Linked by Kroc Camen on Thu 5th Nov 2009 21:05 UTC
There's no right way to do it, only ideas that are better than others in certain situations. But if you had the opportunity to head up the design of a new OS, one to Put Things Right, one that could be radical enough to varnish out those UI/X bumps that have clung on for years, but practical enough to be used every day, what would you design? How would you handle application management? What about file types and compatibility? Where would you cherry pick the best bits from other OSes and where would you throw away tradition? I've tackled this challenge for myself and present (an unfinished idea): KrocOS (warning: HTML5 site, will display without CSS in IE/older browsers). OSnews Asks: What would make your perfect OS?
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RE[4]: Why was he modded down?
by boldingd on Fri 6th Nov 2009 21:25
in reply to "RE[3]: Why was he modded down? "
Member since:2009-02-19
RE[4]: Why was he modded down?
by shadoweva09 on Sat 7th Nov 2009 03:10
in reply to "RE[3]: Why was he modded down? "
Member since:2008-03-10
It's a simple process. Once commercial companies have a stable target, they target it. They stop releasing hardware specs. People use their drivers because such drivers exist, greatly driving down demand for a Free replacement or for enhancements to a Free version.
Repeat.
After a while you will clearly have *most* drivers for *most* hardware be proprietary. Linux, at this point, becomes fairly useless without such third party drivers... drivers distribution vendors probably cannot ship themselves (or, if they can, joe random hack-my-own-distro developer can't). Think the old nvidia redistribution problem for every single piece of hardware.
You cannot assume that companies will all do what nvidia (eventually) did and permit redistribution by anyone.
Repeat.
After a while you will clearly have *most* drivers for *most* hardware be proprietary. Linux, at this point, becomes fairly useless without such third party drivers... drivers distribution vendors probably cannot ship themselves (or, if they can, joe random hack-my-own-distro developer can't). Think the old nvidia redistribution problem for every single piece of hardware.
You cannot assume that companies will all do what nvidia (eventually) did and permit redistribution by anyone.
But all that stuff's only a problem when you're dependent on repositories. There's no reason someone couldn't look up the specs of their computer an download it directly from the vendor, this is a one time annoyance that anyone who has installed a clean version of windows has dealt with, and no one complains about.
And there isn't any real demand for "free drivers", it's all about drivers that work is all they care about. And you seem to have made up this "driver distribution vendor" there's the OS vendor, the user, and the hardware vendors, nothing else. Having to download drivers from hardware vendors, and having them work without special settings is a completely acceptable compromise. Any vendor that wants to sell their product to the market will undoubtedly allow the driver to be shipped with the operating system, especially if it becomes apparent that it's market share will significantly rise. The idea that somehow people will stop working on the kernel because only proprietary drivers are available is completely baseless, a lot of average users buy a computer and never need to know what a driver is anyway.
Hardware specs don't matter either, the hardware vendors have to stay competitive and make the drivers exploit the full potential of their products. Having the hardware specs for something like a wireless adapter might make it possible to add wpa to an old card or something, but really would just be delaying buying a new piece of hardware. Right now they have no incentive to write good drivers because of the small market share.
Edited 2009-11-07 03:20 UTC
RE[5]: Why was he modded down?
by sorpigal on Sat 7th Nov 2009 13:20
in reply to "RE[4]: Why was he modded down? "
Member since:2005-11-02
But all that stuff's only a problem when you're dependent on repositories. There's no reason someone couldn't look up the specs of their computer an download it directly from the vendor, this is a one time annoyance that anyone who has installed a clean version of windows has dealt with, and no one complains about.
No. Vendors generally do not provide their specs for download. You can download drivers for Windows, or spec sheets, but not specs. Not the information you'd need to write a driver.
And there isn't any real demand for "free drivers",
This is the heart of the matter, which I addressed in my original post. You may not care about free drivers, and I know the people wanting a stable driver API don't, but I do and the kernel developers sure do. This is entirely about free drivers.
If you want to be honest and rephrase your position as "I believe Linux should have mostly binary-only proprietary drivers and we need a stable API to allow that to happen," then that's fine, but you will see little support from the free software community. Linux exists largely because of people who care about Free software with a capital F.
And you seem to have made up this "driver distribution vendor" there's the OS vendor, the user, and the hardware vendors, nothing else.
