Update On Free Linux Driver Development 272
Remember the offer Greg Kroah-Hartman made earlier this year, to get Linux drivers written for free for any company that wanted them? Now an anonymous reader points us to an article up on linuxworld with an update to this program. Greg K-H, who leads the development of several kernel subsystems including USB and PCI, admits that the January offer was a bit of "marketing hype" — but says it has brought companies and developers together anyway. Twelve companies have said "yes please," one driver is already in the kernel, and five more are in the pipeline.
so did he write them for free or didn't he (Score:4, Insightful)
The more free drivers, the better (Score:5, Insightful)
patents, usability (Score:4, Insightful)
To me, the issue isn't so much drivers as patents and usability.
My daughter's mp3 player didn't need any special drivers, because it's simply a standard keychain drive that happens to be able to play mp3's. However, she totally couldn't figure out how to use it on her ubuntu box. There was one problem after another. Ubuntu tried to do the right thing by popping up a gui app when she connected it, but then we couldn't get the gui app to do what we wanted to do. Part of the problem was that getting the mp3 codec to work was a pain, and that springs directly from the fact that mp3 is patented.
My Brother HL-1440 laser printer is 100% supported in Linux. Brother hired the CUPS developers to write GPL-licensed drivers for all their printers. Joy! Unfortunately, I've run into one usability problem after another, all of which are basically problems with the usability of CUPS. I know I'm not the only person in the world who thinks CUPS is a pain, because I've seen other people criticize it for problems that are the same ones I'm experiencing. For instance, CUPS remembers too much of its state, and when it freaks out (e.g., printer spewing page after page of garbage), it's difficult to get CUPS back into a known-good state.
Re:so did he write them for free or didn't he (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Can't copy GPL code? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:patents, usability (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:patents, usability (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone does. If I'm bored, I do. And only one person has to fuck around, come up with a fix, submit it upstream and get it merged for everyone else to have their problem solved.
It's very liberating to be able to fix your own problems instead of being at the mercy of a vendor who doesn't care.
Re:Can't copy GPL code? (Score:5, Insightful)
one developer = Theo de Raadt.
competing open source operating system = OpenBSD
criticized = profanity
So to rewrite the sentence so it actually make sense:
While Theo de Raadt, has slung profanities at the NDA approach, he is free to write a driver for OpenBSD if he wants by using the Linux driver as documentation, but he best not copy any of the code from the Linux driver if he wants to avoid having to GPL it (which he almost certainly does).
Which makes this comment:
Theo, stop moaning about specs.. these companies are not going to give us blueprints to the damn hardware.. and whatever they do give us is going to be confidential. That's the reality. Deal with it. If you refuse to enter into a non-disclosure agreement with these companies then don't complain when the only documentation you have is a Linux kernel driver. The specs aint that great anyway.
Or, at least, that's what I read.
Re:Translation (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would you feel the need to post a "translation" when you have no idea what you are talking about?
The fact that people are willing to write Open Source software without charging a fee for their services is hardly a new concept, but Greg did the smart thing of treating it like it is and, in doing so, attracted the attention of people who thought that it wasn't the case.
This was one of the biggest problems with the Free Software movement before Open Source came along.. no-one talked about the benefits that businesses could get from the community. For a while, no-one talked about anything else, and then it went quiet again. RMS will tell you that we need to talk about freedom. I happen to agree, but we also need to talk about the practical advantages of open software development too.
Re:patents, usability (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:patents, usability (Score:5, Insightful)
Your point draws exactly the opposite conclusion to that of the GP, who says:
[emphasis mine]
FOSS has worked this way from day 1. And it continues not only to work, but to prove itself superior in many ways to proprietary software approaches. It particularly excels at dealing with software quality. In FOSS, code quality is one of the core metrics[*] of the value of a project, whereas security, debugging and testing are dealt with as externalities (i.e. cost centres to be minimised) by many proprietary software makers. Drivers are a perfect place to make significant investments in FOSS, because then hardware vendors won't be stuck owning the entire problem, and innovative uses of their products will allow them to sell into niches that they never could have afforded before.
