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> 
> Unfortunately that leaves users without support for any recent wireless 
> hardware.

	Excuse me ? Have you looked at the Howto lately ? There is
only Broadcom and Intel which are not supported, which leaves plenty
of choice (including many 802.11g and 802.11a cards).

>  It gets more and more difficult to even find Linux-supported 
> wireless at Fry's and other retail locations...

	If you are careful, you can even buy at Fry's. I bought
recently some Microsoft cards ;-)

> 	Jeff

	Jean



From: William Lee Irwin III [email blocked]
Subject: Re: Announce: ndiswrapper
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 20:00:34 -0800

Jean Tourrilhes wrote:
>>	Even better :
>>		1) go to the Wireless LAN Howto
>>		2) find a card are supported under Linux that suit your needs
>>		3) buy this card
>>	I don't see the point of giving our money to vendors that
>> don't care about us when there are vendors making a real effort toward
>> us.

On Wed, Nov 19, 2003 at 10:26:59PM -0500, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> Unfortunately that leaves users without support for any recent wireless 
> hardware.  It gets more and more difficult to even find Linux-supported 
> wireless at Fry's and other retail locations...

And what good would it be to have an entire driver subsystem populated
by binary-only drivers? That's not part of Linux, that's "welcome to
nvidia hell" for that subsystem too, and not just graphics cards.

I say we should go the precise opposite direction and take a hard line
stance against binary drivers, lest we find there are none left we even
have source to and are bombarded with unfixable bugreports.

No, it's not my call to make, but basically, I don't see many benefits
left. The additional drivers we got out of this were highly version-
dependent, extremely fragile, and have been generating massive numbers
of bugreports nonstop on a daily basis since their inception.

We'd lose a few things, like vmware, but it's not worth the threat of
vendors migrating en masse to NDIS/etc. emulation layers and dropping
all spec publication and source drivers, leaving us entirely at the
mercy of BBB's (Buggy Binary Blobs) to do any io whatsoever.

Seriously, the binary-only business has been doing us a disservice, and
is threatening to do worse.


-- wli



From: Nick Piggin [email blocked]
Subject: Re: Announce: ndiswrapper
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 15:16:46 +1100

You have to admit its good for end users though. And indirectly, what
is good for them is good for us. Take the nvidia example: end users get
either a binary driver or nothing. If we were somehow able to stop
nvidia from distributing their binary driver, they would say "OK".

I don't advocate making it easy to do non native drivers of course.



From: Neil Brown [email blocked]
Subject: Re: Announce: ndiswrapper
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 15:35:02 +1100

On Thursday November 20, [email blocked] wrote:
> 
> You have to admit its good for end users though. And indirectly, what
> is good for them is good for us. Take the nvidia example: end users get
> either a binary driver or nothing. If we were somehow able to stop
> nvidia from distributing their binary driver, they would say "OK".

Is it good for end users?  It allows them to buy a computer with an
nvidia graphics controller because "NVidia supply drivers", and then
discover that support is only as good as NVidia are willing to make
it.  I'm still waiting for some sort of power management support for
the nvidia controller in my notebook.  If the driver and the specs
were open, I could possibly do it myself.  On the other hand if there
were no NVidia drivers, I never would have made the (arguable) mistake
of buying this notebook.

Ofcourse we cannot and should not stop people from providing the
option of binary only drivers, but I'm not convinced that we should
acknowlege that people who provide binary-only drivers are doing a
useful service for anyone but themselves.

(fortuantely I could buy an alternate wireless card which does have
open-source drives.  It's not so easy to buy an alternate video
controler for a notebook - yet).

NeilBrown



From: Nick Piggin [email blocked]
Subject: Re: Announce: ndiswrapper
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 15:49:05 +1100


Neil Brown wrote:
>
>Is it good for end users?  It allows them to buy a computer with an
>nvidia graphics controller because "NVidia supply drivers", and then
>discover that support is only as good as NVidia are willing to make
>it.  I'm still waiting for some sort of power management support for
>the nvidia controller in my notebook.  If the driver and the specs
>were open, I could possibly do it myself.  On the other hand if there
>were no NVidia drivers, I never would have made the (arguable) mistake
>of buying this notebook.
>

I'm all for open specs, but in reality that doesn't always happen.
(out of interest, are there any OS 3d drivers for any current cards?)