Have you ever actually used Linux? There's the OS vendor, which is Linus and cohorts, the hardware vendors, and the Linux distributions, who, in order to provide a system that actually can install, have to ship drivers with the install CD. If the drivers are Free this is no problem but if the drivers are non-Free they would require an agreement with the driver author--namely the hardware vendors. This causes many problems, not the least of which is that it prohibits Joe-Random-Me from rolling a distribution.
Having to download drivers from hardware vendors, and having them work without special settings is a completely acceptable compromise.
Nobody cares where you download your drivers from. As I said in my original post, having a better process for installing and loading out of kernel drivers is what Linux really needs. What is a problem is when those drivers are proprietary.
Any vendor that wants to sell their product to the market will undoubtedly allow the driver to be shipped with the operating system, especially if it becomes apparent that it's market share will significantly rise.
In your optimistic opinion, sure. In my pessimistic opinion, no. I am certain that even if *some* companies do allow redistribution not all will (they will not be required to, so they wont) and that means unsupported hardware at install time. Like, you know, your network card. Can't get the vendor's site now!
The idea that somehow people will stop working on the kernel because only proprietary drivers are available is completely baseless, a lot of average users buy a computer and never need to know what a driver is anyway.
I never said that people would stop working on the kernel altogether, although eventually it could happen. I am talking about a disincentive to write replacement Free drivers for proprietary drivers that already exist. If you think this doesn't happen you have only to look at existing Linux driver history to prove otherwise. Only the strong pressure to get drivers in-kernel has been enough to incentivise the creation of replacements thus far.
Hardware specs don't matter either, the hardware vendors have to stay competitive and make the drivers exploit the full potential of their products. Having the hardware specs for something like a wireless adapter might make it possible to add wpa to an old card or something, but really would just be delaying buying a new piece of hardware. Right now they have no incentive to write good drivers because of the small market share.
What? First you say specs don't matter, which is blatantly untrue as without specs Free drivers are fiendishly difficult to write. Then you admit that hardware vendors don't care to write good drivers because the market doesn't require it. This seems like a strong argument to not leave it up to them!
RE[4]: Why was he modded down?
by tomcat on Sat 7th Nov 2009 10:25
in reply to "RE[3]: Why was he modded down? "
Member since:2006-01-06
It's a simple process. Once commercial companies have a stable target, they target it. They stop releasing hardware specs. People use their drivers because such drivers exist, greatly driving down demand for a Free replacement or for enhancements to a Free version.
You ignored his question. He asked how a stable ABI would kill the kernel, not reduce the number of open source drivers. Oddly enough, Microsoft is able to keep advancing their kernel, despite the fact that their ABI is relatively stable.
RE[5]: Why was he modded down?
by sorpigal on Sat 7th Nov 2009 13:24
in reply to "RE[4]: Why was he modded down? "
Member since:2005-11-02
"It's a simple process. Once commercial companies have a stable target, they target it. They stop releasing hardware specs. People use their drivers because such drivers exist, greatly driving down demand for a Free replacement or for enhancements to a Free version.
You ignored his question. He asked how a stable ABI would kill the kernel, not reduce the number of open source drivers. Oddly enough, Microsoft is able to keep advancing their kernel, despite the fact that their ABI is relatively stable. "
And you cannot see how the Linux kernel will be a non-starter if its drivers cannot be legally distributed with it? Assuming some kind of shim ala nvidia is used to bypass the GPL problem you still have to have agreements between each and every distribution vendor and each and every hardware vendor, or open distribution offers from the hardware vendors. This is an untenable situation and will lead to a decline in the usefulness of Linux.
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Member since:
2005-11-02
It's a simple process. Once commercial companies have a stable target, they target it. They stop releasing hardware specs. People use their drivers because such drivers exist, greatly driving down demand for a Free replacement or for enhancements to a Free version.
Repeat.
After a while you will clearly have *most* drivers for *most* hardware be proprietary. Linux, at this point, becomes fairly useless without such third party drivers... drivers distribution vendors probably cannot ship themselves (or, if they can, joe random hack-my-own-distro developer can't). Think the old nvidia redistribution problem for every single piece of hardware.
You cannot assume that companies will all do what nvidia (eventually) did and permit redistribution by anyone.
This is not certain, but it's certainly likely. Arguments like "It hasn't happened to $FOO, which has a stable driver interface" do not necessarily apply. Most Free operating systems do not have nearly the level of corporate interest that Linux has.
What Linux really needs is an improvement to workflow involved in getting and loading out of kernel drivers. That would solve most of the problems people actually want solved without any of the drawbacks.