hi Michael.. The purists need to become realists..
<quote> It is NOT Mandrakes lack of support for the hardware that needs to be addressed, but the hardware manufacturers lack of support for linux. As linux use expands hardware supporters will be forced to address this problem. </quote> Companies like conexant and nvidia spend a ton of money devoloping their drivers.. they are actually half the product they sell, proof is how much better an nvidia performs when the first out nvidia driver is replaced by an optimised one, the performance can be increased by 25 percent.. should they give that "product" source code to open source so ATI can use any "innovations" in it to improve their own drivers? (and vice versa) ditto with connexant and lucent.. now I agree that in a perfect world, it would all be open source, but I also understand these hardware companies whose only dabbling in software is to write device drivers wanting to keep this stuff under their hat,, (I also think that in a perfect world, winmodems wouldn't exist either, but thats an arguement for another day. :-) I guess a work around for mandrake would be to offer a 4th CD for download that contains all the free (but not open source) drivers, and when the install program asks what cd's you have, and you tick the 4th CD box, it installs the drivers for you.. that way the purists can have their open source only distro and the rest of us can have hardware that works to its full potential. (which they sort of do with the powerpack, but like I said, they charge for that privledge.. so as far as mandrake are concerned, why should they give it away with the download edition,, it lessens the value of the powerpack in their minds.) I very much doubt nvidia will ever release the full source code of their latest drivers, the best I think we can hope for is they give use the source to an old obsolete driver, which is still not optimiom performance...(even that is abit of a pipe dream) Another sad fact, is that as CPU's get faster, manufacturers are going to pass more and more stuff over to the main CPU, so software will become more important and this issue will reappear again and again. incidently, I have panel beaten my cars and also rebuilt both engines and trannies.. so thats not an appropriate analogy for me.. but I understand your point.. but the simple point of the matter is this.. 1. Manufacturers will be more willing to release drivers for linux if they do not need to release the source of their creation. (and the end point is that a closed source driver that allows use of certain hardware is better then no driver at all. Proof of which is the numer of people on this list using the Nvidia drivers) 2. End users don't care about purity or principles or the concieved risk that a driver could cause stability issues.. they just want their hardware to work.. 3. As with all things in life, this has to be a compromise.. the hardware guys, and the open source guys need to work on a compromise license for drivers.. (like for example the source has been examined by open source guys that have signed a "non disclosure agreement" to not release details of the source they have viewed, they sign off that there is nothing undesired in the driver that could compromise security/stability/functionality and the driver is accepted. its the only way really to get companies like cannon, epson, HP, Lucent, conexant, Nvidia, ATI etc etc to jump wholly on board and fully release drivers.. the other thing about open source drivers is this.. drivers can give alot of infomation about the hardware they are for.. if you had the source to the latest nvidia driver, you could work out pretty much exactly how a geoforce4 does its thing.. now if you think they are going to make that info freely available, you might as well go and get your head read.. the only drivers that get released open source by manufacturers are those that don't give away any info about the hardware, or the hardare is obsolete as a money maker, or the hardware is generic and there is no benefit in keeping the technology secret. The result is that mainboards like Nforce will always be faster on a winblows machine because of optimised drivers. and the gap may end up widening, because those companies will advocate the use of the OS, that doesn't dictate that they release the software part of their hardware to open scrutiny. Its sad, but true, before you critisize a company for only releasing binary drivers, think about it form their point of view, and also, think about the many companies that don't get involved in linux drivers at all.. and be thankful that some of them at least had the vision to release ANY linux drivers at all, closed source or open. regards Frank -----Original Message----- From: Michael Adams [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Sunday, 9 June 2002 8:37 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [newbie] Connexant HSF and HCF modems..LINmodems? ET phones home On Fri, 07 Jun 2002 23:47, Franki wrote: > Well, I doubt that mandrake will ever support them in the download edition > for two reasons. > > 1. The drivers are not open source.. they contain conextent binaries. (but > they are free) > 2. Mandrake would obviously prefer people to buy a distro, (or join the > club) the drivers are just another way to encourage that. > > > Personally the GPL only rule in the download edition is abit silly I > think.. "free" should be good enough. > Some people will only run software they have the source code for, period. If you change the distro you will shut these purists out. The other software is simple to download and install and usually available on mdk.rpm. > If mandrake really wants to become a viable winblows desktop competitor, > they won't be sucessful if they don't support the most popular video card > on the market off the shelf,, nor the most common modem type around > either... and the support should be without effort.. > It is NOT Mandrakes lack of support for the hardware that needs to be addressed, but the hardware manufacturers lack of support for linux. As linux use expands hardware supporters will be forced to address this problem. > The drivers are free anyway.. the only people it should bother to include > them is Richard stallman, Linus and possibly a few others.. > > Its the only answer really.. winblows doesn't support nvidia or the modems > off the bat either. but they do come with a winblows disk that makes it a > point and click afair.... neither do that for linux yet. > > I don't mind installing stuff myself, but I have been running linux in some > form since redhat 4.x. > a newbie doesn't understand rpm let along tar.gz.. so running straight > from the box is a pretty big thing.. > Thats where the people with the experience come in. A normal desktop computer is now far more complex than a car. Do you expect to panel beat your car and rebuild your turbocharger or TH700 yourself? A lot of users are not interested in the internals of a computer, and the ease of installing third party software is in my estimation right up there alongside viruses in what will break a windows machine. > In the very least, there should be a script in all mandrake installs that > can run, fetch the latest correct driver for nvidia or lucent or conextant > (or whatever) and help a newbie install it... and it should run on the > detection of that device.. (cos most newbies probably don't know they have > nvidia or winmodem...) > I agree this could be written in as an option. "Do you want me to fetch a closed source driver for this modem from the net?" But allow that mandrake has written oodles of GUI interfaces over the last few years. Eventually we may see this as one of them. > just some thoughts. > Great talking points... thanks. Keep 'em coming. > > rgds > > Frank > > -----Original Message----- > From: et [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Friday, 7 June 2002 6:53 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: [newbie] Connexant HSF and HCF modems..LINmodems? ET phones > home > > > just me considering that if Mandrake is going to "officially" offer the > drivers, I guess I cann't rant about how much a pain these modems are any > more... > > On Friday 07 June 2002 02:00 am, you wrote: > > I don't understand,,,, ,the hcf/hsf drivers are free on the net anyway... > > > > used them for a while.. under very active development too... work well > > for 8.2. > > > > http://www.mbsi.ca/cnxtlindrv > > > > rgds > > > > Frank > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of et > > Sent: Friday, 7 June 2002 4:20 AM > > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Subject: [newbie] Connexant HSF and HCF modems..LINmodems? ET phones > > home > > > > > > I noticed in the latest Mandrake Club newsletter; > > > > "It's hard to break the old habits, but it looks as if we are finally > > doing > > > it! Thanks to Lenny, Till, and Damien, the MandrakeClub downloads area > > has finally started receiving new RPMs for MandrakeLinux 8.2: > > > > * drivers for Connexant HSF and HCF modems"<snip> > > they gots lots of other goodies for club members too (discounts,etc...) > > well it looks like I will have to put away my soapbox. > > > > Ed -- Michael
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