I know what you mean, but I would find nvidia more at fault for not
providing power management than no OS drivers.

>
>Ofcourse we cannot and should not stop people from providing the
>option of binary only drivers, but I'm not convinced that we should
>acknowlege that people who provide binary-only drivers are doing a
>useful service for anyone but themselves.
>

No I wouldn't say that, I meant the Linux Kernel is doing the end users
a favour by allowing binary modules.



From: "Randy.Dunlap" [email blocked]
Subject: Re: Announce: ndiswrapper
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 20:57:39 -0800

On Thu, 20 Nov 2003 15:49:05 +1100 Nick Piggin [email blocked] wrote:

| No I wouldn't say that, I meant the Linux Kernel is doing the end users
| a favour by allowing binary modules.

that's questionable since we can't support them (i.e. fix bugs/problems
with them).

--
~Randy



From: Nick Piggin [email blocked]
Subject: Re: Announce: ndiswrapper
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 16:05:15 +1100


Randy.Dunlap wrote:
>
>that's questionable since we can't support them (i.e. fix bugs/problems
>with them).
>


We don't, nvidia does (directly or through a distro).
We provide choice, right?



From: Benjamin Herrenschmidt [email blocked]
Subject: Re: Announce: ndiswrapper
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 17:50:59 +1100


> We don't, nvidia does (directly or through a distro).
> We provide choice, right?

To x86 users only :(

Ben.

From: William Lee Irwin III [email blocked]
Subject: Re: Announce: ndiswrapper
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 21:27:14 -0800

On Thu, Nov 20, 2003 at 03:49:05PM +1100, Nick Piggin wrote:
> I'm all for open specs, but in reality that doesn't always happen.
> (out of interest, are there any OS 3d drivers for any current cards?)
> I know what you mean, but I would find nvidia more at fault for not
> providing power management than no OS drivers.

The rationales for closed specs are bogus, so I have zero sympathy.
It's generally a braindead encoding for commands to carry out well-
understood operations. There is nothing to hide, except, of course,
the ability to use the hardware.


-- wli



From: Jeff Garzik [email blocked]
Subject: Re: Announce: ndiswrapper
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 00:36:06 -0500

William Lee Irwin III wrote:
> 
> The rationales for closed specs are bogus, so I have zero sympathy.

Definitely agreed.

When I am forced to sign NDAs to get hardware specs, the hardware IP 
"revealed" is inevitably something that some other company has done 
before, and done better.  NDAs and closed specs are IMO only used by 
vendors to save face, when their hardware design is stupid, and their 
errata innumerable.

	Jeff



From: Nick Piggin [email blocked]
Subject: Re: Announce: ndiswrapper
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 16:36:57 +1100


William Lee Irwin III wrote:
>
>The rationales for closed specs are bogus, so I have zero sympathy.
>It's generally a braindead encoding for commands to carry out well-
>understood operations. There is nothing to hide, except, of course,
>the ability to use the hardware.
>

Well OK, but whether the manufacturers are bad or good, there will be
some that aren't going to release specs or open source drivers. I think
it is *mostly* positive that the Linux kernel allows them to support
Linux though binary drivers.

Note, I'm talking about the kernel. We are all agreed that closed specs
are a bad move by manufacturers.

From: William Lee Irwin III [email blocked]
Subject: Re: Announce: ndiswrapper
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 20:38:48 -0800

William Lee Irwin III wrote:
>> We'd lose a few things, like vmware, but it's not worth the threat of
>> vendors migrating en masse to NDIS/etc. emulation layers and dropping
>> all spec publication and source drivers, leaving us entirely at the
>> mercy of BBB's (Buggy Binary Blobs) to do any io whatsoever.
>> Seriously, the binary-only business has been doing us a disservice, and
>> is threatening to do worse.

On Thu, Nov 20, 2003 at 03:16:46PM +1100, Nick Piggin wrote:
> You have to admit its good for end users though. And indirectly, what
> is good for them is good for us. Take the nvidia example: end users get
> either a binary driver or nothing. If we were somehow able to stop
> nvidia from distributing their binary driver, they would say "OK".
> I don't advocate making it easy to do non native drivers of course.

