Re: "We want drivers" campaign

[Kevin Forge <forgeltd@usa.net>]

jfm2@club-internet.fr wrote:
> 
> About what Kevin Forge said of manufacturers haing to deliver specs or
> write the drivers themselves.
> 
> If manufacturers just deliver specs that means we get drivers many
> months after the equipment is released and only for the equipment
> bought by some Linux user with plenty of time.
> 
> I think we should begin to apply pressure for manufacturers writing
> drivers thanks to a lobbying/petition campaign.  Why the Mac people
> should get drivers for equipment non-specific to Macs like scanners
> while we are not?  The market share factor is no longer true.  The
> problem is Linux lacks a powerful sponsor and in addition the Linux
> users have developped a minority mindset who makes them humbly accept
> to be treated like second-rate people.
> 
> WE SHOULD NO LONGER ACCEPT THIS.
> 
> Is there anyone willing to head that campaign?  I can send him some
> ideas.  What you think about it Kevin?

It is being done.  The problem of driver writing is a two edged sword.
Every driver in the kernel can take down a system.  It's one thing when
the kernel crew bangs at the manufacturer written source code driver
and fix it a little.  It's another when a binary only driver takes out 
your whole system.

Apart from that.  Yes lobbying is a point of necessity.  However it's 
worth noting that the driver support depends on the type of hardware 
more than anything else.  Parallel port scanners are completely
unsupported
as are Win Modems.  While on the other hand most SCSI scanners and all
SCSI cards are support.  The real problem right now is video hardware. 
The market is rampant but the leader writes Linux drivers.  It's up to
us to make it known ( weather true or not ) that it's the wide software
support of 3DFX cards that make them outsell so much video hardware 
that comes close in performance and well below in price.

This angle I think will do the trick more than any other.  Lobby that
users don't want to be tied to a platform by the hardware vendors.
scream it often enough and the magic I saw years ago will reoccur.

Some people with Windows 95 and no intention of tampering with something
as big and cumbersome as NT still demanded that the hardware they bought 
provide NT and OS/2 drivers.  It worked.