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Actully i blame the manufacture, they could get a mainline kernel driver for the cost of a unit of hardware. www.linuxdriverproject.org. Ohh look free driver development, now why haven't they done it yet? ohh right they don't care.

really there is hardware that doesn't work? have the output of lspci so i could verify. for wireless cards i was under the impression that everything had either a native driver, or "worked" with ndiswrapper. Also lack of native linux support is 100% the manufacturer's problem; see: www.linuxdriverproject.org a project lead by Greg Kroah-Hartman to get drivers into the kernel.

I think a lot of the problem, lack of driver support, is that the dev's and lots of experienced linux users tend to pay attention to the hardware they buy. Who wants a wireless card that has 10' worth of reception? or a harddrive with slow read/write? There is then a lack of this hardware in the community. Most of the troubleshooting then happens in the ubuntu forums, which are slow, and may only be accessible from the other OS, making it tedious to troubleshoot at best.

Also, go get a retail copy of win7/winXP, install that, and see if it ships with drivers for $(crappy hardware) 3d accel out of the box? sata/sas raid controller? shitty broadcom based wireless?

Except it doesn't really help anyone but them. And later it turns out that they were only doing so because they were breaking the GPL. And then later that the code was shit and has taken a bunch of effort to get into decent shape and they've been completely ignoring emails on the subject.

Just like most other companies contributing drivers to the kernel through Greg K-H's Linux Driver Project, as Greg points out himself

Microsoft puts C# and the CLI under the "Microsoft Community Promise" and trumpets as it being a win for interoperability and open source. Except it only covers the core standardized parts. All the libraries specific to Microsoft's implementation that are widely used aren't included. As a result it basically only makes it easier to move from other implementations to theirs, and not the other way around, and the only one who wins is Microsoft.

It's still better than some other industry-standard languages such as, I dunno, C and C++. Show me their standardized network, threading, GUI libraries please? When did an open-source Java become useable: before or after Microsoft came with open-source C#?

Now I hate Microsoft as much as the next slashdotter, but let's be pragmatic please. Microsoft isn't Bill Gates, it's a thousand-headed hydra. Some heads may still be stuck in the old ways, but things are slowly improving.

In the old days, C# would never have been standardized, it would've been bundled with all their applications, and dev kits would cost thousands. They would've counter-sued to oblivion anybody complaining about their linux drivers. Yeah, OOXML is one of their myriad fuckups, but please don't single out the driver issue or C#, which are actually signs that things are improving at Microsoft, even if they're not perfect yet.

There is a problem with manufacturers who decide to keep their hardware specs secret and so make it difficult to have device driver support under Linux. It is true. It is a lot less common, but still true.

That ain't problem if they accept Linux OS developers to write GPL'd drivers by signing NDA.

Many companies has done that now. Linux OS developers sign NDA, they get specs and they write driver what they then include to Linux OS and licensed as GPL. Linux community gets working driver what to maintain but does not get specs of the hardware, either does any competitor.

http://www.linuxdriverproject.org/twiki/bin/view

We are a group of Linux kernel developers (over 200 strong) and project managers (over 10) that develop and maintain Linux kernel drivers. We work with the manufacturers of the specific device to specify, develop, submit to the main kernel, and maintain the kernel drivers. We are willing and able to sign NDAs with companies if they wish to keep their specifications closed, as long as we are able to create a proper GPLv2 Linux kernel driver as an end result.

If hardware doesn't work with Linux, it's not Linux's fault, but it IS a problem for them.

You keep saying that, but I don't think you realize that linux developers/users/advocates can't do much about this problem. What can be done is already being done. See the Linux Driver Project for example. With limited to no cooperation from certain hardware manufacturers there isn't much more that can be done.

So, you're right, it is a problem, but solving it requires more than a bunch of linux developers deciding they want to solve it. We already have that. It requires cooperation from manufacturers, which is a continual work-in-progress, and it requires users to put a little pressure on manufacturers by voting with their wallet. This is a problem that has to be worked on by everybody who has an interest in linux. You can't put the responsibility entirely on one subgroup.

Can we get proper links in the summaries. I expected the link in "He updates the free Linux driver program announced almost two years ago" (which I've bolded because underlining is filtered out) to point to the program's website rather than back to Slashdot.

If you want to link to Slashdot, then do it this way: "He updates the free Linux driver program announced almost two years ago"

Take a look at the Linux driver project or something like GregKH's driver tutorial. You aren't alone in wanting to write drivers for Linux. The catch is that most (new) hardware with specs actually already has drivers available on Linux.

The trick is to start with simple hardware and then work your way up (graphics card drivers ARE hard especially if they have to be reverse engineered). There are also books like the fantastic Linux Device Drivers that describe how drivers can be written.

(Writing drivers is not impossible but it does take time to become good and without specs it's is a tricky trial and error process. If you're even a bit interested, dive in!)

...so why are VIA trying to split open source driver development resources instead of partnering with/providing support for the existing project that is already being run by a Linux kernel developer. IMO that would do more to actually help the state of open-source drivers, instead of sounding more like a grab for headlines.

This seems especially stupidly timed the LDP's recent status report.

...so why are VIA trying to split open source driver development resources instead of partnering with/providing support for the existing project that is already being run by a Linux kernel developer. IMO that would do more to actually help the state of open-source drivers, instead of sounding more like a grab for headlines.

This seems especially stupidly timed the LDP's recent status report.

that's just the elitest kind of bullshit

....
All that is needed is some kind of specification that describes how your device works, or the email address of an engineer that is willing to answer questions every once in a while ......

In return, you will receive a complete and working Linux driver that is added to the main Linux kernel source tree.

Q: Can you write a driver for my [insert device name here] to get it to work? It isn't made anymore and no one has the specs for it.

A: Sorry, but this project is for devices in which we have the specification and hopefully the manufacturer's support. We don't have the time or effort that is needed to reverse engineer the device on our own, sorry.

What hardware in particular?

I'd like to encourage anyone and everyone who has a piece of hardware not supported by Linux to report it to the LinuxDriverProject.

The do have a Project Status Page. I would hope, however, that with over 100 developers and over 10 project managers, they have more than one project in the works.

That was my initial reaction, but then I poked around on the project wiki and noticed that they were specifically trying to get GPLv2 licensed drivers. Then I remembered that Greg K-H was one of the developers who tried to fuck up the release of GPLv3 and the bits all clicked into place. This is Novell trying to ensure that they have a supply of GPLv2 drivers available so that they can continue their filthy pact with Microsoft which will be finished if most people release their work as GPLv3.