[olug] OT: more Hans goodness

[Kevin]

Nothing whatsoever would be better? Let's look at that a little.
Manufacturer doesn't provide driver. No one purchases component
because the drivers don't exist. Manufacturers don't reconsider and no
drivers get made because they don't see any money in it now. Therefore
we end up with a chicken-and-the-egg scenario with drivers/hardware
for Linux and buyers.

On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 2:25 PM, Luke -Jr <luke at dashjr.org> wrote:
> On Wednesday 09 July 2008, Kevin wrote:
>> There are times that if you take the route of 'my way or the highway'
>> that people will take the highway. Which is worse? Manufacturers who
>> supply nothing whatsoever for Linux or manufacturers who supply only a
>> binary driver?
>
> Nothing whatsoever would be better. Then nobody who cares about Linux will buy
> it, and the manufacturer may reconsider. If it comes with a lot of systems,
> it will be reverse engineered.
>
> On the other hand, with the manufacturer providing an illegal binary, people
> who run Linux, but don't care about the Free software ideals will use that
> instead. They will buy the unsupported hardware. They won't help in reverse
> engineering it. Those who use Free software because it is Free will be left
> with no driver, even if it is in every store-bought PC, where it might have
> otherwise been reverse engineered.
> _______________________________________________
> OLUG mailing list
> OLUG at olug.org
> http://lists.olug.org/mailman/listinfo/olug
>