Re: "We want drivers" campaign

[jfm2@club-internet.fr]

> Date: Mon, 18 Jan 1999 21:10:36 -0500
> From: Kevin Forge <forgeltd@usa.net>
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> 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.
> 

Yes.  I have thought in how to make a certification program.  For now
I don't see clearly how.

> 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

Santa Claus couldn't find me a reasonably modern scanner usable under
Linux.  Much less a completely scanner.  He ended bringing me a 10G
hard disk.  Fortunately it wasn't damaged by the cold from its travel
since Finland in an open sledge.

> 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.
> 

My idea is to try to get that each time that a Linux user has to buy
an older (and cheaper) model that the one he wanted, he sends an email
to the manufacturer.  That each time he buys from a competitor he
sends an email to both manufacturers.  That each time he ends not
buying at all (like me) he sends a couple of emails.  And that each
time he owns an equipement with only partial support that he sends an
email telling about how unhappy he is (ie there are good chances next
time I buy from anyone else).

The Linux community is beginning to have muscle but it still doesn't
know about it so it doesn't use it.

-- 
			Jean Francois Martinez

Project Independence: Linux for the Masses
http://www.independence.seul.org