> Many vendors only release specs because of the pressure of thousands of users
> complaining `it doesn't work with Linux'. Now if you replace this `it doesn't
> work' with `it's slow', do you really believe that the pressure will still be
> sufficient ?
Replace it with "do you want us to write nice native drivers that
make your board look good and you don't have to support or do you want to
continue to support all of the thousands of support calls on your buggy
drivers". Appeal to their enlightened self interest (aka greed). Some
manufacturers have argued that they are protecting "proprietary" designs
by not releasing specs. That's hard to argue against when they don't
want to give away a competative advantage. If their competitor has the
advantage, though, because they have open source native drivers, the
shoe is on the other foot. Make it a competative advantage to those
vendors who supply source or specs and have native drivers. That's an
advangage the increases as our market share increases. I don't care if
it's geeks, dudes, dolls, or TROLLS using Linux. Convince THEM by promoting
open source drivers as better and close source drivers as a wild ass crap
shoot, and you've got the manufacturers by the short hairs. YES! It's
turning FUD on it's head and using it to our advantage. So be it!
So many people are worrying that we will loose our leverage with
the manufacturers as Linux goes mainstream that they are loosing sight of
our real leverage. We are currently in the cat bird seat to teach people
that open source is GOOD. People use Linux because it's good. Linux is
open source and Linux is better than close source OS's. Inference: Open
Source is better than Close Source. Beat the drum! Get the lemmings
in line as they sign up! Something made them want to use Linux. Use
that to drill it into their heads that the reason they want to use linux
is the same reason Open Source is good and close source is bad. Then
our leverage increases.
> Stefan
Mike
-- Michael H. Warfield | (770) 985-6132 | mhw@WittsEnd.com (The Mad Wizard) | (770) 925-8248 | http://www.wittsend.com/mhw/ NIC whois: MHW9 | An optimist believes we live in the best of all PGP Key: 0xDF1DD471 | possible worlds. A pessimist is sure of it!- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/