Novell Makes Linux Driver Project a Reality

apokryphos writes "Novell have relaunched the Linux Driver Project by dedicating well-known kernel developer Greg KH to work on the project full-time. Greg KH writes: 'My employer, Novell, has modified my position to now allow me to work full time on this project. Namely getting more new Linux kernel drivers written, for free, for any company that so desires. And to help manage all of the developers and project managers who want to help out...They really care about helping make Linux support as many devices as possible, with fully open-source drivers.'"

Comments

Cool

[PhrostyMcByte]

I'm not sure how much just one developer can do, but props to Novell nonetheless.

Re:Cool

[deek]

I'm not sure how much just one developer can do, but props to Novell nonetheless.

Never fear, because he's not doing all the coding himself. According to the link in the article, he's had over 100 volunteers to help him out. If he's good at managing them, then 100 talented coders could certainly make a large impact!

Re:Cool

[alphabeat]

Here's hoping he can manage the volunteers. Can't forget the old adage about getting 300 workers to complete a 300 day job in 1 day. I think I saw this on Dilbert no less.

Re:Cool

[sumdumass]

Quit the FUDing. There is nothing and never has been anything remotely suggesting that Novell was out to hurt linux or F/OSS itself.

The entire microsoft patent thing was blown out or portion by both microsoft and the FSF. MS did it to ruffly some feathers and attempt to control large companies not wanting to install the unpopular and somewhat failing Vista OS and the FSF did their part in helping microsoft scare people away from Free and open source product in order to push an unpopular GPL license onto the masses. Novell was caught up in the middle of a time when it should have been ripe for everyone to use Linux instead of the new MS Vista OS but instead, self serving asses made a demon out of Novell and scared away most chances of picking up converts who though the switch and massive retraining efforts to switch to Vista might be better served with going to something free and open. Your trolling does nothing for anyone who has been paying attention.

Re:Cool

[Enderandrew]

Novell effectively admitted fault that the entire Linux community had infringed on patents, and if you hadn't signed a deal, you could be in trouble. I'd argue that severely hurt Linux and the F/OSS community.

However one action does not fully define a company. Novell has done a great deal to support Linux, but there is no taking away the patent fiasco.

Re:Cool

[sumdumass]

Novell done nothing of the sort. They disclaimed any knowledge of patent problems with linux and done so to the point that microsoft had to issue a statement that they disagree with Novells position.

The entire patent protect was for the stuff Novell created that used MS stuff in order to make linux and windows work together. That was the stated goals and reasons from day one. MS offered to cover Novells customers for everything and they didn't turn it down.

I firmly believe that everyone throwing a fit about their partnership knew this to be the case. It is just that there was this license that people didn't like being tossed around and they needed to get support for it. And that is why they came out on several occasions claiming the New GPL version 3 license would stop Novell's deal with Microsoft when there was nothing in the text at the time indicating it would. The entire FUD campaign surrounding that was cooked up to get support for the GPLv3 it seems.

However, even if we disagree on this, I commend you on your second statement about one action doesn't define a company. I'm not a big Novell Fan or anything. I just hate to see the injustice surrounding the entire situation. Novell got a raw deal in what couldn't be anything but self serving for MS and the FSF. In almost anything else I can remember Novell being associated with Linux and free software on, they brought value to the table in more ways then one. Novell has been a big benefit to the Linux community if for nothing else, their stand against SCO when they could have turned a blind eye and let IBM take it all the way. That doesn't seem like someone wanting to hurt Linux or Free software. This move to rekindle the driver program seems contrary to any wishes to hurt linux or F/OSS too.

I'm wandering if having a big name company like Novell behind the push would make hardware manufacturers a little more comfortable about sharing the stuff necessary to make this happen. If I remember correctly, they didn't have that "big name" support the first time around.

Re:Cool

[pablochacin]

I agree entirely. I think that most of the people in the FOS community completely misunderstood the deal (an some purposefully trolled this misunderstanding)

I worked for Novell until late 2004, well before the Microsoft patent issue. Novell's main business areas then and now are not SUSE incenses, but solutions for platform management and identity management. Both areas require a strong interoperability with Microsoft products, as most big companies have and will continue to have mixed environments. That's is the core of the deal: make possible a better integration between linux and Microsoft product. Just see the recent annoucement about a join laboratory.

it is for sure that some people in the FOS community would prefer to see Microsoft products just vanish from the enterprises, but this is unlikely to happen any time soon, so Novell must take a more conservative approach and accept that they are here to staly for some time. But don't get me wrong: Novell people never liked Microsoft and this is marriage for convenience and unfortunately business are like this.

I think it would be a sign of maturity that the FOS community accepted the facts of life.

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

By that logic, you could get a baby in one week by having sex 39 times!

Re:Cool

[tomhudson]

Novell's seen ther linux income grow to $250 million the last quarter, and that includes $100 million of licensing directly from the MS deal.

As you point out, they're spending countless millions in the SCO case, and it looks like "the money's all gone" in the $25 - $30 million they owe SCO. They also put out a decent linux (hey, it configures all 3 video cards in my box first time around, I'm impressed) and they contribute heavily to linux development.

Then I look at the people slagging them - they all have agendas. FSF wrt the GPLv3, (esp. when actual cases prove that the GPLv2 isn't broken), and the buy-in to MS fud from the community at large. Its a wonder they don't just pull an Apple and say "with friends like this, f*** it - lets grab a copy of BSD and put our efforts into that instead."

Its the same with SUN - "SUN is eviiil" - even though we really like the free stuff like OpenOffice (Sun paid $50 million for StarOffice, then released the code) and Java.

