Re: [SLE] Rhetorical question

On 20/09/06 03:42, Jan Engelhardt wrote:
Recently, I got a couple of these:

Sep 5 20:34:55 static24-89-67-198 kernel: thinkpad: module not
supported by Novell, setting U taint flag.

Why the system thought this was a thinkpad is beyond me, it isn't even a
laptop... so much for shooting *myself* in the foot.


Nono, that is different.

No taint flag = phone someone
Your options: Novell, LKML or ModuleAuthor

U taint flag = don't try phone Novell
Your options: LKML or ModuleAuthor

Translation: "If you have a thinkpad, and are foolish enough to install
SuSELinux on it, don't call us."

Can you think of any reason why Novell doesn't support a SBAwe32 (which
is the card I referred to before)? The source (included in the kernel
source package) certainly *seems* to be open-source.
T taint flag = don't try phone anyone in the opensource community for it
Your options: ModuleAuthor
Bottom line, this all means what to the average user? To the average
user, the difference between a tainted kernel and ndiswrapper is
non-existent: It will all come down to him being unable to find support
from the people who wrote the product he is using, and possibly being
unable to find support from anyone. The average user will simply
translate either situation into "Novell doesn't even support it's own
products" and switch back to <the OS from Redmond>, or some other Linux
distro. The switch back to <the OS from Redmond> will come even faster,
if refusal to support comes from the OSS community generally. Indeed, if
a few of the recent threads on this list are any indication, such a user
would be subjected to a great deal of derision, with the occasional
suggestion that he should just go buy another (whatever device he
bought) from a more Linux-friendly manufacturer, or simply go back to
Windows.

BTW, does all this disdain for non-GPL device drivers mean that anyone
who ever installs a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD into his Linux machine (any
distro) will no longer receive support for anything from the OSS
community? Because I can assure you, if you will be waiting for open
source drivers for either of these, you will be waiting longer than this
lifetime.

Of course, if you are an absolute purist, like Mr Harris, then you will
just boycott those products, and refuse to use them at all -- even past
the day when one of them becomes the de facto standard, and the
present-day DVD has gone the way of the dinosaur.

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