On Wed, 13 Feb 2002 15:57:07 +0700, Brian Durant [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
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.
Is hardware support really as bad as you seem to make it sound? I've loaded
various versions of Mandrake on a variety of different systems, and I've never
had any problems that I couldn't easily fix.
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.
Is Linux really too dependent on hardware manufacturers? After all, there are
open source drivers for most major pieces of hardware, developed independently
of the manufacturers. Even ATI and Nvidia video cards have open source drivers
(in addition to proprietary ones from the companies themselves).
Linux has not succeeded in leveraging hardware developers to any
meaningful extent as far as I am concerned.
GNU/Linux runs on almost any hardware platform imaginable, from tiny embedded
devices to mainframes and supercomputers. Windows and MacOS can't do this, and
for the most part they are tied to x86 and PPC respectively. GNU/Linux may not
have much desktop market share, but it is incredibly strong in other areas (e.g.
servers). IBM, for example, are adopting it for its entire hardware line,
literally ranging from wristwatches to supercomputers. Sun, Compaq and HP are
adopting it as well, and they all have pumped significant amounts of money into
open source development. Last year, IBM spent about $US1 billion on GNU/Linux,
and in that same period they recouped almost all of it. If that isn't
leveraging hardware developers then I don't know what is.
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
