Messages in this thread | | | Date | Thu, 20 Nov 2003 18:40:29 +1100 | From | Nick Piggin <> | Subject | Re: Announce: ndiswrapper |
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Matt Mackall wrote:
>On Thu, Nov 20, 2003 at 03:16:46PM +1100, Nick Piggin wrote: > >> >>William Lee Irwin III wrote: >> >> >>>Jean Tourrilhes wrote: >>> >>> >>>>> Even better : >>>>> 1) go to the Wireless LAN Howto >>>>> 2) find a card are supported under Linux that suit your needs >>>>> 3) buy this card >>>>> I don't see the point of giving our money to vendors that >>>>>don't care about us when there are vendors making a real effort toward >>>>>us. >>>>> >>>>> >>>On Wed, Nov 19, 2003 at 10:26:59PM -0500, Jeff Garzik wrote: >>> >>> >>>>Unfortunately that leaves users without support for any recent wireless >>>>hardware. It gets more and more difficult to even find Linux-supported >>>>wireless at Fry's and other retail locations... >>>> >>>> >>>And what good would it be to have an entire driver subsystem populated >>>by binary-only drivers? That's not part of Linux, that's "welcome to >>>nvidia hell" for that subsystem too, and not just graphics cards. >>> >>>I say we should go the precise opposite direction and take a hard line >>>stance against binary drivers, lest we find there are none left we even >>>have source to and are bombarded with unfixable bugreports. >>> >>>No, it's not my call to make, but basically, I don't see many benefits >>>left. The additional drivers we got out of this were highly version- >>>dependent, extremely fragile, and have been generating massive numbers >>>of bugreports nonstop on a daily basis since their inception. >>> >>>We'd lose a few things, like vmware, but it's not worth the threat of >>>vendors migrating en masse to NDIS/etc. emulation layers and dropping >>>all spec publication and source drivers, leaving us entirely at the >>>mercy of BBB's (Buggy Binary Blobs) to do any io whatsoever. >>> >>>Seriously, the binary-only business has been doing us a disservice, and >>>is threatening to do worse. >>> >>> >>You have to admit its good for end users though. And indirectly, what >>is good for them is good for us. >> > >No. It is bad for the end users - they get sold a bill of goods. And >it is bad for developers. And it is bad for developers as users. And >it's hopelessly short-sighted as pragmatism often is. > >Look, there's basically one thing that has ever historically enabled >developers to get specs for writing decent Linux drivers, and that's >demand from Linux users. If companies are presented with alternatives >that pointy haired folks prefer like binary-only drivers or running >their one and only Windows driver on an emulation layer, which are >they going to choose and where are they going to tell users to stick >their penguin? We'll be in worse shape than we were when no one had >ever heard of Linux. > >Scenario to think about: an NDIS driver layer ends up getting firmed >up and debugged and when the next generation of wireless appears, >basically all vendors go the easy route and only ship NDIS drivers, no >specs, and buggy as usual. Then they say hey, this worked out well, >might as well do this with gigabit. Meanwhile, hardware's changing so >quickly that by the time we manage to reverse-engineer any of this >stuff (provided the legal climate allows it), it's already off the >shelves. Two to three years from now, it's impossible to build a >decent server or laptop that doesn't have bug-ridden, untested, low >performance network drivers and all the reputation Linux has for being >a good network OS goes down the tubes. It's safe to assume that >latency and stability will go all to hell as well. > >An open operating system without open drivers is pointless and if we >don't do something about all this binary crap soon, the above scenario >-will- play out. Expect SCSI and perhaps sound to follow soon >afterwards. And graphics cards and modems are obviously half-way there >already. > >Personally, I think it's time to do some sort of trademark enforcement >or something so that companies can't get away with slapping penguins >on devices that only work with 2.2.14 Red Hat kernels. > >
Note I 100% disagree with any sort of emulation layer in the kernel.
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