I'm not convinced it is good for end users. They _think_ they're
getting something that's supported by Linux, but are instead getting
something highly problematic that ties them to specific kernel
versions and cuts off most, if not all, avenues of support available.

It's very much a second-class flavor of open source. They dare not
change the kernel version lest the binary-only trainwreck explode.
They dare not run with the whiz-bang patches going around they're
interested in lest the binary-only trainwreck explode. It may oops
in mainline, and all they can do is wait for a tech support line to
answer. Well, they're a little better than that, they have hackers
out and about, but you're still stuck waiting for a specific small
set of individuals and lose all of the "many eyes" advantages.


-- wli



From: Nick Piggin [email blocked]
Subject: Re: Announce: ndiswrapper
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 15:59:46 +1100


William Lee Irwin III wrote:

>I'm not convinced it is good for end users. They _think_ they're
>getting something that's supported by Linux, but are instead getting
>something highly problematic that ties them to specific kernel
>versions and cuts off most, if not all, avenues of support available.
>

Well what they get is hardware accelerated 3d graphics under Linux.
If they didn't need 3d, they can use the open source drivers.
If someone downloads and installs the drivers themselves, they should
know enough to contact nvidia for support (I think nvidia have been
pretty good). Others will contact their ditro support.

There might be a problem where they percieve that Linux is unstable
while it is actually binary drivers.

>
>It's very much a second-class flavor of open source. They dare not
>change the kernel version lest the binary-only trainwreck explode.
>They dare not run with the whiz-bang patches going around they're
>interested in lest the binary-only trainwreck explode. It may oops
>in mainline, and all they can do is wait for a tech support line to
>answer. Well, they're a little better than that, they have hackers
>out and about, but you're still stuck waiting for a specific small
>set of individuals and lose all of the "many eyes" advantages.
>


I must say that I've been using the same nvidia drivers on my desktop
system for maybe a year, and never had a crash including going through
countless versions of 2.5/6. True you need to recompile the intermediate
layer, but then, nobody who knows less than me will know or care about
kernel versions. Their distro will upgrade kernel+drivers if needed, and
presumably the distro has done some sort of testing / QA.



From: William Lee Irwin III [email blocked]
Subject: Re: Announce: ndiswrapper
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 21:12:11 -0800

William Lee Irwin III wrote:
>> I'm not convinced it is good for end users. They _think_ they're
>> getting something that's supported by Linux, but are instead getting
>> something highly problematic that ties them to specific kernel
>> versions and cuts off most, if not all, avenues of support available.

On Thu, Nov 20, 2003 at 03:59:46PM +1100, Nick Piggin wrote:
> Well what they get is hardware accelerated 3d graphics under Linux.
> If they didn't need 3d, they can use the open source drivers.
> If someone downloads and installs the drivers themselves, they should
> know enough to contact nvidia for support (I think nvidia have been
> pretty good). Others will contact their ditro support.

"cuts off most, if not all, avenues of support available" == any and
all problems with the things around are untraceable. We won't touch
tainted bugreports and rightly so. And nvidia isn't supporting the
whole kernel.


On Thu, Nov 20, 2003 at 03:59:46PM +1100, Nick Piggin wrote:
> There might be a problem where they percieve that Linux is unstable
> while it is actually binary drivers.

Yes, that's one I'm very concerned about.


William Lee Irwin III wrote:
>> It's very much a second-class flavor of open source. They dare not
>> change the kernel version lest the binary-only trainwreck explode.
>> They dare not run with the whiz-bang patches going around they're
>> interested in lest the binary-only trainwreck explode. It may oops
>> in mainline, and all they can do is wait for a tech support line to
>> answer. Well, they're a little better than that, they have hackers
>> out and about, but you're still stuck waiting for a specific small
>> set of individuals and lose all of the "many eyes" advantages.

On Thu, Nov 20, 2003 at 03:59:46PM +1100, Nick Piggin wrote:
> I must say that I've been using the same nvidia drivers on my desktop
> system for maybe a year, and never had a crash including going through
> countless versions of 2.5/6. True you need to recompile the intermediate
> layer, but then, nobody who knows less than me will know or care about
> kernel versions. Their distro will upgrade kernel+drivers if needed, and
> presumably the distro has done some sort of testing / QA.