Re:Cool

[tomhudson]

oops - typo - they're owed by SCO ... $25 million, plus interest ...

Re:Cool

[Enderandrew]

Stop trolling, and educate yourself.

http://www.novell.com/linux/microsoft/faq.html

"Under the patent agreement, both companies will make up-front payments in exchange for a release from any potential liability for use of each others patented intellectual property, with a net balancing payment from Microsoft to Novell reflecting the larger applicable volume of Microsoft's product shipments. Novell will also make running royalty payments based on a percentage of its revenues from open source products."

Novell is paying for being liable for using Microsoft patents, and will also make running royalty payments. If no one violated these patents, then why pay for protection?

It sets a legal precedent that apparently you weren't aware of. Google can help you out with that. So stop the personal attacks and shouting, and please read up on the issue.

Re:Cool

[smittyoneeach]

potential liability

Call the bluff.
Your question is akin to asking "why buy insurance?".
Neither company has perfect information, and they can make a lot of money out of acting as if there were significant risk, and then doing all of this legal ballet to mitigate the risk.
It's a belief system. And if your faith is insufficient to make the subjective leap, quaff the kool aid, take the magic pill, then you can join the rest of us in the crowd that find the whole thing just a tad bit whiffy.

why pay for protection?

It's either a marketing campaign or a cookbook, my friend.

Re:Cool

[TheLink]

"this is marriage for convenience and unfortunately business are like this."

Microsoft's track record of "working with other companies" isn't very good.

Re:Cool

[Bronster]

I suspect you could get 300 volunteers for that easily enough too...

Re:Cool

[OriginalArlen]

it is for sure that some people in the FOS community would prefer to see Microsoft products just vanish from the enterprises, Many of us would prefer to see all proprietary non-Free software vanish from everywhere.

I think it would be a sign of maturity that the FOS community accepted the facts of life. Then you clearly don't understand the first thing about the free software you're presumably using.

Re:Cool

[Gr8Apes]

I believe Novell is shipping some homegrown components with OpenSuse that make it work better with MS. Those portions may (or may not) infringe upon (invalid?) MS patent(s) and MS tried to do a PR run with this offer. Novell would have been stupid to turn it down, as it's actually a major PR victory for them, and for FOSS in general (why? Because if it's safe under Suse, then it's safe for all based on the GPL). The fact that the FSF and the rest of the fanatics are too stupid to realize this, or probably more correctly, decided to throw as much scat as they could in an effort to promote their own pet project, GPL3, should say everything that needs to be said.

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Madness?

THIS IS CONCEPTION!

I'm sorry, I'm a horrible person.

Re:Cool

[pablochacin]

Then you clearly don't understand the first thing about the free software you're presumably using.

Actually, I do. The difference is that I don't beleive that those who think differently are ignorants, evil or paid by MS.

Also, I'm not so naive to think that ALL software can be made open and free from night to morning. It will take time and quite frankly, I'm not even sure if such a think could hapen or would be beneficial. Only time will tell.

In the mean time, I use and cotribute modestly to open source, avoiding any "moral supuriority" actitude, as yours.

Re:Cool

[McDutchie]

I believe Novell is shipping some homegrown components with OpenSuse that make it work better with MS. Those portions may (or may not) infringe upon (invalid?) MS patent(s) and MS tried to do a PR run with this offer. Novell would have been stupid to turn it down, as it's actually a major PR victory for them, and for FOSS in general (why? Because if it's safe under Suse, then it's safe for all based on the GPL).

That's where you're wrong. Novell does not own most of the software in their SuSE distribution, they've just licensed it under the GPL/LGPL like everyone else. Any patent deal Microsoft made with Novell only applies to Novell and does not make anyone else any safer.

Re:Cool

[pablochacin]

Again, agree. Now, if you were the CEO of a billion dolar a year company as Novell and your customers were asking you to interoperate with MS products, what will you do? Do you really think that "throw away all your investment in IT and switch all you software to open source" would be welcome as an answer? C'mon. Let's be serious here.

Even those companies who don't like MS understand that switching will take time. While in Novell I had such talks with CIOs of big companies many times and learned that doing business with open source it is not an easy task. Understand this: CEOs and CIOs don't only consider technical merits when selecting technologiesm they must also consider other aspects. Thery are not ignorants, just are business men and are acountable for what they decide. Sometime I would like them to take more risks, but unfortunatelly few reach such high positions taking changes and are very conservative.

Re:Cool

[tomhudson]

This was a cross-licensing deal that had NOTHING to do with any patents in linux. Read the bottom - its about Mono (which has nothing to do with linux) and virtualization technologies:

Q. By making it easy to run Windows virtualized on Linux, isn't Novell undercutting its own Mono project, which shares a similar goal?

Mono provides developers a way to run applications designed using Microsoft .NET technologies to run on Linux and other platforms. Its main focus is the Linux desktop, where Mono has been leveraged to build a series of new services, including search, music playback, and more. Virtualization focuses on maximizing the value of server hardware by running multiple operating systems. It is used for server consolidation, workload balancing and other corporate needs. So while both approaches are designed to give customers flexibility in their IT systems, their focuses are quite different.

Q. What does the patent agreement cover with regard to Mono and OpenOffice?

Under the patent agreement, customers will receive coverage for Mono, Samba, and OpenOffice.org as well as .NET and Windows Server. All of these technologies will be improved upon during the five years of the agreement and there are some limits on the coverage that would be provided for future technologies added to these offerings. The collaboration framework we have put in place allows us to work on complex subjects such as this where intellectual property and innovation are important parts of the conversation.

