Greg Kroah-Hartman's announcement for free Linux driver development included the necesssary legal framework to honor NDAs when creating GPL'd drivers. This allowance was discussed on the OpenBSD -misc mailing list. In a public exchange with Greg KH, Stephan Rickauer said: "Now these companies have a great excuse to keep specs locked up tight under NDA, while pretending to be 'open'. The OpenBSD project has made clear more than once how this will hurt Free Software in the long run. Signing NDA's ensures that Linux gets a working driver, sure, but the internals are indistinguishable from magic. It is a source code version of a blob." OpenBSD founder Theo de Raadt called the free driver effort a farce, "you are trying to make sure that maintainers of code - i.e. any random joe who wants to improve the code in the future - has less access to docs later on because someone signed an NDA to write it in the first place. You are making a very big mistake."
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Member since:2006-03-12
Funny, the OpenBSD people seem to see a different, "big picture," is yours bigger then, than the one I see?
Noone representing OpenBSD has ever, ever said they want a company to make drivers for them, they've said they want the documentation to do it themselves. So to get a driver in OpenBSD, it costs the amount of money it takes to host the documentation in digital form. I think if a company is making hardware, it probably has a web-budget, most do these days.
What Greg is doing is saying that that documentation isn't needed, that it's more important to simply have magic doing the work. That is so short sighted, it's not even looking at a pixel in the big picture I see.
And that article is a pile of horseshit, complete garbage.
Member since:2005-07-06
Wow--this quote from the article blew my mind:
"Paradoxically, the advent of Vista has given many hardware vendors a new source of revenue that will make Linux even less attractive to them. Vista, as we know, is such an inefficient resource hog, that only high-end hardware will work well in it. Thus, many users shifting to Vista will need whole new machines or new devices to make up the performance difference. One has to wonder if that's what Microsoft has in mind every time it delivers a new, bigger version of Windows. Keep loyal to us, they may say to vendors, and we'll get you a steady revenue cycle. Actually, no one wonders about this; it's pretty obvious."
...And here I was always thinking the Microsoft coders were just careless or incompetent....
Member since:
2006-03-03
Being a Linux driver developer for my company that sells hardware widgets I urge the community to look at the big picture and social tendencies before condemning anyones action when it comes to getting any kind of code support into Linux. One should consider a bend but don't break attitude until your paradigm is the one that is in control.
Companies still operate under the crusty paradigm of supply and demamnd. The biz-ness dweebs still run the show (like it or not) and all they care about is what will make them money. The 'new' open source paradigm slaps the face of the old and anyone that has read Kuhn knows that the old paradigms usually have to die off with those that believe them before change can occur.
Linux is playing catch up and must do what it can to gain widespread adoption. This means vendor supported hardware and mainstream software before businesses will adopt Linux in large numbers. You will find that once businesses start using Linux the world's user base will soon follow, this is how it works. Users (yes users) don't want to learn and only do so when they are forced to (their job!). That means that Linux has to get mainstream software and hardware companies to buy into supporting Linux so the "users" don't have to (re)learn because the biz-ness dweebs that are running the show are those same lazy users too. You can argue with this all you want but if you look at any corporation in America you will find 98% of employees are lazy, ignorant, and uninterested when it comes to computing. How many times have you heard "I just want it to work. I don't care how it does it, just make it work how I'm used to."
Because Windows still has the lock on the world's PC market Linux has to chip away however it can. Greg is trying this through his free driver initiative. One could think I would be opposed to his actions because I am a compensated employee of a company that may use community services, and his actions may threaten my job. But that is not the case, I commend his actions because I can see the "Big Picture"!
Nothing more would please than to see every communitity developer be well compensated by the corporations of the world because their work drives every computer in across the globe. This mass independent contractor society will result due to wide-spread Linux adoption and no longer will it only apply to the elite such as Linus and friends. For this to happen you have to make Linux a value proposition to companies that supply hardware and software to the world's computers.
Also be aware the computing world isn't like it was in days past. Most solutions that were once non-existent already exist for users to do this or that. What the Linux community must now do is convince companies that provide those solutions to support the Linux OS in addition to Windows, et al. This is not easy due to Linux's immaturity in the development arena (easy tools, GUIs, etc.), and small talent pool. It costs companies far more to support multiple operating systems.
At the URL provided the managing editor of Linux Today points out some very good information as to why specs are kept under lock and key and I urge you all to read it carefully. The mindset of JoeWidget CEO is what Linux must overcome.
http://www.linuxtoday.com/developer/2007021602926OPBZHW