Re: [SLE] eric raymond, and binary drivers
- From: Rajko M <rmatov101@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 20 Aug 2006 09:58:42 -0500
Peter Van Lone wrote:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/08/17/eric_raymond_linux_compromise/
I just have a feeling that he is right, on this.
I've had the same experience, of trying to get my kid to switch to
linux. He was open to it, but ... when we struggled, first, to get a
nic driver for his dell machine, and then getting his ipod to work was
dicey and a huge compromise, and then I -Tunes was not really working
well under wine ....
Now, he is going mac -- (also at my suggestion, after he shied away
from linux -- anything to get away from the mess that is mS).
I had a feeling of foreboding when I heard Novell announce that no
proprietary software would be shipped. It seems as though it is a lack
of focus on the customer ... and perception is the rule. Instead,
should we not be making licensing agreements, and being sure that
linux stays can stay competitive in the media player/codec (and yes,
DRM ... yuck) markets?
Isn't the reality that there are probably always going to be
proprietary software/hardware solutions? It seems to me linux has to
be able to play in the world as it is, while also trying to change
that world.
Or ... is it ok that linux stays niche?
Peter
Eric has right that Linux has to find solution for more multimedia for
normal users, but not many refuse proprietary elements out of open
source purity.
I have no time to read all licenses and in recent years I have seen more
and more restrictions that crossed border line of even very stretched
meaning of fair play. Some licenses forbid software usage in order to
compare it with competing products?! If you ask where you can find one
example check your Linux system for proprietary licenses.
Whole hype is artificially bloated, and it is always skipped one of
major issues and that is technical problem and not GPL. Binary device
driver in the kernel can crash the system if it is bad written. User
space device driver can't. That is how windows deals with drivers since XP.
The problem is that if kernel device driver doesn't work than kernel
developers have to find time to fix it, with user space device driver it
is all vendors problem. This is part that is always skipped, in almost
all discussions I was reading. The license issues just add to the pile,
as kernel developers are willing to maintain device drivers that
originally were written by vendors, but don't want to pay legal team to
cope with proprietary licensing problems, they want simplicity of one
license and their choice is GPL.
Some vendors that already have kernel drivers that are kicked out,
refuse to write the same in the user space with excuse that they have no
resources for that. Well if they don't, why they expect that somebody
else should find time to rewrite their driver, that will bust their
sales, and do all that for free.
--
Regards,
Rajko.
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