Now lets see ... is MONO part of the linux kernel? Nope. Is Samba part of the linux kernel? Nope. Is OpenOffice part of the linux kernel? Nope. Is .NET part of the linux kernel? Nope. Is Windows Server part of the linux kernel? Nope. And those last two are what Microsoft is paying Novell for (which is why the net flow of money is from Microsoft to Novell, and not vice verse. Microsoft uses a LOT of Novell's IP).

So, there is not a SINGLE part of the agreement that has anything to do with linux, and most of it is money from Microsoft for Novell IP in Windows Server and .NET.

Not a single Microsoft patent in linux, and the agreement doesn't say otherwise. The only one saying so is Balmer, and the "useful fools" who believe what he says; show ONE Microsoft patent in linux. Microsoft has had a year to do it. They can't. Neither can you; the deal was not for "patent coverage for linux."

Re:Cool

[Hatta]

It sets a legal precedent that apparently you weren't aware of.

Since when do private agreements set legal precedents?

Re:Cool

[Burz]

It's more sinister than that.

Microsoft has designed a tollbooth on general Linux usage without naming even a single patent. Novell's agreement with them set the precedent for acknowledging MS vague claims and actually implementing the tollbooth.

It is MS' insurance policy against Windows being pushed aside on the desktop by Linux; they will still get the revenue stream, even if they don't deserve a penny. When Windows sales really start flagging, just watch them start dragging Ubuntu distributors into court.

Novell should not be trusted, even if only for inept greed.

Re:Cool

[slash.duncan]

Then I look at the people slagging [Novell] - they all have agendas. FSF wrt the GPLv3

Actually, I was rather surprised at how easily the FSF let off Novell on that one, although it was arguably because they believe they entrapped MS in doing so. (It'll take a case to prove that one way or the other, but it's an interesting legal maneuver regardless.) Still, RMS was sounding very fair even before anything about forcing MS' hand ever came up, suggesting that it might be best to grandfather in existing agreements -- which pretty much meant Novell only at that point.

So I don't believe you can fairly lay that at the FSF' feet. The FSF position in fact looks rather uncharacteristically compromising, to me, compared to the many of the Novell slaggers.

Me? I'm a Gentoo guy now, and before that, hadn't tried SuSE because I didn't like their "non-free" no commercial use license on Yast and the like (an approach it should be pointed out Novell quickly changed to full GPL, BTW; they get major points here for that, but I was already switched from Mandrake to Gentoo by then, and Gentoo's far more my style). So it's nothing I'm directly involved in, but I certainly thank them for their contributions, the same as I wish they hadn't done the MS thing, but understand why they did it. So basically as a GPLv3 supporter, I'm taking my queues from the FSF on this, and the FSF gave them a pass, so I'm willing to do so to.

As for Sun, they've been quite involved in the formation of the GPLv3, and I'd not be surprised to see them ultimately dual license OpenSolaris CDDL/GPLv3. If they do, things could get rather interesting... as it could quickly be adopted by the FSF in place of the long floundering GNU/HERD and take the place of both it and Linux as the darling of the FSF. If the RMS predictions on Tivoization, patents, and digital restrictions management even come close to true as well... and Linux hasn't at least started the switch to GPLv3 before it all starts coming down, GNU/OpenSolaris could very possibly be the successor to Linux, and ultimately be the one to achieve that "world domination" that the Linux folks keep half-joking about.

Of course, that's a pretty long set of successive still long-shot ifs there, and while the FSF and friends would welcome a GPLv3ed OpenSolaris, most of the other IFs there aren't too pleasant to contemplate, so I think it's safe to say few hope it all happens that way, but it's possible.

Duncan

Re:Cool

[Burz]

Then why did Balmer verbally threaten all other Linux distros?

Then why did MS pressure Linux cellphone vendors into the same deal? You think they're using Mono? Hah!

Re:Cool

[wilder_card]

IANAL. However, I don't think the contents of a private agreement between MS and Novell would have any bearing on a patent case between MS and, say, Red Hat. This would be particularly true if Red Hat's tactic was to get the MS patents invalidated, rather than claim they didn't violate them.

By the way, if Novell wasn't worried about patents in Linux, what did they get out of this? One hell of a lot of publicity for their integration-with-windows projects, that's what they got. Every time Novell, MS, and Linux are in the same news story some company is going to license Novell's distribution.

Re:Cool

[smittyoneeach]

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No.
Lawsuits are seppuku.
The point of interest here is the revenue stream; dragging people into court will win Redmond as much popularity as lawsuits have for the RIAA.
Redmond's chief stranglehold on everyone is proprietary file formats.
Look for the next version or so of MS Office executables to either show up as CLR assemblies, and, while not exactly hyped for such, run quite well on Mono.
Users get to run operating systems that don't suck, and maintain file-compatibility with those that insist on suction, and Redmond protects its revenue stream.
Novell's satanic pact ensures that the resulting beast is reasonably tested.

Re:Cool

[AJWM]

If no one violated these patents, then why pay for protection?

Follow the money. Microsoft ends up paying Novell a LOT more money on that deal than vice versa. The token royalty that Novell pays to Microsoft is a lot less than the money Microsoft paid to Novell. It was thrown in as a face-saving deal sweetener, which Microsoft spun a lot harder than Novell expected. Microsoft is really really good at PR spin.

Re:Cool

[AJWM]

Then why did Balmer verbally threaten all other Linux distros?

You're joking, right? Either that or this is an exception to the "there are no stupid questions" rule.

Could it be because Balmer is CEO of a company whose major OS competition (especially in the server market) comes from Linux? And that he'd do anything to spread FUD about it?

