>You trivialise the issue. Drivers are supposed to be written by hardware >manufacturers (who actually know what the hardware is about), not by >software/OS designers (who must reverse engineer the hardware to know how it works).
Yes, you are of course correct in this, but I don't feel that I am trivialising the issue. The reality, for someone like myself, is that we in principle would gladly buy into the Open Source concept, but we want something that will work. Not necessarily out of the box, but something that is not "voodoo" for 99% percent of newcommers to the OS. You don't do that in the Mac OS and you don't do that in Windows. >Manufacturers are reluctant to write Linux drivers, forcing the community to >come up with their own. Why is this the case? First and foremost, there is no >commercial incentive to support an OS that only has a few percentage points of >the desktop market. This problem applies to all but one x86 OS. Secondly, many >manufacturers misunderstand how GNU/Linux works, believing it is somehow >'viral' (to use MS terminology). To them, releasing drivers means letting their >intellectual property secrets out into the open, which elimiates any >competitive edge that company may have had. This is really where the problems start to come to light. Apple, while dependent on 3rd. party companies to provide certain hardware (and software), largely controls both the hardware specs and the UI, making a far more homogenous package. M$ leverages hardware as well due to its large installation base and in some cases has produced or has had hardware produced under the M$ name to M$ specs, sometimes in a duopoly with Intel. This is also where the Linux business model is partially faulty. Linux is too dependent on hardware manufacturers, as well as splitting efforts too often between, similar GUI or programs. A viable OS is not just based on hardware or software, but a combination of both. Linux has not succeeded in leveraging hardware developers to any meaningful extent as far as I am concerned. >The reality is somewhat different: Linux (i.e. the kernel) is licensed under a modified GPL which allows proprietary binary-only modules. Companies like Nvidia have taken advantage of this, and >have released very capable drivers. 3dfx and Matrox went one step further by >openly co-operating with open source hackers to produce open drivers. > >Why does Windows seemingly have such great hardware support? Because it >has over 90% of the desktop OS market, it cannot be ignored by hardware >manufacturers. Do you really think that MS write their own hardware drivers? This does not ignore the fact that most Linux advocacy is done in the area of trying to get hardware producers to support open specifications for Linux drivers or to use Linux in the embedded chip market. What prevents a dedicated Linux group from producing a sound card, video card, etc. that is made for the Linux market? The same goes for PDA's. Sharp's new Zaurus prototype using Linux looks great, but who says that others can't build a better mouse trap? Is it maybe because the market isn't there yet? I'm not sure, but Linux advocacy reminds me a lot of the Mac advocacy that I saw some years ago, when Apple kept losing market share. Lastly, coding for Linux projects, whether they are for the kernel or specific software such as drivers or other things can easily be shared on the Internet. If someone drops out or burns out, there is usually someone else that joins the team and helps out. Physical production can't be shared on the Internet for obvious reasons (Beam Me Up Scotty)!, it requires financial investment, etc. Another kind of commitment is required. All of this is obvious to everyone, yet it seems to me that it is here where Linux' weakest link exists. >Apple are in a similar situation. They have their own little hardware market, of which they >would have about 99% share (with Darwin and GNU/Linux making up much of the >remainder). They make their own boxes, giving them ultimate control over the >entire platform. Consequently, hardware designed for Macs works exceptionally >well (often better than how they work in Windows). In reality, I don't think that we disagree as such, except maybe with regards to how user friendly the Linux experience should be for newbies. This discussion has been fruitful for me, if for no other reason, that I now know that I should look more closely at Nvidia, 3dfx and Matrox video cards ;-) Finally, I think that Mandrake could improve their site for people doing research about what video card/sound card to buy, by providing a text file or PDF that provides a list of all of the drivers for recognized cards that are available at install for each version i.e. what cards are recognized when installing Mandrake 8, 8.1, 8.2, etc. on a new system. While the categories of "known" and "tested" hardware are useful, it really doesn't provide the whole picture. Cheers, Brian
Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
