I think the poster has a significant point.
I have been a linux user for many years, various distros; I recently decided to get myself an up to date Ubuntu capable laptop, that would run wifi, etc without 4 hours of installing ndiswrapper or other weird stuff from odd sites.
Clearly I can order a box from a specialized builder, but I was curious to see of that could be bypassed, apparently not.
So far I estimate I have spent at least 4 hours trying to identify a laptop I can simply walk in and buy from Sams Club, or any major store, and expect it to run Ubuntu and have the devices work.
This is not something Jo Internet should even attempt, or be expected to figure out.
Hardware compatibility lists are basically obscure and useless, and often outdated. The detail is way inadequate.
I like many HP laptop boxes (price quality choice mix is good), but there are so many variants and so little detail on the installed chipsets, no sane person should try to figure it out. Both dell and HP seem to have recently (quietly) walked away from providing ready to go linux on their sites.
So what does the linux community expect Jo Internet to do, randomly buy a laptop and hope it works, until an update breaks it silently?
My Girlfriend (yes, really) recently had a working laptop (HP Pavilion) with working wifi connection (probably the most critical item for most laptop users) which was silently broken by an Ubuntu upgrade. It took me several hours to find the necessary changes, download stuff and fix the driver, security is unavailable. Not acceptable and not someting Jo Internet will do.
I agree with the posters comment that the purist view of open source is impractical in the real business workld of patents and hostile trolls.
If there there was a usable and stable binary interface, and the distro's included the install of closed source drivers, then rational self interest will take over and the hardware manufacturers will release drivers, to enable increased sales of their gadgets.
Clearly there will be anticompetitive actions, which will probably be quietly ignored by our open source hostile and arguably incompetent/corrupt DOJ, (the ludicrous never ending failure of the war on drugs shows the DOJ has no idea what supply and demand even means). Supply and demand always wins in the end. Anticompetitive actions don't really matter in the long run, unless we choose to think they do.
The problem is not linux, or any distro, or the boot, or the desktop, or Gnome vs KD; The problem is that the wise and ancient Self Appointed Benevolent Dictators For Life have slowly become Self Appointed Barriers to Success.
This is a common problem in any form of endeavour, when successful it can grow far beyond the capabilites of the original inventors;
Dear SABDFL's, you have won, the future is going to be open, so take the bows, polish up your egos, do the lecture circuit, write books, FOSS is here to stay, many thanks; now, please let the rest of us do business in the real world.
Please don't misunderstand me, I am not saying we give up the ideals of open source software and the real freedoms and security it provides.
Is enabling closed (redistributable) device drivers a slippery slope?
Not really, it is a necessary evil, so lets not get paranoid, just allow it carefully in the legal licensing and Distros.
I agree with parent post that we need to provide a hybrid? closed source + open source license structure and a usable Binary Interface, so hardware manufactureres have the business incentives to provide working
We all want Jo Internet to walk into a store, look for the fat penguin on the box and know the gadget will just work.
Eventually, there will have been so many boxes sold because of the fat penguin, that business folks may be willing to open source drivers, if that really even matters, (it does not matter to Jo Internet); but until that bright shiny morning arrives, we should simply make it a no brainer for the device driver manufacturers to release working drivers, because it increases their profits.