Even if that FUD doesn't cover Novell but only all the other Linux distros out there, it still (in Microsoft's view) helps reduce the competition from multiple targets to a single target. But that's all it is, FUD.

Re:Cool

[Burz]

"Lawsuits are seppuku."

When MS shareholders are crying bloody murder due to plummeting sales and ROI, lawsuits will be the "defensive" measure most likely to make MS executives seem they are acting responsibly. Lawsuits against independent Linux vendors (and promises of garnished "IP" revenues) will seem a fragrant oasis as far as business models are concerned.

Re:Cool

[T-Ranger]

I am not planning on getting in a car accident any time soon, but yet I have far more insurance then is required by law. Why would one do such a thing? And in the case of the Novell/Microsoft deal, Novell actually makes money! I would have all the insurance in the world if the insurance companies paid me.

Re:Cool

[myifolder]

Look Novell is working on products that will integrate better with MS and they may be using things what are indeed patented by MS. You all should really take a look at OES from Novell. It sites on SLES and is the replacement for Netware. So please think use your heads before you bash Novell. Business is business and they do allot for the Linux community regardless of what anyone wants to say. I will support them as long as I can see the fruits of there work in the products I use. If you want to bash any company bash Apple there where is iTurns for Linux? why is the ipod only windows and the mac? Hell all there products do not work on linux natively. So how many of you own an iPod?

Re:Cool

[stites]

"Novell's main business areas then and now are not SUSE incenses, but solutions for platform management and identity management. Both areas require a strong interoperability with Microsoft products, as most big companies have and will continue to have mixed environments. That's is the core of the deal: make possible a better integration between linux and Microsoft product. Just see the recent annoucement about a join laboratory."

Yes, Novell is presenting the main thrust of the deal as being interoperability. But another way of stating the same thing is "embrace, extend, and extinguish". Microsoft has focused on competing with Open Source. In typical Microsoft fashion competing with Open Source means destroying Open Source. Part of Microsoft's attack on Open Source is that Microsoft paid Novell to participate in a plan to embrace, extend, and extinguish Open Source. Open Source is a producers co-operative and Novell is a member of that co-operative. If this attack succeeds in destroying the Open Source co-operative then Novell will end up in the position of having no product to sell.

Open Source has no choice but to defend itself against Microsoft's attack. In particular we have to defeat the Microsoft-Novell agreement. If Novell insists on hugging Microsoft then Novell runs the danger of becoming collateral damage in the war between Microsoft and Open Source.

Since Novell is being paid to help Microsoft embrace, extend, and extinguish Open Source then all of Novell's actions become suspect. Novell actively campaigned for OOXML in the fight between ODF and OOXML. Novell tried to get one of their employees appointed as head of standards at the Linux Foundation. Novell is actively introducing Microsoft proprietary standards into Open Source code in the Mono project and the Xen project. And there is the major problem that the Microsoft-Novell agreement is an attempt to use Microsoft's patent portfolio as a bludgeon to impose a Microsoft tax on all of the other distributions starting with Red Hat as the first intended victim.

Novell has contributed a lot to Open Source. But since the Microsoft-Novell agreement we are forced to view every Novell action through the lens of scepticism. So it is with Novell's driver initiative. On the face of it that is a great idea and a valuable contribution by Novell to Open Source. Still, we can not blindly trust Novell to be acting in Open Source's best interest instead of carring out their embrace, extend, and extinguish obligations under the Microsoft-Novell agreement. So this announcement, like any Novell action, is met with a debate about whether Novell is acting for or against the best interests of Open Source.

----------------
Steve Stites

Re:Cool

[PingXao]

The best developer in the world working at 10x his normal pace can't do much at all if the hardware vendors don't pony up their specs. Wireless chipset vendors, for instance, generally refuse to release enough detail to write drivers. Having the backing of a company like Novell behind you may help.

If a device is designed to work under the umbrella of Microsoft DRM, however, you can count on the fact that detailed hardware specs will never be released to anyone who doesn't sign an NDA.

Re:Cool

[EveLibertine]

Yeah, but really, they just bought themselves a get out of lawsuit card. In the scenario where Microsoft starts looking for easy targets to point their lawyers at, previous to this agreement Novell would have been a prime candidate. Apparently it made sound business sense to someone at Novell to sign up to this agreement to avoid a long and lengthy series of court cases, especially since they get a good chunk of capital upfront from Microsoft. Granted there are various downsides to the agreement, but given the tough position Novell was in at the time, and faced with the threat of having to go through even more lawyering up, it does seem to place Novell in a much better position than what they could have been placed in had they not signed the agreement. Most people here seem to be peeved of mostly that Novell didn't call Microsoft's bluff on their patent holdings.

Now, Microsoft can pretend that this sets some sort of precedent, and though it may, it mostly certainly isn't a precedent in the legally binding kind of way. If I go out and convince someone to buy my squirrel insurance for twenty dollars a month, having that one schmuck that bought it might help me get more schmucks, but it most certainly does not provide me any sort of legal standing to sue any of the people that I couldn't dupe into buying my squirrel insurance.

Novell wasn't in the position to stand up to a Microsoft legal gauntlet at the time of the deal, so they bought their way out this time. And yes, there may come a time when Microsoft does finally stick to its guns and haul someone into court. But having an agreement that doesn't name specific patents isn't going to help them when it comes time to name those patents in the court case. Furthermore, I firmly believe that any lawsuit initiated by Microsoft over these mysterious patents wouldn't turn out so well in the end for Microsoft. It would be an opening of the floodgates that even mighty Microsoft should be afraid of.

Re:Cool

[segedunum]

Again, agree. Now, if you were the CEO of a billion dolar a year company as Novell and your customers were asking you to interoperate with MS products, what will you do?

