Kevin Carmony Responds to Criticism 300
sharkscott writes to tell us that LXer's Don Parris took a few minutes to get Kevin Carmony's response to the large amount of criticism he has been taking over offering non-free software in Linspire. From the article: "Essentially, Carmony's position is that, in ten years of holding out, the FOSS community has made relatively few gains, in terms of convincing vendors to release libre codecs and drivers. In other words, the strategy doesn't seem to be working. Additionally, while some will be patient, most users would prefer to have something - anything - that works in the meanwhile."
Continuing Discussion (Score:5, Insightful)
Note that Mr. Paris pointed out to me that Robertson stepped down as CEO. Carmony is running the show now. (Just in case you pay as little attention to Linspire as I do.)
My point still holds, though. There's nothing "wrong" with what Linspire is doing with the Freespire project. They're giving away free binaries (which they don't have to give you) along with all the source code they owe you. In exchange, you may or may not become a Click and Run [wikipedia.org] customer. I don't see an issue here. And no, I don't think that Linspire is really expecting a huge outpouring of volunteer programmers, either.
On another topic (since I can't make fun of poor Mr. Robertson's Linspire work anymore), has anyone noticed the latest from AJAX Launch [ajaxlaunch.com]? It seems that they have added an Excel "Demo" (a pretty bit of XUL that looks like a real spreadsheet), a media player that seems no more sophisticated than the one in sharkscott's link in the summary (if I wanted your website to make noise... grrr...), and a RealPlayer video of the "AJAX Desktop" of the Future.
Are you amazed yet? Ecstatic? Hopping up and down in excitement? Holding your breath in bated anticipation?
No, neither am I.
Re:Continuing Discussion (Score:4, Insightful)
All they required was that changes to *their* code be returned to the public. Anything that the licensee creates separately is his own.
Even though the licenses of the software you mentioned permit this, bear in mind that this is not characteristic of Free software, something that GNU and the FSF are very dedicated to. Since GNU/linux is the most popular implementation of their system, naturally you're going to have a large user base that prescribes to the philosphy behind Free software. Even if you don't like hearing complaints from them, it's bound to happen. :)
Re:Continuing Discussion (Score:5, Interesting)
Nonsense. Not only does the license explicitly separate your programs from GPLed programs (as opposed to the "viral" view), Stallman has repeatedly stated that he has no issues with software being sold or used commercially. If Linspire is going to provide you with access to commercial software AND users are willing to pay for it, then more power to them.
Sure, Linspire may not have bought 100% into the GPL philosophy, but that's not the point. The point is that the GPLed software they're still adhering to the GPL principles by sharing any and all maintenance. If they fix a bug, they have to share it. If they add a new feature, they have to share it. If they decide to try a completely different direction, they still have to share it. Thus the Linux software grows, even if it fails to incorporate CNR or MPEG4. Both of those are matters for other [atekon.de] GPL projects [xvid.org] to encourage freedom in.
This is true even if they don't otherwise want to make their software free. As Stallman said [gnu.org]:
Give unto Caesar what is Caesar's...
Re:Continuing Discussion (Score:2)
Now that there's a working system that can stand on its own, all of a sudden the free software adv
Re:Continuing Discussion (Score:2)
Carmony is probably an idiot, but there's nothing that says he can't try and make a semi-proprietary consumer OS.
Re:Continuing Discussion (Score:2)
The problem was the tone he was taking, talking this up as a wonderful advance that everyone should emulate, lionizing the supposed 'freedom' to 'choose' to be unfree. That's what really set PJ off. And it left a bad taste in my mouth when I read it too.
Re:Continuing Discussion (Score:2)
"In exchange, you may or may not become a Click and Run customer."
And if you don't, you'll be able to do what with your computer? Practically nothing. Without third-party software, Linspire is almost as bare as Windows. Without Click and Run, your computer is little more than a big paperweight. And apt WILL break it. When I tested it, apt-get broke the OS after just three uses to install very common programs; my, what a coincidence that the only other way to get software that they don't profit from break
Re:Continuing Discussion (Score:2)
Nah. Those are bi-polar opposites.
