this post was submitted on 30 Mar 2025
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Linux
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Stability and standardisation within the kernel for kernel modules. There are plenty of commercial products that use proprietary kernel modules that basically only work on a very specific kernel version, preventing upgrades.
Or they could just open source and inline their garbage kernel modules…
I’m struggling with this now. There’s an out of tree module I want upstreamed, but the author (understandably) doesn’t want to put in the work to upstream, so I did. The upstream folks are reluctant to take it because I didn’t actually write it.
I really don’t know what to do.
I don't use any of these, but I'm curious. Could you please write some examples?
It mostly affects people working with ”fun” enterprise hardware or special purpose things.
But to take one example, proprietary drivers for high performance network cards, most likely from Nvidia.