Because that's not what they're asking for. They're asking for things to work and a completely viable alternative from someone who knows what they're doing. They're not demanding Microsoft interoperability at all, because we have all we're going to get in the open source world and it has to come off the bat of your own work. Why the hell do you think Microsoft is going to help a competitor to interoperate?

Do you really think that "throw away all your investment in IT and switch all you software to open source" would be welcome as an answer?

How do you think they came to be using Microsoft software in the first place? What they want is something that competes with Microsoft software, does a certain amount of interoperability to get the off Microsoft software, something that gives them a serious and full alternative and gives them something to think about. They're not looking for some company like Novell to be a wuss and start trying to run after Microsoft.

Re:Cool

[Ilgaz]

"this is marriage for convenience and unfortunately business are like this."

Microsoft's track record of "working with other companies" isn't very good. Imagine that company screwed up the mighty Big Blue, IBM on OS /2 ...

Novell is a joke compared to IBM but some people are way too naive or getting paid well to be naive. Or caring about their future contract opportunities.

Moonlight, lol.

Re:Cool

[ShieldW0lf]

If he started doing this on a volunteer basis back in Jan, and due to overwhelming community response many drivers got written, then wouldn't that mean that this project exists despite Novell? He'd happily do it for free, and was doing it for free, despite Novell paying him to do other stuff.

It's nice that buddy is being left to his own devices and getting funded. Good of Novell to fund this work. But it's not something "brought to you by Novell" like the headline says.

Re:Cool

[tomhudson]

I'm an *cough* old *cough* slackware fan myself, but like most of us, I've made the rounds. Slackware, Caldera (before they were evil), Corel, Mandrake, RedHat, and now Suse. As far as I'm concerned, whatever floats an individual's boat ...

When I have some spare time (and when Seagate takes their heads out of their collective rear ends and agrees to replace the two brand new drives that failed so I can set up my RAID1), I'll probably try out my complimentary copy of Solaris on a spare drive. Its always good to try alternatives.

I'm not worried about tivoization - as long as the source is available, I'm happy. If enough people get fed up with drm and other restrictions, they'll do something about it. Until then, if they don't want to squawk, or vote with their dollars and time, they get what they deserve, because ultimately, drm is a political, not technical, problem. Just my 2 cents.

Re:Cool

[tomhudson]

> "Then why did Balmer verbally threaten all other Linux distros?"

Because that's all he could do. When asked to name even ONE patent, he couldn't. Sort of like their now-dead sock puppet SCO.

Didn't work then, doesn't work now. Microsoft is the new BSD - its dying. But like a dinosaur, its going to take a long time for the message to get to the head. The rot is well in place, though.

Re:Cool

[pablochacin]

They're asking for things to work and a completely viable alternative from someone who knows what they're doing. They're not demanding Microsoft interoperability at all

Indeed? Well, I don't know to how many CIOs of large companies you have talked, but I have talked to some and ALL OF THEM are asking for that. Also look for instance at Gartner's or Forrester's research studies and they will say the same (and at the same time aknowledging that open source is growing in the big enterprises). Also take a look at the result of surveys in CIO magazine, you will probably change your mind . . . well if you are interested in understanding the complexities of real world decisions regarding IT investments.

Re:Cool

[pablochacin]

Microsoft paid Novell to participate in a plan to embrace, extend, and extinguish Open Source. Something that really surprises me about Open source advocates is that most seams not to understand the most important thing about it: open source is not a single entity, it is a collective or, more precisely, a "network army" and therefore the tactics used by microsoft to attack former rival (Novell among them) are hardly been effective.

I'm not saying they will not try neither than there is no serious risk, but I think Open Source community should realize that the tactics needed here are different and that is VEYY dangerous to enter in Microsoft's game of spreading FUD.

Re:Cool

[segedunum]

Indeed? Well, I don't know to how many CIOs of large companies you have talked, but I have talked to some and ALL OF THEM are asking for that.

That's because you're doing what men do with women. You believe what they actually say, when in reality you should be looking at what they're actually doing and asking yourself why. Interoperability with Microsoft software is impossible to give Novell what they need, and Microsoft are not going to help them. There is no interoperability at all coming out of that deal.

Also look for instance at Gartner's or Forrester's research studies and they will say the same

Gartner and Forrester eh? Well, if you have your own company you should really be basing your company strategy off them.

Re:Cool

[pablochacin]

You believe what they actually say, when in reality you should be looking at what they're actually doing and asking yourself why Have you done so? I guess again the answer is no, you haven't. It seams to me that you are just saying what other people says that CIOs said.

With respect of Gartner and Forrester, sorry, I didn't catch what you mean. Some think they are too Microsoft friendly, but reallity is that they help me a lot to convince CIOs to use open source.

Good to hear - as long as they stay clean..

[cheros]

On one side I'm happy to hear of this effort, OTOH I'm concerned that this is one of the vendors with an alliance to a multiple convictions monopolist.

As drivers are pretty much kernel level activities I would like to see assurances that such development is clean and cannot be used to manufacture truth behind the nebulous IP infringement claims which have stopped in countries where you can't make such statements without having to prove it (which says IMHO a lot in itself).

So, IMHO the news deserves a welcome with caution..

Re:Good to hear - as long as they stay clean..

[QuantumG]

I bet employees of Novell will read your post and shake their heads.. maybe mutter the word "Slashdot" with an explicative prefixed.

But this is what your management has done to your brand. Congratulations.

Re:Good to hear - as long as they stay clean..

[moranar]

Nitpick: expletive, not explicative. Now you know :)

Re:Good to hear - as long as they stay clean..

