On Tue, 6 Aug 2013, Pete Batard wrote:
> > The people we deal with are users, not manufacturers. As a general
> > rule, the manufacturers don't listen to us.
>
> Yeah. And THAT needs to change.
>
> Everybody is sick and tired of getting subpar FLOSS support from
> manufacturers, and that includes Linus (cf. nVidia). So what are you
> gonna do?
> If trying to ask the worst offenders to play nice didn't work, maybe a
> more aggressive approach needs to be devised...
I agree, it does need to change. This means putting more pressure on
manufacturers, not on the users. Holding users' devices hostage is not
the way to do this -- the users will be well aware of your attitude and
will blame you when their devices don't work, instead of blaming the
manufacturer.
I see a very similar phenomenon occuring on a smaller scale all the
time in the linux-usb mailing list. When something goes wrong with a
USB device, people always report it to the USB mailing list. Quite
often it turns out the bug actually belongs to a different subsystem.
But it often doesn't get reported on the mailing list for that
subsystem, because the USB aspect is the most visible.
> With the advent of online purchases that feature prominent user reviews,
> they may also listen to consumers who post bad reviews of their
> products, be it only to point out that a device doesn't work on Linux.
>
> A single bad review that is backed up by facts ("this device doesn't
> work on Linux because it doesn't respects the USB specs") can have a lot
> more impact that tens of good ones...
I doubt that such a review would have much impact. Almost all the
readers will think "I'm not using Linux, so I don't care if the device
doesn't work with Linux. This is just another example showing how
Linux is inferior to Windows."
A much better approach would be: "This device is not compliant with the
USB spec and doesn't deserve to carry the USB logo." Even that might
not hold much weight; a lot of people will care only about whether the
device works, not how well it follows the spec.
> I also think that Linux is past the point where it can be dismissed as a
> fringe OS; one than can be safely be ignored by manufacturers. Microsoft
> appears on the decline, and Android seems to be on the rise. That oughta
> count for something as far as Linux is concerned.
Maybe so, for manufacturers of mobile devices. Not so much for others.
> > It only
> > leads to people ignoring you. You can afford to do that sort of thing
> > if you have Microsoft's clout, but not when your user base is less than
> > 1% of the total.
>
> Sorry, but it's not a matter of power. It's a matter of principle and
> trying to change society, or in this case, the IT and hardware
> manufacturing landscape, for the better.
> If, in any situation, only the powerful get to be acknowledged, then by
> all means, action needs to be taken to change that.
Tactics are different from strategies. I approve of your strategic
thinking, but IMO your approach to tactics is all wrong.
> > We do it so that people can use the devices they already own. (It's
> > not unusual for a quirk to be written by somebody who owns one of the
> > devices it affects.)
>
> Yet that only encourages maintaining status-quo (Microsoft or someone
> else dictates, Linux follows).
Wrong emphasis. The status quo it tends to maintain is: Manufacturers
get away with selling sub-standard non-compliant devices.
> You may accept this as the best achievable under the current conditions,
> but I don't think I'll ever be ready for that. Call me idealist, but
> that's not the kind of world I want to live in.
> As long as no one asks for change, nothing will ever change.
Go ahead and complain. I'll support you, and no doubt a bunch of other
people will to.
But I'm not willing to stop adding support for hardware that people
already own and should be able to use.
Alan Stern
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