I'd say this is more a choice between paying $49.95 for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, paying $19.95 for some wild strawberries and contaminated groundwater, or starving.
Re:Continuing Discussion (Score:2)
The laptop did not have a CD- or floppydrive, otherwise it would probably have been easyer to install a Debian from scratch. The great thing about a computer preinstalled
Re:Continuing Discussion (Score:2)
"The OSS software Linspire is using (and sharing) was released by its owners with the understanding that others would use it for both commercial and non-commercial uses. And they were fine with that. ... If [Michael Robertson] wants to share his software with the world while keeping parts proprietary, that's his business."
Careful, you're conflating two logically unrelated points there. Proprietary and Commerical are not the same thing.
People who are in perfect agreement with the commercial sale of softw
If... (Score:5, Insightful)
Linspire realizes this, so they're doing all they can to make it easy as they can for new Linux users to use Linux and do what they want. People shouldn't be giving them flack for this.
Re:If... (Score:2, Troll)
Re:If... (Score:2)
People won't use OpenOffice on a Linux box if they can't play their MP3s on the same box. Throw one proprietary s/w in, and the new convert gets 1000 F/OSS packages to discover. Otherwise she will not even want to look.
Re:If... (Score:2)
Re:If... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:If... (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly, the manufacturers don't seem to be suffering. What are you going to use as leverage?
Linux Incompatibility List (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.leenooks.com/ [leenooks.com]
It may not be much, but it has the advantage that it points out what to avoid, and it's community maintained - with all the hardware out there these days, no one person can know about it all.
Re:If... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:If... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:If... (Score:2)
Oops!
Re:If... (Score:2)
Re:If... (Score:2)
I'd be quite interested to know what jobs people need to do that they can't do with free software
Re:If... (Score:3, Interesting)
Now what if that blob also lets me take over your computer and do whatever I want with it? Maybe I'll use it to send a few million spams... or maybe I'll just snoop through your private documents and check out your pr0n collection. Either way, doesn't matter, since you 'got your stuff done' right?
What you're doing is looking at one side of the equation - benefit - but not at the other - cost.
What 'stuff'
Re:If... (Score:3, Insightful)
And this is exactly what distinguishes between a possible OSS and non-OSS user. It is not price, it is not ease of use, it is not "what my computer plays".
I have a couple of friends who are nowhere near technical computerwise (biologists, humanties, etc). They run Linux for this exact and sole reason (and some of them are pretty happy with good old Debian woody as a matter of fact). They use the computer as a tool that does what they need to do for their daily br
Re:If... (Score:2)
I'm an example. I'm just a computer user, not a kernel hacker or anything like that. I've been using linux for well over a decade, and haven't used a windows machine in around half that time. I'm always amused at the 'is linux ready for the desktop' crap that keeps getting recycled every 6 months. Of course it's ready. It's been ready for a decade. The question is 'are you ready?'
Yes, there's some things that toy computers do that linux won't. So what. That
Re:If... (Score:2)
Re:If... (Score:2)
That is not completely true, I use Windows XP same as Linux (Fedora Core 4) and I find I am equally productive in both environments.
In fact, there are things I can do very easily in Windows which on Linux take quite a bit. You see, the truth is that all of the "niceties" that linux has (a bash shell, the GNU utilities, scripting languages like Python, etc) are freely av
Re:If... (Score:2)
Yes, it's always a possibility, but the chance of the OSS community not figuring out quickly and putting a stop to it is pretty small. Besides, has this EVER happened with binary only drivers from hardware vendors?
Besides, I always thought this community was all about choice; I'd rather have the bells and whistles and choose not to use them then not have a choice.
Re:If... (Score:2)
If linux is so great, one wonders, then why haven't we seen a flood of unwashed masses coming in to be baptized by the OSS community? Is it the MS monopoly? Is everyone just brainwashed?
It can surely be argued that Linux has all the functionality, and in a large part it does. But you may have to recompile a pogram with certain conf flags. Or you may have to get the latest kernel. Or you may be SOL because there are no dr
Re:If... (Score:2)
Re:I won't convert and my PC is a tool . (Score:2)
Your PC is a multipurpose tool.