[W2k]

I bet employees of Novell will read your post and shake their heads.. maybe mutter the word "Slashdot" with an explicative prefixed.

And they would be right. The enormous and irrational bias on /. against anything even remotely affiliated with Microsoft is pathetic and reflects very poorly on the people of the free/open software community. Although I expect most of the complainers have never actually written a line of open source code.

Re:Good to hear - as long as they stay clean..

[QuantumG]

It's not just here man. Microsoft is poison. Everyone knows that. You get in bed with them and you might as well kiss your business goodbye, if not your entire part of the industry.

Novell should have known this better than most.

Re:Good to hear - as long as they stay clean..

[apokryphos]

> But this is what your management has done to your brand. Congratulations.

No, it's what those few very-vocal poisonous people in the OSS community have done. Instead of praising one of the biggest contributors to open-source-software ever (and probably the biggest company in the world contributing to the Linux desktop), they spread FUD around.

I don't like MS more than the next guy, but if people didn't have such an incredible irrational hatred towards anything with the word "MS", and think that anything involving money necessitates some sort of "selling out" (when reality indicates the contrary), they'd see it's more than possible to have a good deal with a bad company, that it happens in business all the time, and that this is a perfect example of it.

Re:Good to hear - as long as they stay clean..

[apokryphos]

To be honest, when exactly are these promises of collateral damage going to happen? It's been quite a while now since the deal, and I'm still waiting for the earth to end. All we've had is some vocal people spreading FUD about "they're so bad, they're so bad", when every single fact about their contribution to OSS in the past and now points in the exact opposite direction.

Re:Good to hear - as long as they stay clean..

[Maelwryth]

"On one side I'm happy to hear of this effort, OTOH I'm concerned that this is one of the vendors with an alliance to a multiple convictions monopolist."

I take it you only use that logic when you want to. Otherwise, what country would you live in?

Re:Good to hear - as long as they stay clean..

[Kjella]

it's more than possible to have a good deal with a bad company,

Sure, everyhing is great at first. I think you missed the part of the movie where the devil comes to collect on his dues.

Do you honestly think that Microsoft did any of this to propel Novell and Linux into market dominance? There's nothing in Novell a company with 40bn couldn't buy outright or develop on their own, so what are they really after? Whether it's to turn them to the dark side, set them up to be the fall guy or their source of FUD, but it's not to be the patron saint of Novell. I expect that as the end of the deal approaches we'll see a ton of FUD, increased license fees and whatnot.

Re:Good to hear - as long as they stay clean..

[nut]

You're right to be worried about it. I vote cheros reads the code to make sure it doesn't happen.

Re:Good to hear - as long as they stay clean..

[homer_s]

but if people didn't have such an incredible irrational hatred towards anything with the word "MS"

I agree that there is a lot of hatred for MS here, but you make it sound like MS did not earn some of it.
Calling Linux a virus, calling people who support linux communists, funding SCO, lobbying politicos in Boston - they've done their share to earn this hatred.

Re:Good to hear - as long as they stay clean..

[sensei moreh]

The enormous and irrational bias on /. against anything even remotely affiliated with Microsoft is pathetic and reflects very poorly on the people of the free/open software community. I've written a few lines of open source code, and I've bashed Microsoft on occasion, but as a Microsoft stockholder, I feel it is my duty to speak up when the company I own a(n infinitesimal piece of) does something illegal/immoral.

Re:Good to hear - as long as they stay clean..

[marcello_dl]

> It's been quite a while now since the deal...

IIRC Microsoft issued statements about patents on FAT FS years after its adoption for flash media. Calm waters now mean nothing. Like Novell working on drivers does not mean they are up to something. Anyway if I could have everything under GPLv3 I'd feel better.

Re:Good to hear - as long as they stay clean..

[OriginalArlen]

The enormous and irrational bias on /. against anything even remotely affiliated with Microsoft is pathetic and reflects very poorly on the people of the free/open software community. What, pray tell, is irrational about distrusting a corporation that would like to drive Free software out of existence?

Re:Good to hear - as long as they stay clean..

[W2k]

Thank you Sir, for proving my point. Your post stands as a genuine example of irrational /. anti-Microsoft fanaticism.

Re:Good to hear - as long as they stay clean..

[Per Wigren]

Except that he wasn't irrational. You, Sir, need to read some modern history.

Re:Good to hear - as long as they stay clean..

[MobyDisk]

I agree that there is an anti-Microsoft bias, but I think it is duly appropriate with respect to Novell.

I am 98% a Windows user. I have Microsoft certifications, own an MSDN license, and use it and develop on it. But I have an interest in other OS's: There's an aging Linux partition on my system and a Mac on my wife's desktop. I'm not Microsoft hater, nor an apologist. But the Novell-Microsoft deal outrages me. Novell signs a cross-licensing deal, then claims that they don't infringe on any of Microsoft's patents. Then they claim that they are going to make their Linux more Microsoft friendly, which implies that they will put Microsoft patents into open-source Linux. It's like each sentence that comes from the collective mouth of Novell conflicts with the previous, and the next. All appearances imply that Novell is going to try and poison Linux and try to remain the only one standing because of the patent deal. And Microsoft is using Novell to spread FUD. Even if I have the exact plan wrong, something sinister is going on here.

There's a real reason to hate Novell these days. Maybe even a good explanation of what they are trying to accomplish would change my mind. But for now, I'm avoiding Novell.

Re:Good to hear - as long as they stay clean..

[pembo13]

Experience

Re:Good to hear - as long as they stay clean..

[Ant P.]

