Messages in this thread | | | Date | Wed, 8 Mar 2006 17:30:25 +0530 | From | "Anshuman Gholap" <> | Subject | Re: [future of drivers?] a proposal for binary drivers. |
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thanks mathhais, this made huge sense to me.
I will soon going to get a laptop ( centrino duo models are looking great, but kindof out_of_my budget). I will see the vendors who dont have native linux drivers are not in that model, as a non-developer, this is the only thing in_my_hand.
i have no idea why did i make the horrible decision to get dlink router and pcmcia card, where as the linksys set has a working (some ppl complain) native driver support for its cards. wish i can turn the clock back.
again, thank you mattias for putting it into nice prespective :)
Regards, Anshu. On 3/8/06, Matthias Schniedermeyer <ms@citd.de> wrote: > Anshuman Gholap wrote: > > well ya, I knew i was running the risk to be labelled like that, cause > > i thought to talk of this issue, more shake is needed that just stir. > > > > please dont get me wrong (even though i think most of you already > > have), i own my graditude for the livelihood i am having to > > linux,linus and co. > > To get to the point of the others binary-only-discussions. > > You only see that you can't use a device today. > I know that is annoying, but you have to see the "big picture": > > Less hostility regarding binary-only drivers would lead to a "flood" of > binary-only-drivers which are undebuggable and unmaintanable by the kernel > developers. IOW you would be at the mercy of the vendor of the device to > make a compatible driver in the future. > > But there is a planet-size catch: > Vendors think in money. So if you have a device that is end of line most > vendors couldn't care less if you can't use it anymore with current systems. > Given that the vendor is still in business after all! > > So instead of having a paper-weight today you will have it a few years later. > I don't see the big difference. > > IOW. A "new" device may be working today, but will be a paper-weight > later. > Whereas an "old" device will be a paper-weight today, if the vendor only > provided binary-only drivers "back then" when it was "new". > > In contrast most times you have an OSS-driver it will work "indefinetly", > as it can be maintained over the years. > > It's all a shifting of who is hurt and when. In the long run the current > model should be working better and better. Whereas binary-only drivers > would destroy/undermine the achievements we have now. > > > > > -- > Real Programmers consider "what you see is what you get" to be just as > bad a concept in Text Editors as it is in women. No, the Real Programmer > wants a "you asked for it, you got it" text editor -- complicated, > cryptic, powerful, unforgiving, dangerous. > > - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
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