Mine are not. Every one is specialized.
Each does a list of jobs and does them well and every one either saves me money or makes me money.
Re:If... (Score:2)
Unless you check every line of the source of all the software you use yourself, and compile it all yourself, I don't see how open source software is any better than closed source software in this regard. Unless you do all that you're relying on other people to verify the software as secure. Now open source so
Re:If... (Score:4, Insightful)
The point is, look at what you pay for the software. Not just in monetary terms.
Nvidia doesn't need to put a backdoor in their driver for the cost of it to be too high, because the known cost, without that, is still the users freedom. Their freedom to study how their system works. Their freedom to change how it works, or hire someone to change it for them. The freedom to run WHATEVER OS on it you choose. Sure, they're releasing linux drivers, for now. How's that help you if you want to run BSD? Or Plan9, or BeOS, or anything else? It doesn't. It may not even work when the next kernel comes out.
At the most basic level, it takes away the customers ability to control the hardware they've bought and paid for, even if it doesn't have any unwanted features.
There are plenty of practical problems that go along with that, statistically speaking. More bugs, yes, but more importantly a helplessness against the bugs. If your video driver is buggy and crashing your system, or worse, there are many people out there with the expertise to help debug it - but if that driver is blobware they can't help you. You're reduced to complete dependence on the vendor - who probably doesn't even think of you as a customer. Their customers are other big companies - you are a commodity to them. If you don't want to be that, you have to insist on keeping your freedom.
Now, as to what you were talking about, of course bugs and malware can be inserted in free code - but not nearly as easily, and of course bugs and malware can be detect in unfree blobs - but not near as easily. If that's your only concern, you're an 'open source' person, and that's fine, you still don't want blobware.
But the issues here are much deeper than the practical - the philosophical is much more important, the practicalities are ultimately reflections of the philosophies we live by, consciously or unconsciously. If you don't mind being a commodity that big corporations buy and sell - an 'eyeball' to the media companies and advertisers, for instance, rather than a customer, then I guess you won't mind having no control of the computer hardware you use either. You'll be happy with the blobware running your computer on behalf of its maker, and all their real customers that they sell you to. It'll get you clippy, and hassle-free hollywood movies, and endless britney spears videos, so why should you care if it means your computer really belongs to MS and is for sale to the highest bidders?
That's the issue here, at the core. Everything else follows from it, even the practicalities, because they're a simple consequence of the fact that freedom works. But even if it didn't work so well, some of us would still insist on keeping it.
Re:If... (Score:3, Insightful)
Some stuff is currently not doable using only open source software.
More stuff is not doable because it hasn't been invented yet, either in open or closed source software.
I've worked on both free and proprietary systems, and the fact of the matter is that I'm much more productive in doing things that have never been done before on free systems than on proprietary ones. By a factor of about 3, when compared to any platform made by Microsoft.
If "the user" wants to see real innovation in software (and h
Re:If... (Score:2)
What's missing right now
Re:If... (Score:2)
that has already happened (Score:3, Insightful)
By taking the hardline "only OSS" stance at the distro level, we're just pushing installi
Re:If... (Score:2)
Linux will be locked into outdated but unchangable kernel schemes, for fear of breaking it's hordes of proprietary device drivers.
And this would be worse than a situation where the kernel is free to evolve however it needs, but the system can only run in VGA mode because no better device drivers--proprietary or not--were ever released?
Linux supports mp3, but that's not the issue (Score:3, Informative)
But that's not the issue people have with Linspire.
Re:If... (Score:2)
Well, the problem is distros aren't allowed to distribute libraries that plays mp3 and videos. They get around it, but it's not technically legal in some countries (like the US).
Compare that to other drivers, like the Nvidia drivers, where Nvidia explicitly allows Linux distros to distribute their drivers, and then you do see distros include the drivers by default.
