It's already happening !
It's already happening !
Posted Dec 6, 2005 20:40 UTC (Tue) by Thibs (guest, #34375)Parent article: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
Frankly, it's not very far from the situation we have today ! Indeed, look at Red Hat, what are they doing ? They just tell hardware vendor the following :
"Dear <Hardware_manufacturer>, we understand that your IP is important and that linux kernel developers are not willing to let you easily integrate closed source drivers into the kernel. May we propose you to certify your closed source driver on our latest RHEL<X> ? This way, you address around 90% of the Linux corporate market and you have the insurance that your driver will not have to redeveloped during the 7 years our product is supported. Does that seem a good deal to you ?"
This is what is happening right now and it begins to worry customers who fear the lock-in that may result from the use of Red Hat "proprietary" kernel on the long run. Indeed, how similar will the vanilla linux kernel and RHEL3 linux kernel be in 7 years ? Red Hat is becoming too dominant on the market, it's time a new player arise !