Linux loses the Philips webcam driver

Linux loses the Philips webcam driver

Maybe Phillips will do this or are doing this, but the common way for a company to provide closed-source binary drivers for their hardware is to - well - provide closed-source binary drivers for their hardware.

They should not (and may not) expect their closed-source driver to be included in the main kernel, but if they want to users of Linux to buy their hardware (this would seem a given for all hardware vendors), then they need to take the steps needed to support the more common target kernel versions. This is where a contractor or employee can be responsible for (and hopefully compensated for) making sure the driver still works with the desired kernel versions. NDAs would be no problem here, and the newest version to overcome incompatibilties with version X.Y.Z is available on their web-site within a week or less.

Sounds like a fun job if the hardware vendor wants to sell their hardware to people who might actually have money for their products since they save a fair amount on their software.

This part boggles my mind: the reluctance of hardware vendors to support Linux. If free software users are paying less for software, then they have that much more to buy hardware. Linux users could be any hardware vendor's best customers. We have few restrictions on installing the same OS on multiple machines, and if we want to have similar hardware support on them all, then we will buy mulitples of the same hardware, if only there is support for it.