Why not embrace two tracks of OSS development? (Score:3, Interesting)
Really these two tracks compliment each other the closed source development track brings in newbewies while the purest camp can defend our freedoms and perhaps save our butts if DRM becomes very prevalent.
The point is though why does each side have to try to convert the other to it's philosophy as my way or the highwa
Re:Why not embrace two tracks of OSS development? (Score:2)
You mean like Linspire and Debian respectively?
Re:Why not embrace two tracks of OSS development? (Score:2)
And note I'm not saying this to knock RMS, I think he's doing important work on the front lines to protect our freedoms an
Re:Why not embrace two tracks of OSS development? (Score:3, Interesting)
The fact that you and millions of others don't realize the importance of these freedoms for us and more importantly for future generations tells me that we are not doing enough "converting".
Re:If... (Score:2)
Anyone in the know who still uses mp3 absolutely deserves all the patent litigation that's coming to them.
Especially since there have been viable alternatives for years that are superior in absolutely every way and are a hell of a lot more free.
Re:If... (Score:3, Insightful)
Since the distro is free, how are they supposed to pay for the licence? Their only choice is to put the rpms, tarballs etc on non-US mirrors, and ask you to get them yourself and pay your own fees if you live in the US.
If it's a paid distro, they gen
Re:If... (Score:2)
It's not just Joe User who wants his mp3s to play, it's everyone. Seriously, does anyone here ever not add mp3, dvd, etc support and instead go out and find oggs and flacs to listen to and watch exclusively? Anyone who does add dvd and mp3 etc to their home computers has no room to complain when a distro does.
Re:If... (Score:2)
I just switched to Ubuntu last week, from Gentoo, when I got tired of waiting for every new update to compile.
Re:If... (Score:3, Insightful)
However, it is still a long way to, specially when it comes to installing programs. If the program you want is on the repositories, it's a breeze (and I'd like windowd to have something like that)... if it isn't, well, I
The OSS team needs to realise... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The OSS team needs to realise... (Score:2)
Re:The OSS team needs to realise... (Score:2)
The OSS team needs to realise...that the _real world_ does not share their view that politics is the most important thing in software... Functionality is...
Stupidest type of argument ever, claiming that the large number of people who prefer OSS licenses do not live in the "real world".
There are people, and companies, out there in the "real world", that consider an OSS license an important requirement for software they're going to use - whether you like it or not.
Re:The OSS team needs to realise... (Score:2)
And more power to them! (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't believe how many times I have been stymied when configuring Linux because it didn't support my major-vendor video card. The "Open Source" version of certain drivers don't work. I tried an OSS implementation of some Nvidia drivers and it could barely spit out any video at all, much less allow me to use the advanced options on the card. I know the OSS developers tried hard, and I appreciate that. However, it just didn't work.
At times like these, I don't really care about politics or philosophy. I'm just trying to get the computer working, and if I get stuck because of OSS, I'll just abandon the project.
I suppose this is the reason why I haven't been a serious user of any Linux Desktop software for years. I use Linux as a server all the time, on dozens of different machines. It works great as a Server.
Re:And more power to them! (Score:2)
I think that most people who agree with the philosophy that all software must be open source only do so to fit in with the crowd. The people who believe in something the least will be the ones who shout that belief most loudly, to prove to the rest of the group that they believe it (I saw this once at a lecture on the use of multi-agent simulations in sociology exper
Re:And more power to them! (Score:2)
Re:And more power to them! (Score:2, Insightful)
So, when do you care? Only when it's convenient?
Re:And more power to them! (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, I tried running proprietary NVidia drivers with a xen-enabled kernel, resulting in total lockups, while the opensource driver worked flawlessly. The proprietary video card drivers are hardly the best example to bring up.
Your mileage may vary.
"I haven't been a serious user of any Linux Desktop software"
Yeah, well, I was surfing around on Microsoft's site and just couldnt find the "download ISO's" li
I can't say that I agree, personally (Score:2)
Why the strategy isn't working... (Score:5, Insightful)
1) To date, the market share represented by open-source operating systems is very small.
