Open Source "State of the Union" address
Posted Aug 7, 2003 18:24 UTC (Thu) by
mmarq (guest, #2332)
Parent article:
Open Source "State of the Union" address
As an Open-Source user and supporter, i belive the all movement face more serious trouble than the SCO DIVERSION...
1) Inspite resistence from it's original author, Linux, the most influencial and importante piece of Open-Source (like it or not), has a technical driven evolution vision, but is mostly sponsered by Marketing entitys, as is centered on OSDL, and wich include SUN now (could have Lindows aswell) that had no regrets in signing a licence with SCO, that by following public comments was only to gain "marketing" space by saying "He are save from litigation"... IMHO this is not acceptable that when the push comes to shove what's importante is marketing and profit, even less in a technical driven project, even less among partners,... and as the Ottawa Summit was mostly around "Super-computers", i belive its only time what separates IBM from showing itself not much better than SUN(even if they smach SCO).
2) in a rogue manner we can say that all started 20 years ago, in an attempt to get technical information to wright a driver for a printer...
20 years later, and after the formation of the "Free Hardware Foundation", i belive "IT'S PRETTY CLEAR" that the "gross" hardware industry will never colaborate with Open-Source in a open-source manner.... those that cry for patience, allover native code always, and UDI was a desgrace,... dont pay attention that ,example among to many, NVIDEA "deceive" them an only deliver binary forms, and that a "ZELOT" attitude is very counterproductive.... A "COMPROMISE" and another API/ABI, besides LSB, is badly needed,... invent, and dont use UDI !,...ever.
3)"Reverse Engeniring",... if a compromise is not achieved, and the gross of the hardware industry fall behind the M$ umbrella, it will be just IMPOSSIBLE to make drivers for DRM locked hardware, that is, you could make a replica of the all car but when you make a replica of the key, you go to prison. Why would you want a car if you cant use it ?.... This is a decisive stop in all open-source "hardware device driver" making,... just ask the Debian Lab guys if they are willing to go to prison!?.
NOTE: As stated above as that what is importante is marketing and profit, i cannot see a problem here for the big IBM , SUN or HP,... they make there own CHIPSETs and CPUs, so reverse engeneiring is not a issue!... that is why SUN has joined the OSDL, and why DELl as started the DKMS development as they need "others" CHIPSETs.... i'm i being "NASTY" ???... when IBM, SUN and HP release technical data of their hardware that permits "ANYONE" to make Open-Source drivers, then i'll prostate myself in penitence.
4) All Goes Well (tm), the gross of the hardware industry fall behind Linux wiht open source drivers, M$ DRM machines rapidly go towards a niche market position, but then,... Linux has a problem, because it's not hard to imagine, isnt it, that it has over 1 million drivers(for 5-7 years old hardware) in the source, wich (sources) could easly reach near 1 Giga or beyond, and it toke 4,5 or 6 years to get to a stable version,.... i belive that those who say never mind, are willing to deliver cigarretes to Linus in the Lune house, or are willing to be one of him's 102 ltenents...
IMHO, for maitainability Linux has to get "device drivers" separeted from the kernel.
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