On Wed, Oct 14, 1998 at 09:06:32PM +1000, Matthew Parry wrote: > As Linux becomes more popular the hardware manufacturers will start > giving away drivers with the hardware, as they do for WIN95/NT/Mac. > If we give them the option to release the drivers as closed source > then most of them will. But if we force them to release as open > source then they'll still release the drivers - because market > demand requires it - but they'll release them as free software
Maybe somewhen this will happen, but during the next few years, the hardware manufacturer will rather ship NO drivers for special kinds of hardware than open software. :-( Of course open software has the advantage that one could recompile it more easily if the kernel version changes (which company bothers with 35 patches of a stable kernel ! Even MS does not produce such many patches). But I would only try to encourage them to produce linux driver. In a way they like. If one does not like it, one could wait for the hackers out there to produce a working freeware driver. > In the case of word processors, I could care less. But when > it comes to something like the kernel - something that at times > requires fast bugfixes - it is extreemly important. Remember, if you do not have a driver for your hardware it becomes quite unimportant how fast bugfixes would be made. First we must get the companies to PRODUCE drivers for Linux at all ! > Matthew Parry read you, -christian- -- Linux - the choice of the GNU generation. Join the Debian Project http://www.debian.org Christian Hammers * Oberer Heidweg 35 * D-52477 Alsdorf * Tel: 02404-25624 50 3C 52 26 3E 52 E7 20 D2 A1 F5 16 C4 C9 D4 D3 1024/925BCB55 1997/11/01