2) The users and distributors of opensource operating systems have not presented a united front when it comes to the inclusion of propriety drivers and code. In fact, it seems the vast majority of distributors and users are more than willing to settle for closed, propriety drivers (even when they are crap!)
3) American corporate culture reflexively resists voluntarily releasing information of any kind. It is always easier to say no. Some Taiwanese vendors, for example, have been found by some opensource projects to be rather cooperative when it comes to releasing information. Major American corporations by constrast are a guaranteed stonewall.
Nobody reachable has the authority. (Score:2)
Closed source sucks. (Score:5, Insightful)
We believe that the only way the world can successfully advance in the field of computer software is by eventually replacing all closed source systems with open source ones.
Take an example of Apple's recent success with Mac OS X. This software, although it contains tons of closed source code, is based on open source code and contains literally hundreds and hundreds of free software packages. Apple would never have succeeded in creating such a feature-rich operating system in the time it took to make it without the availability and use of such open source code.
This is why this Linspire debacle is happening. People know that although the expedient thing to do is to continue using closed source proprietary stuff, the correct thing to do is to get ourselves off that addiction and on to some better software.
Re:Closed source sucks. (Score:2)
Based on years of subjecting users to Linux desktops
Re:Closed source sucks. (Score:2)
I agree, the status of OS X as a mixture of open and closed source code, depending on which allows for more expedient development, has been a boon to Apple. Linspire should co
Re:Closed source sucks. (Score:2)
the BIOS bit me one time (Score:2)
Since we didn't have source, we had to solder tiny wires to the CPU just to find out what was going on. We then determined the problem using a digital logic analyser. (looks kind of like a scope)
BSD by comparison (Score:3, Interesting)
It had better be sandboxed. (Score:4, Informative)
The alternative is an extremely strict SE Linux policy, but seccomp is probably better for this job. One could use both at the same time I suppose.
I don't want some spyware crap telling Sony/Microsoft/Real/Sorensen about everything I do and probably acting as a backdoor.
Groklaw (Score:5, Interesting)
So I posted anonymously as I usually do. The odd thing that happened to me was that I found my post deleted. So I posted again
She seemed convinced that this was an orchestrated attack by Linspire "astroturfers". And when Kevin posted to the forum, she wouldn't talk to him and asked him for an apology from the (imaginary, IMHO) astroturfers. Having said that, Kevin did quote an email he sent PJ which I thought was poor form.
Anyway, I literally sat there for ages watching post after post being deleted which I thought was amazing. A large number of these posts were quite sensible. They just didn't tow the Groklaw line.
When it had calmed down a couple of days later, I posted that here is a place where they discuss free speech, but don't practice it. Quite frankly, the amount of groupthink and censorship I saw left me with a very different opinion of the place.
The best thing about Slashdot's comment system is that it keeps all the posts. Even the trolls.
Re:Groklaw (Score:2)
I mean, geez folks... You come out with a license for your source code. A company _obeys_ the license to the letter, and you're still not happy? Change your license.
Cry me a river (Score:3, Insightful)
"So I posted anonymously as I usually do"
Why not stop moaning about it and create an account (free) and post from that? PJ's had SCO astroturfers hitting her sight and has had 'friends' of SCO posting her personal details to the internet at the same time she was getting death threats.
So she might be a little oversensitive. Get over it.
Market share, market share, ... (Score:2)
How to get a higher market share? Fix the first top inhibitor of the Linux adoption (http://www.osdl.org/dtl/DTL_Survey_Report_Nov2005
Re:Market share, market share, ... (Score:2)
The Netherlands + Flemish part of belgium represent a much smaller part of "the market" than the "Linux afficionados".
(BTW in many case there are two different release one for the Netherland and one in Flemish since they are not exactly the same languages.)
So saying "we'll wait till you have a 10..20..30% marketshare is pure free floating horse shit.
The key reasons are cultural and political? basically Linux users are not a "nice demography" f
I respect intellectual properly scrupulously. (Score:4, Funny)
Why can't we all just get along? (Score:4, Interesting)
All of us are contributing, each in the ways we most understand. This sniping at each other, it is simply harmful.
