Linuxant releases DriverLoader

Posted Oct 13, 2003 17:54 UTC (Mon) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link]

"The possibility of a competitor gaining an advange over a company that provides Free code or specs by incorporating ideas for its own products from the released code or specs is often given as a reason companies are reluctant to release them"

Try patents, confidance over brand and merchantibility, and the cost of maintaining closed binary drivers for ever changing interfaces, also!...

But most of all, the natural and legitimate fear of losing control over their own stuff.

Posted Oct 14, 2003 12:17 UTC (Tue) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link]

It wouldn't surprise me if companies HAVE lost money - but that would be the M$ effect ...

I think as soon as M$ is out of the picture, hardware vendors will be falling over themselves to release open-source drivers. But don't forget the suituation HP found themselves in - where they discovered they didn't own the specs to their own printers and COULDN'T release either linux drivers, OR the information to write said drivers ...

Reading this thread, I must admit I've been well cheesed off with the idealists who want to drive linux into a Free ghetto. It's all very well *wanting* open drivers, but to all those foaming fanatics, can I point out the consequences? We'll end up with hardware support that's worse than SCO's (apart from all the drivers they appear to have "borrowed" from linux...). At which point, nobody in their right mind would bother with linux, and everybody will be FORCED to go back to Windows in frustration, because you just won't be able to GET any hardware that's compatible with linux, except if it's 5-yr-old stuff on the second hand market.

Basically, the problem at the moment is we live in a world where the market is rigged, and the manufacturers have their arms twisted behind their backs to make our life difficult. LIVE WITH IT !!! Once the linux market is big enough for even ONE manufacturer to think that they don't need the Windows market (in other words, we need just ONE minnow to think they stand a chance of taking on the big boys :-) we will have a hardware manufacturer releasing hardware, with open drivers, that are rock solid and optimised to fly. If that shows any real sign of damaging the "big boys", you can bet sparks will fly.

What's wrong with reverse-engineered drivers and closed-source drivers? Yes, I know they're crap. I damn well hope they get forced into user space in the next kernel rev. But at the moment, M$ is in a position where they can dictate terms to the hardware guys. As soon as we can break THAT, the dam will collapse :-)

Cheers,
Wol