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[*] This is not to say that all FOSS software is quality software. Just like everything else in the world, 95% of it is crap. But the best FOSS software is very high quality indeed in terms of stability, resource usage and suitability to the task.
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Is Linux ready for the desktop? In managed environments, the answer is an emphatic yes. Ease of administration is many times greater under Linux than under the other offerings, and this means that in-house support and developers can focus on making things better rather than simply fighting fires. A number of organisations have discovered this, and more will do so in the months and years to come. I think time will show that document formats are not nearly the bugbear that people currently think them to be.
Is Linux ready for the desktop at home? It's ready in potentio, but it will take time for vendors to work out how to package it on new machines. This will be a tough slog, not for technical reasons, but because Microsoft will do its very best to ensure that they have every incentive not to move from a Windows-only sales model. Having open source drivers provides one more bit of leverage against this inertia.
Re:List? (Score:3, Insightful)
Driver Groups (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:so did he write them for free or didn't he (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why... (Score:5, Insightful)
1) I knew the answer to your question since the first time I even tried to compile a kernel. By "compile a kernel", I mean run make menuconfig, flip through idiot proof menus and say yes when it tells me to.
2) You proposed a bunch of dumb ideas implying that the people who actually do know how to develop one are idiots.
3) asking questions in a dick way and then appending a question mark in no way indicates humility, or even politeness.
Seriously, asking dumb questions is fine, but *you* need to actively treat them as dumb questions if you want them to be treated as legitimate questions in a problem space in which you're ignorant. Don't treat the people you want answers from as dumb preemptively.
Re:Mad Propz to van Doorn, Wu and Realtek (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Can't copy GPL code? (Score:4, Insightful)
Heck, the OP might not "know" that (maybe he does) but I barely even noticed that I read the summary more or less how he translated it
That's very relevant to why, while I use Linux for my web, file and database servers, when it comes to my firewalls it's OpenBSD. *Every* *fucking* *time*.
Yes, Theo can be abrasive. Yes, he's an absolutist on a lot of topics. Absolutely yes, that's the type of person I'll trust for the security of my network and my business. I'll install a binary blob driver for my desktop so I can run games, but security is not a game.
Given that the primary focus of his distribution is security, he's 100% absolutely *right* to refuse to allow binaries which he and his team can not audit to the extent that they do every other part of their releases.
So, they might be behind on support for some hardware, but when it's done, your confidence in its security is rightfully higher.
So, it's not just that he doesn't want it GPL. He doesn't trust people whose goal isn't security to write his code for him. He sure as shit isn't going to put his reputation and the security of the people who trust his OS in large part because of that reputation in the hands of some third party. So, maybe a lot of people think he has a reputation as a dick, but let's see them go up against him purely in a security context. They've had issues, but vulnerability for vulnerability he wins against damn near anything else. In the context of anything a normal person could get ahold of, I don't think anything else is even in the same league as OpenBSD. Not Linux, sure as hell not Windows.
Security and useability are in an inverse relationship. Some people are willing to adjust their balance on that scale and that's fine. A lot of good things can come out of that. It is absolutely a great thing that there is somebody out there who refuses to shift it away from security too.
Re:patents, usability (Score:4, Insightful)
It's one thing to go through several days of Googling and HOWTOs when setting up a new OS for the first time. It's another to do that every single time there's a new version out because they decided to change/rewrite so many things for just some trivial improvements.
Re:patents, usability (Score:5, Insightful)
This stuff nearly all works without a problem on my Linux desktop -- Suse, which is quite a nice distro regardless of what you think of their parent Novell. I've certainly had a hell of a lot fewer problems with plugging and playing stuff into a Linux box than with Windows (got driver disks for that? that support your particular version? and don't require you to download something from Microsoft's web site that ends up requiring you to register for Windows Genuine Advantage?). By that measure, Windows isn't ready for the desktop.