Although I expect most of the complainers have never actually written a line of open source code. In that case I'm part of the minority. I've got plenty of reason to despise Microsoft -- I write web apps.

Success Stories?

[lordofthechia]

Just curious, but where is the list touting the manufacturers that stepped forward and provided documentation (and consequently which new hardware is supported). Be nice to see what progress this campaign has made and is continuing to make.

Also it would be nice to get a list going of which hardware I should look forward to.

Re:Success Stories?

[cheater512]

Sorry, The NDA has forbidden the release of manufacturer names. :)

Re:Success Stories?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just curious, but where is the list touting the manufacturers that stepped forward and provided documentation (and consequently which new hardware is supported). Be nice to see what progress this campaign has made and is continuing to make.

Here's one:
http://arstechnica.com/journals/linux.ars/2007/09/21/amdati-release-register-specifications-novell-follows-with-alpha-driver

Re:Success Stories?

[Burz]

Linux hardware support will never achieve that semblance of near-perfect support that Windows has. That, in addition to the fact that Linux driver availability is already rather good.

I think it would be much more benefit to the community just maintaining an HCL people can use while they're shopping for hardware. That there is no such easily accessible list available tell me there is something wrong with the way Linux development relates to average PC users.

Re:Success Stories?

[lordofthechia]

I think it would be much more benefit to the community just maintaining an HCL Thank you, that is what I was actually hinting at. For example, I recently wanted to purchase a new scanner, I spent hours upon hours looking for a scanner that was still available in stores and that was fully supported under Linux. I found lots with great support, but were discontinued a few years ago, some that were current but with some support (limited to lower res scanning), some were recent models, but with proprietary support (which would have been great, *except* it wasn't full support), then some with great support that were way out of my price range (Like 3x more expensive than the $150-180 I was looking to spend).

A HCL would do good to list the suggested retail of the product and the date it was brought to market (in addition to the obvious level of support and type (Proprietary vs open drivers). Heck, I wouldn't see anything wrong with the site providing a buy it now link for the item (thus providing some revenue). That would have saved me countless hours (and I still dont' have a scanner...)

To those who criticise those who criticise Tom Tom

[anagama]

Here is an example of a for profit company giving something back. Novell may not be on everyone's favorite list, but there are plenty of companies that actually see the potential for profit by doing things that are helpful. I was personally annoyed at how 9/10 posts in the TomTom thread were simply "they make more money by not being good citizens" posts, and yet those posters intentionally ignored how doing good things can lead to a stronger bottom line, even if the path is not as direct, by building community interest. Anyway, I'm going to make it a point to shun penny wise and pound foolish companies here on out. Start flaming.

Re:Does that mean we can nominate any device?

[QuantumG]

The project is for developing drivers with manufacturer support. So if you can get the manufacturer of your favourite device to work with the developers then, sure, you can 'nominate' that device.

Timing

[Neuticle]

What with so many people disgusted with Vista compatibility issues, there is a real opportunity here.

Heck, even when people "downgrade" (upgrade?) to XP, I've heard there can be missing or broken driver issues with some new hardware. Companies figured they would only write Vista drivers for certain new parts.

Linux has made many advances in "average Joe" usability. Combine that with hardware compatibility so good that Linux "works out of the box" BETTER than windows, and Windows starts to look a lot less like it's worth all that money. This could be huge for "mainstream" users.

Here's hoping that the next computer my Grandmother gets is windows free.

Re:Timing

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Its just one guy.

Re:Timing

[sumdumass]

You know, the time for thinking like that was back when Vista was just rolling out and all the press about it wasn't favorable. When people and companies think about having to upgrade and do all the training and all that would be necessary to switch to vista successfully, they saw that they could switch to linux with about the same cost and be free of MS's tactics. Vista coming to the market took all those "windows is cheaper" TCO studies and tossed out the parts benefiting Microsoft's OSes and put linux on a level playing field as far as training people to use it and getting things going.

Instead, we, well, I think I should say some people, decided to create a FUD Fest with Novell in order to give MS all the ammo they needed to say, "do you really want to goto some as unstable as that?" "They are attacking their own kind just because we tried to make it easier to use their stuff". And of course a lot of potential switchers said hell no give another round of shit Mr Gates.

It would be nice if we could sweep that stuff under the rug and act like it never happened. But I have a feeling that we will need to wait until MS starts forcing people out of XP by either deactivating it or refusing to activate it after a reload. For now, I think we have scared too many people who would actually look at it away. And for all those who wouldn't know about the MS-FSF-Novell FUD campaigns, they wouldn't be switching anyways. It would be the smart people/companies who would look into things and eventually see that who would be switching. I'm afraid we have missed the boat and are pretending to be on the cruise at this point.

Re:Timing

[kyofunikushimi]

here's hoping your grandmother gets at least one more computer.

Re:Timing

[sumdumass]

All they have to do is invalidate the copy with WGA, claim that you need to deal with your OEM or buy a new license from them at retail. If your OEM is still in business and if they are still an MS OEM, and IF they can get new license keys, you should be fine. But there are a lot of what if's in there. I already have had 3 desktops at various locations up and claim the software is pirated after 3 years or no problems. Of course I have copies of all the invoices and could pin down who and where I got the software from so after a couple of 20 minute phone calls they gave me a new key and fedex'd a new COA. But the entire time this was going on it would flash stuff at startup claiming that you have pirated software and need to buy a new copy with excuses and reasons from everything about the OEM being shady to sloppy repair techs using the wrong CD to fix your computer. It gave nothing about contacting the OEM or anything. I had to call and threaten to sue before MS even told me.