I think I am going to go install Linspire. Let's face it, I don't have the time to hassle with making mp3s and dvd players and voip work on the big distros either, and I am a Linux developer, I can't imagine what ordinary users do when they want to use Linux on one of these distros that requires you to get libraries that don't just compile and work and somehow install them before your dvds can play. Or have they finally gotten it together recently, someone tell me....
If it is not written by me, it should just click and run.;-) Or at least, make and run.
Oh, and pissing on nvidia is not reasonable. At least they port to Linux, ATI just ignores us.
Charity is something to be thankful for, not to demand. Free software is charity. I like to do it myself, but that gives me no right to demand it of other more sensible persons.
Re:Why can't we all just get along? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's fine, and I agree with you on Linspire being a valuable addition to the Linux family. Still, I think we (as in, the people who at least partially understand the socio-techno-legal-economical consequencies of using proprietary and patented formats) should not stop educating people on this, in my opinion crucia
Re:Why can't we all just get along? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's as unrealistic as people telling you that not only should you be aware where each item of your clothes are made, but all of the components that went into it. The t-shirt you're wearing now... where was it sewn? Where was the cotton grown that went into it? Who was the cotton wholesaler? Where was it dyed? Where did the dye come from? Who made the thread that holds it together? Who made the tag? Who made the ink for the logo on it? Who m
Perfect Example of Why he is dead wrong (Score:2)
on our desktop clients. Now here we are a few years later and borland decides to
end of life the development environment. The runtimes are dependant on the kernel versions. Now guess what I have, a program that I have to compile and or change on a old version of the operating system and I cannot upgrade production to anything newer I am forever stuck in this situation until a large amount of money is spent to replace the application
Re:Perfect Example of Why he is dead wrong (Score:2)
Lost credibility (Score:4, Insightful)
What? Since when does the "Open Source camp" prefer non-copyleft licenses? What kind of drivel is this?
And why is no one screaming and pulling their hair over the fact that Dell ships their RH Enterprise-equipped machines with closed-source nVidia drivers?
I teach my Open Source Technology students that OS is a continuum, and that everyone falls somewhere along that continuum. ESR embraces the business side of OSS, while RMS (firmly!) embraces the libre side...everyone involved in OSS has some philosophical bent. If PJ has a problem with Linspire, she has every right to rant about it. But since she doesn't speak for the OSS movement, we have every right to ignore her (or pick up the pieces we agree with and discard the rest).
The beauty of OSS is that there's room for everyone. Don't like what Linspire is doing? No worries, come up with your own distro that ships with OSS versions of whatever it is about Linspire that rubs you the wrong way.
Re:Does he have some examples? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Does he have some examples? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, nvidia "might not" keep the drivers up to date with all the linux kernel side changes that are going on, but they "might not" with windows as well... but they do, so their customers can use their product.
Okay, this weeks drivers might not work with next weeks kernel, but this is a problem with the linux kernel not having the same backwards compatibility as windows
Re:Does he have some examples? (Score:2)
The fact that the kernel isn't obligated to accrete cruft continually to preserve backward compatibility is an advantage, not a problem.
Nvidias unwillingness to simply document their product so it can be properly supported is not something you can blame on anyone but them. Old-think dies hard, but it does die.
Re:Does he have some examples? (Score:2)
Great for hobbyists, but lethal for anyone wanting to write drivers. Today's working driver would be tomorrow's kernel panic factory.
What happens to less popular drivers? Do they just die for lack of skilled people to work on them when the kernel changes?
Re:Does he have some examples? (Score:3)
Whenever the internal kernel interfaces change (which is really pretty rarely) kernel programmers also check all those drivers and make any changes necessary.
Once a device is supported, it's very nearly perpetual. It's rare for drivers to be removed, and usually when they are it's because they've been superceded (the hardware still works, the support is just being done more elegantly, for instance when 2.6.16 was r
Re:Does he have some examples? (Score:2)
I was thinking of that case when a small user (personal or business) might depend on a device that's obseleted, but they've got neither the money nor the skill to fix it themselves.
