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Why Do Commercial Offerings Use Linux, But Not Support Linux Users?
Michele Alessandrini writes "Having bought several TomTom One navigation systems at work, I was browsing their web site to find information about maps.
There are several pages of documentation about their devices.
In one of them, they proudly inform you that their devices use Linux, as a warranty of power and stability. They even prominently display their GPL compatibility. But, when you come to the software (the one used to manage updates, set locations, etc), they only support Windows and Mac OS. Not that surprising, and not a real necessity. Just the same, they probably saved millions of dollars using a free kernel and didn't think to support Linux users. As Linux gains ground in commercial applications like this, how often are we going to see actual users of the OS left out in the cold? Why don't more Linux-using shops reach out to the Linux-using community?"
But wasn't that part of the point of the summary -- they saved a ton by using a premade OS rather than building their own. What's so hard about giving back to the community a tiny little something. After all, it is that very community that made their profits possible in the first place. It's about good citizenship, not an extra two cents profit per device.
Plus, it really is true that linux users probably affect more sales than just the machines we buy for ourselves. I know I have personally influenced the buying habits 5 other users in the last 24 months (all non-linux users). Get the geeks excited about your product, you'll sell to them and everyone they know. So that two cent loss caused by giving back, might turn into an extra dime profit over all.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
But why should a company support linux just because their gadget has linux running inside it? The group that writes the software for the gadget is probably a totally different group than the one that writes the desktop interface software. And an even more different group is responsible for answering the phone and supporting users.
The software that runs in the device specifies an interface. The software that runs on the desktop makes use of the interface to interact with the device. How the device implements the interface is completely irrelevant. So the fact that the device uses linux has absolutely no bearing on whether the desktop software supports linux.