MUST note if drivers are OSS - and the FSF has such a list! [LWN.net]

MUST note if drivers are OSS - and the FSF has such a list!

Posted Dec 15, 2005 3:39 UTC (Thu) by dwheeler (subscriber, #1216)
Parent article: "Just works with Linux"

The last portion of the article illustrates a critical part of such a database: does it have open source drivers? If it doesn't, it will become a paperweight sooner or later; no hardware vendor can afford to support old cards indefinitely.

One resource you forgot to mention is the Free Software Foundation (FSF)'s GNU/Linux hardware devices list. Like the other lists, it's small compared to the universe of hardware out there (many cards that are supported aren't listed!). And the FSF is a harsh grader: they want 100% Free Software drivers, so partial OSS drivers (common in wireless cards, for example) get no credit. Once you keep that in mind, it's a very helpful resource. I found helpful information about Ralink wireless cards from this site, for example; I'm using one of the cards they recommended right now.

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MUST note if drivers are OSS - and the FSF has such a list!

Posted Dec 15, 2005 16:43 UTC (Thu) by vmole (subscriber, #111) [Link]

Perhaps the reason he "forgot" to mention it was that it has only two entries, one of which is over a year old and is marked "unsupported" (I don't know whether that means the SD readers are unsupported under Linux, or that the driver in question is currently unsupported.)

All of which underscores the original point: it's easy to setup the structure for a database like this, and damn hard to make it actually useful.

MUST note if drivers are OSS - and the FSF has such a list!

Posted Dec 15, 2005 19:45 UTC (Thu) by gtaylor6 (subscriber, #19812) [Link]

[...] it's easy to setup the structure for a database like this, and damn hard to make it actually useful.

Yup.

I built linuxprinting.org, and setting up the schema, while less trivial than you might think, was by far the easy part.

Gathering the data is hard. You need to be a combination of editor and tech support person to be able to work with inexpert users to determine the status of each new device. We've got roughly 1750 entries, and it took about 10 years. That's less than one device a day, and it's not for lack of printer models to document...

One big problem is that few of these databases share data. If they were all combined, and any submission to any ended up everywhere, then all this discussion about which existing incomplete database should be used would become moot. Unfortunately, seamless data sharing requires a comparatively formal and complex schema that isn't likely to appear out of thin air.

MUST note if drivers are OSS - and the FSF has such a list!

Posted Dec 16, 2005 21:31 UTC (Fri) by liamh (subscriber, #4872) [Link]

I was going to post that linuxprinting is one such database that really works -- there's a large amount of information and it seems to be continually updated. This has been valuable to me several times.

About the FSF effort

Posted Dec 26, 2005 17:39 UTC (Mon) by johnsu01 (guest, #34757) [Link]

I have the responsibility for coordinating the FSF effort at a hardware database. Obviously we have next to nothing there at the moment.

I've been talking with some people over the last couple of weeks about ways to make it easier for people to submit information, and so I think we'll have some improvements in that area soon.

If anyone would like to chip in some volunteer time to help get this thing together, drop me a line at johns at fsf dot org with your ideas. The core principle here is to include only completely free drivers. We will be focusing on GNU/Linux systems, but will be happy to include information about free BSD systems as well when that info comes our way.

can the community support devices "indefinitely"?

Posted Dec 21, 2005 9:12 UTC (Wed) by wilck (subscriber, #29844) [Link]

no hardware vendor can afford to support old cards indefinitely.

Neither can the community. See how many old drivers are being kicked out of the kernel because they're unmaintained or have become non-functional over time? It is a Linux myth that the community supports old hardware forever. All you can reasonably say is that if the driver is free, it remains theoretically possible to port it to recent kernels.