I guess it's unlikely. Possible, but in the minor list of worries.
how it works (Score:3, Informative)
This usually keeps the less-popular drivers alive for many years, thou
Re:how it works (Score:2)
Re:Does he have some examples? (Score:2)
Simply? Are we talking about the same product line here? Leading edge highly competitive constantly pushing the boundaries through advanced hardware and software optimisation graphics renderers? And you want them to "simply" document them... all...?
Sorry but I'd rather leave it to the people who are employed to be skilled in building them. Nvidia/ATI have pretty much left everyone else behind with their graphics processors, if no one's come close to d
Re:Does he have some examples? (Score:5, Insightful)
Who else but the designers of the hardware to produce drivers (open or otherwise)? They have access to hardware schematics, development plans, and the engineers who designed everything from the fabrication plants to the chips you're writing the drivers for. Do you honestly think you're a good enough programmer to fix a driver for hardware you have no knowledge of? I'm not a programmer hardly at all. It doesn't matter to me if it's open or closed. Either way, I can't fix anything.
Assuming that something won't work because it's closed source is as stupid as the closed source camp claiming FOSS is more susceptible to security vulnerabilities. It's absolute BS. And won't get any help from the vendor? I'd say I'm as likely to not get help from a vendor as it is likely that the FOSS community will label my bug Won't-Fix. God forbid I happen to get some rare bit of critical hardware for which the FOSS "community" consists of one guy who's a complete idiot.
Yes, I understand the FOSS model. Yes, I beleive it is superior. Yes, I believe it is the future. But avoiding closed software because of some nebulous bugaboo makes you seem like Chicken Little in a snowstorm.
Re:Does he have some examples? (Score:2)
Yes.
OK, not 100% of the time, but very often. Perhaps the problem is unrelated to the hardware itself. The code might forget to check if a memory allocation failed. The code might take locks in the wrong order. The code might try to access user memory while a spinlock is held. I can certainly fix these things.
With a bit of hardware documentation, I can do much more.
With plenty of hardware do
Re:Does he have some examples? (Score:2)
Not that I give a shit about 3D, but it came with my computer and documentation was available so I have a driver.
Re:Does he have some examples? (Score:2)
When a change is made to the Linux kernel that may break some drivers, kernel developers check the driver code and update it to conform to the new kernel. Of course they can only do this with open source drivers. When you upgrade your kernel, the accompanying drivers are upgraded at the same time. Your closed source nVidia driver, however, may stop working.
This sucks for users, and it's even worse for nVidia. They have to keep close tabs on kernel development an
Re:Does he have some examples? (Score:2)
Have you ever run the nVidia installer? It is very handy. It wil
Re:Does he have some examples? (Score:2)
I'd rather have my drivers in the main kernel tree, so that my driver
Re:Does he have some examples? (Score:2)
Insightful? Give me a break.
except that they WORK FLAWLESSLY (Score:2)
we don't need their source (Score:3, Insightful)
We want hardware documentation. We can write our own software. Our software will be more stable, portable, and maintainable. Performance could be a win or a lose.
With hardware documentation, we can turn a WinModem into a telephony interface for a PBX. We can support Linux, OpenBSD, GNU HURD, and eCos. We can port the X server to run on the GPU. Lots of neat ideas become possible.
Re:Open source drivers are just a dream (Score:2)
How does anybody expect a hardware company to design a hardware+software system and expect them to open the software portion and remain competitive?
How does anybody expect a user to maintain an up to date, secure, virus free system when they have to depend on software produced by manufacturers who hide its functionality and can drop support for it at any time?
Would you like them to comment their sources so that their rivals can better appreciate their whole design?
No, simply providing all the specs for inte
Re:I've been impressed of late with Linspire (Score:3, Insightful)
It's comments like these that got me started on my intense dislike for some portions of the F/OSS community. I dared to post that Windows has gotten fairly stable, and is actually a reasonable operating system. Not a safe thing to say.
I don't personally know much about Linspire, but I do know that this community has to get rid of whatever's attracting so many people with this offensive elitist attitude. The very existance of the word "luser" makes me fe