They're rather sensitive to VM changes, and I've had people with
significantly less know-how than either of us come back after trying VM
patches in combination with nvidia stuff report things ranging from
oopsen, to reboots, to fs corruption. The insulation layers are only
partially effective at best. And end-users are fiddling with whiz bang
patches for their kernels and upgrading versions by means other than
distros. Heck, the distros aren't even shipping 2.6, and they're
running 2.6 plus patches.

And besides, nvidia is really just the most commonly reported issue due
to the hordes of end users, there are many other offenders on this
front (e.g. certain FC drivers, and apparently some wireless drivers).


-- wli

From: Matt Mackall [email blocked]
Subject: Re: Announce: ndiswrapper
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 00:52:41 -0600

On Thu, Nov 20, 2003 at 03:16:46PM +1100, Nick Piggin wrote:
> 
> You have to admit its good for end users though. And indirectly, what
> is good for them is good for us.

No. It is bad for the end users - they get sold a bill of goods. And
it is bad for developers. And it is bad for developers as users. And
it's hopelessly short-sighted as pragmatism often is.

Look, there's basically one thing that has ever historically enabled
developers to get specs for writing decent Linux drivers, and that's
demand from Linux users. If companies are presented with alternatives
that pointy haired folks prefer like binary-only drivers or running
their one and only Windows driver on an emulation layer, which are
they going to choose and where are they going to tell users to stick
their penguin? We'll be in worse shape than we were when no one had
ever heard of Linux.

Scenario to think about: an NDIS driver layer ends up getting firmed
up and debugged and when the next generation of wireless appears,
basically all vendors go the easy route and only ship NDIS drivers, no
specs, and buggy as usual. Then they say hey, this worked out well,
might as well do this with gigabit. Meanwhile, hardware's changing so
quickly that by the time we manage to reverse-engineer any of this
stuff (provided the legal climate allows it), it's already off the
shelves. Two to three years from now, it's impossible to build a
decent server or laptop that doesn't have bug-ridden, untested, low
performance network drivers and all the reputation Linux has for being
a good network OS goes down the tubes. It's safe to assume that
latency and stability will go all to hell as well.

An open operating system without open drivers is pointless and if we
don't do something about all this binary crap soon, the above scenario
-will- play out. Expect SCSI and perhaps sound to follow soon
afterwards. And graphics cards and modems are obviously half-way there
already. 

Personally, I think it's time to do some sort of trademark enforcement
or something so that companies can't get away with slapping penguins
on devices that only work with 2.2.14 Red Hat kernels.

--
Matt Mackall : http://www.selenic.com : Linux development and consulting



From: Geert Uytterhoeven [email blocked]
Subject: Re: Announce: ndiswrapper
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 11:13:41 +0100 (MET)

On Thu, 20 Nov 2003, Matt Mackall wrote:
> Personally, I think it's time to do some sort of trademark enforcement
> or something so that companies can't get away with slapping penguins
> on devices that only work with 2.2.14 Red Hat kernels.

Indeed. What happened to the `works[*] with Linux' labelling proposal we
discussed about at the last Linux Kernel Summit?

[*] Meaning providing a decent source under a suitable license.

Gr{oetje,eeting}s,

						Geert

--
Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- geert@linux-m68k.org

In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But
when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that.
							    -- Linus Torvalds



From: William Lee Irwin III [email blocked]
Subject: Re: Announce: ndiswrapper
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 02:17:40 -0800

On Thu, 20 Nov 2003, Matt Mackall wrote:
>> Personally, I think it's time to do some sort of trademark enforcement
>> or something so that companies can't get away with slapping penguins
>> on devices that only work with 2.2.14 Red Hat kernels.

On Thu, Nov 20, 2003 at 11:13:41AM +0100, Geert Uytterhoeven wrote:
> Indeed. What happened to the `works[*] with Linux' labelling proposal we
> discussed about at the last Linux Kernel Summit?
> [*] Meaning providing a decent source under a suitable license.

We may have to get Linus in on that.


-- wli

• Archive of above thread
• KernelTrap interview with William Lee Irwin
• KernelTrap interview with Nick Piggin