Ubuntu+Wayland+proprietary graphics drivers - how will they do that?

Mark Shuttleworth has announced that Ubuntu will switch from Xorg to Wayland one day:
Mark Shuttleworth Blog Archive Unity on Wayland

Wayland relies on GPL-licensed KMS, which means that programs that link to KMS (e.g. graphics drivers) have to be under GPL or a compatible license too.
Given that Ubuntu features a good integration of proprietary graphics drivers and that many Ubuntu users like Ubuntu because of this good integration, how does it work?

I heard rumours that he already talked to NVIDIA but (not surprisingly) they said that they won't release drivers under a free license.

So what's Marks idea behind that step?

 

I have a feeling they want to be like Apple, to do things differently not because there is a technical reason but simply because they want to be different. Not that I am a Ubuntu person anyway.

 

They are getting into "iffy" areas doing this stuff, that's for sure. There are a lot of hardcore Linux people - maybe myself not sure yet - that would rather them stick with gnome and x server. At the same time , if it draws people to Linux ...

 

The only way I see is to write a complete replacement for KMS. But then there is the question which interfaces KMS needs and under which licenses these will be accessible. I'm not an expert here.

Wayland is not network transparent which disqualifies it for most semi "hardcore Linux people" (real "hardcore Linux people" don't need X or Wayland ).
Ubuntu will have to run an X-Server on top of Wayland anyway, because many programs will still need it. So all they'll do is to insert another layer into the graphics system. Great progress!

 

The thing is, Xorg's architechure is out dated and frankly, very messy.

Wayland is a good option because it is highly integrated with the kernel, and it doesn't have the problems associated with Xorg.

As for running Xorg under Wayland, Apple already does a similar thing.

 

Agreed.

But on the other hand the missing network transparency is a mayor step back. I know several Linux users who would not use it without Xorgs network transparency.

The problem I had in mind when starting this thread was the missing compatibility of Wayland with proprietary graphics drivers. I guess nobody really believes that ATI or NVIDIA will ever release up to date drivers under a free license.
But many Ubuntu users care a lot for those drivers, so Canonical would have to find a solution to make the closed source drivers compatible with Wayland. And the only option I see is to replace the GPL-licensed dependencies of Wayland with ones that have not so strict licenses. I doubt that Canonical will be able to create an equal alternative for KMS out of nowhere. And I think they know that too.

 

There's no explicit mention of the legal issue anywhere I've seen except this thread. To many it is an open question (without explicit legal precedent) whether linking is in fact a derivative work. I'm not expressing any stance on this, but it's necessary to at least state that this is not a universally held interpretation of the GPL.

It seems in any event there is no threat in this case:

nvidia and the wayland display server - nV News Forums

As far as I can tell it's not because of any legal reason there is no fglrx or nvidia support for kms, but probably laziness or pointy hair.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Wayland#line-36

[Phoronix] Ubuntu Is Going To Deploy Wayland With Unity

I read this as more of a test of Ubuntu's pull with vendors and trying to be the first major distro in the market to support fully wayland than anything else.

 

It's a frequent issue in discussions in different german Linux communities. There are several independent forum posts or blog comments that rise the question if Wayland depending on KMS can legally combined with proprietary drivers.

I guess fedora will be faster anyway.

 

Can you post links to some of those German discussions or blogs? I'm starved for reading here, I found all I could.

 

Here's a comment thread on an article at pro-linux.de:
Kommentar: "Re: nvidia..." - Pro-Linux

After reading this I went to debianforum.de and asked for clarification on the license issue (I'm registered as "hikaru" there):
debianforum.de • Thema anzeigen - Ubuntus Abkehr von xorg

Which "Danielx" confirmed:
debianforum.de • Thema anzeigen - Ubuntus Abkehr von xorg
He usually is a very reliable source of information. I guess he has some more links that I can't remember or even inspected the code itself.
I could ask him for more if you like.

Unfortunately I can't find the (useful) blogs anymore. I only stumbled upon them and none of them dealt with the KMS issue in the post itself but obly in the comments. So it's quite hard to find.
But I can give you this link to an older thread at ubuntu-fr.org (the biggest french Ubuntu community) which doesn't deal with Wayland but with KMS and proprietary drivers in general. The important part is even an english quote:
Plymouth, ça marche avec quoi ? (Page 1) / Café Ubuntu / Forum Ubuntu-fr.org

btw, here's an article at golem.de (another german slashdot-like site) stating that Fedora will already add an experimental Wayland in the next release.
Freier Grafikserver: Fedora plant Wayland-Integration - Golem.de
I swear I didn't know that article when I wrote this :

 

Thanks for those, but unfortunately they gave me no better handle on the possible legal issue of library linking re:kms. Danielx only replied to you that the proprietary drivers don't use kms, which is a known fact, and didn't address any legal issue. The other articles don't seem to mention it at all, except for the french Ubuntu forum post with the quote that there were no hooks. That comes from here, which the poster doesn't even bother to link to: nvidia driver with support for kms / plymouth / fedora 10 - nV News Forums. That has some good discussion of the legal issues, at least.

Fedora seems to have a totally different attitude about wayland than Ubuntu:

Ubuntu moving towards Wayland

 

I guess that would require a lawyer who is familiar with the GPL and KMS.

Actually he said that the proprietary drivers can't use KMS. It's a small but important difference. I'll ask him for further details.

Thanks for that link!

 

Yeah I guess I'm comfortable leaving it there. I guess nvidia wouldn't want to risk it, based on 3 posts on the thread from nvnews forum. I can understand why they wouldn't want to be the ones setting the legal precedent. It's too bad they can't open up their code just enough to allow the modesetting stuff to work with kms. But they don't have plans for wayland, so I suppose it doesn't matter. I just sold my last piece of nvidia hardware, so I'm only using intel graphics now and I'm happy to be rid of any proprietary modules.

 

Meanwhile another user "BeS", who is a FSFE fellow gave me a link to something called the "Linking Document":
https://wiki.fsfe.org/EuropeanLegalNetwork/LinkingDocument
So far I didn't read it but according to BeS it is a guideline on linking made by some FSFE lawyers. It has not been tested in court so far and is surely biased, but better than nothing.