Re:Can't copy GPL code? (Score:2, Insightful)
You're fine with firmware that's soldered onto the board as a non-FRU mask-programmed ROM, but if it's loaded as a vendor-supplied blob that can (at least in principle) be updated as issues are identified, that's bad?
Interesting tradeoff...
John.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:patents, usability (Score:4, Insightful)
As a simple example, a couple weeks ago, when I was visiting a realtor, she tried for 5 or 10 minutes to get her computer to bring up some MLS site, and was about to give up before I had to step in and get her connected to the office's wireless network. If Windows is such an ideal, usable operating system, why would the user have such a problem? Should she have called Microsoft, would they have walked her through getting the system on the network?
Re:List? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:List? (Score:4, Insightful)
There has been enough fuss recently over "Vista-Certified" graphics drivers that didn't really work well with Vista. So all you need is a driver certification plan that pretty much can't possibly be met in every detail. Then go ahead and be relaxed about the certification - most of the time. When you come across a recalcitrant hardware vendor who provides drivers and/or documentation to Linux, it's time to insist on dotting all I's and crossing all T's.
I've suggested a similar possibility in the old 55MpH days on the New York State Thruway. The official speed limit was 55MpH, but the average speed on the road was somewhere above 65MpH. Nearly everyone on the road was a lawbreaker. So at that point, you can use whatever other criteria you wish, and know that whoever you choose to pull over is breaking at least the speed limit. I have no suspicion or evidence that this "selective law enforcement" was actually happening, but never liked the mere possibility.
Re:patents, usability (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a good thing this isn't a popularity contest, or a football game, or a presidential election.
If you have problems with Linux, so be it. Those of that don't, and/or are willing to work around otherwise minor issues, are all happily running it. And usually experiencing fewer problems than we were before we switched.
Why you seem hell-bent on insisting that we're all "losing" is beyond me. Like I said, this ins't a popularity contest. Use what works for YOU. The rest of us are quite alright.
Checkmate, indeed.
Time for an insightful car analogy (Score:3, Insightful)
The last time I used a car, I had to hand crank it myself to start it. It was completely unacceptable!
a few replies later...
From the replies, I'm glad to hear this problem fixed, but approx. 70 years ago, it was a well-known limitation of cars.
Seriously, you make broad criticisms and then admit you really don't know the current state of things? How fair is that?
Next time, be honest about the last time you used the system, state your concerns about how the system behaved then, and then ask if your experience is still relevant.
Re:patents, usability (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: you must have the same hardware as CUPS devs (Score:1, Insightful)
Eventually you give up, tear out CUPS entirely, and install the Berkeley LPD, which works perfectly 100% of the time despite being a horrific mess of incomprehensible spaghetti code.
If you haven't had this experience, you lucked out, friend. But many of us weren't so lucky. I suspect CUPS is way too complicated, and has emergent behaviour that the developers can't get a grip on.
Re:patents, usability (Score:3, Insightful)
As for CUPS, what does a Windows user do when they have problems with their printer? Most of them I know call me for help. However, baring free technical support from friends and relatives, most Windows users contact their vendor. They read through the knowledge base to find a match to their problem. They write an email to technical support. Technical support either tells them how to fix their problem, or that the problem will be fixed in a future release. This is supposing that they are working with a quality vendor that won't just ignore them. How is this any different than filling a bug report or asking for help in the distribution's forums? Actually, I can think of a couple of ways. Your request for help in the forums won't be deleted to cover up a problem. You will have a wide audience at least glance at your request for help, most of whom will actually know how the program functions.
One strong advantage that Linux has over Windows is that you do not have to wait for that future release to fix a problem. Should you possess the skill to fix the problem, you can. You can then help others fix the same problem via redistribution. This is not possible with closed-source software.