If the OEM ends support for it, there is basically nothing that could be done outside a hack. If MS hits 5% of their market per month over 2 or 3 years, they would basically have everyone switched. All MS has to do is show that the license Key has been used on more then one computer and you need to get a new valid license which would be within the EULA you agree to when installing the software. They could survive a lawsuit and probably make anyone looking to fight it appear like a thief or a victim of a thief and thereby shedding the negetivity from themselves.

Novell always supports opensource

[jsse]

Novell always hires GPL developers on part-time basis for developing small Linux projects which are eventually release with GPL licenses (because they're developed with GPL software anyway). Many freelance GPL developers here (China and Hong Kong) support their living by taking these jobs.

So it isn't much a news at all. Anyway, gratz Greg. ^_^

Re:Does that mean we can nominate any device?

[shanen]

Well, Sharp is a fairly big operation, but I haven't detected much interest from them in terms of supporting Linux on their larger computers. I don't know if that's because of their limited English capabilities, or just the speed with which new models enter and leave the market. I'm pretty sure the WA-70 model is already out of production.

Actually, the main problem with the current installation is that the network interface doesn't initialize when the machine first boots, so I need to deactivate it and then activate it again (sometimes several times) before it connects to the network. My current repair plan is to wait and see if the major upgrade next month does any good for the machine...

On the other hand, if it is a language problem, my Japanese is possibly good enough that I could help interface to someone here in Japan--but not so good that I want to spend a lot of time wandering around Sharp trying to find someone to interface to.

Re:I'm not complaining about /.'s ad policy, but..

[speaker of the truth]

I don't know. I don't have an ad-blocker, I do, however, have NoScript on and I don't allow offsite scripts to run on a site (unless I can see its for very important functional reasons). There's no reason except laziness to not host the ads locally (or parse it into the page in perl (?)) or to try to give someone cookies to track them with. So unfortunately for slashdot, I no longer see its ads.

Re:To those who criticise those who criticise Tom

[suv4x4]

Novell may not be on everyone's favorite list

You don't say :) (check my sig)

Seriously though, your perception of people's perception of Novell is skewed, since you're on Slashdot. Over here Novell is related to Microsoft, and hence causes knee jerk reactions by most of the commenters.

Novell isn't attracting so much negative feedback out of here.

To me, driver problems in Linux are much lesser

[blind biker]

..nowadays than just 3 years ago. However, I don't have any particularly egzotic hardware, or need for top-speed from my graphic card (you can tell I am not into 3D gaming).

However, where I do feel the pain is, when Linux doesn't recognize my soundchip. That drives me bonkers, and it's still a running concern. I guess Linux users are not into music that much. I just tried booting the newest Xubuntu live CD, and my otherwise puny soundchip wasn't detected. (worked fine on the laptop, though, so it's hit and miss) I hope Novell's efforts will bring at least a small improvement in this area.

Re:To me, driver problems in Linux are much lesser

[kiddygrinder]

That's pretty uncommon actually, as there's only like 4 major chipsets for sound. what chipset is it?

Re:To me, driver problems in Linux are much lesser

[sumdumass]

You probably don't have a sound chip. You likely have a DSP and a piece of software that runs as a sound device on your computer. Most on board sounds chips are like this. Most of them have fixes and ways to make them work but I have found that changes in the DSP itself has caused stuff to be misidentified and end up not working because of it. I think the older AC97 devices had this issue with ALSA for some time. I wouldn't surprise me if something hasn't happened again along this pattern.

DSP, or "digital signal processor" might be the wrong term for it. But the idea is that the software is basically a sound card and the chip only takes the information from a digital level and placed it in an analog output that your speakers can use. If you want a real sound chip, something like an older sound blaster, turtle beach and so on would offer real sound. I used to hate older slow computers with little memory and those types of chips (DSP). Playing sounds or music could drag that damn thing to a halt almost.

Re:To me, driver problems in Linux are much lesser

[TeknoHog]

However, where I do feel the pain is, when Linux doesn't recognize my soundchip. That drives me bonkers, and it's still a running concern. I guess Linux users are not into music that much. I just tried booting the newest Xubuntu live CD, and my otherwise puny soundchip wasn't detected. (worked fine on the laptop, though, so it's hit and miss) I hope Novell's efforts will bring at least a small improvement in this area.

I use Linux for making music. As with any hardware/OS combination, if you intend to use Linux, you should do your homework on supported devices. That way you'll also encourage further Linux-friendly hardware development.

Re:To me, driver problems in Linux are much lesser

[TeknoHog]

You probably don't have a sound chip. You likely have a DSP and a piece of software that runs as a sound device on your computer..... But the idea is that the software is basically a sound card and the chip only takes the information from a digital level and placed it in an analog output that your speakers can use. If you want a real sound chip, something like an older sound blaster, turtle beach and so on would offer real sound. I used to hate older slow computers with little memory and those types of chips (DSP). Playing sounds or music could drag that damn thing to a halt almost.

WTF? This is how things have developed, and IMHO it's good. Old soundcards did things like FM synth in hardware, now we have enough oomph for doing it in software, which is much more flexible. I mean, imagine you used soundcard hardware for playing MP3s, you'd have to buy a new card for playing Vorbis. It's also good unix philosophy to separate the DAC/ADC from DSP and other processing. Then you can focus on building simple high-quality devices, rather than crap with bazillions of features.

Re:To me, driver problems in Linux are much lesser

[sumdumass]

No, you could still do new things in software. Just because it is in hardware doesn't mean it is locked there forever. It just mean that a driver update or a software installation of some media player or something.

And no, I see this as the same half a modem when you have to use your computer to do the functions of the modem. If you buy a device, you should at least expect it to be a complete device. Not to depend on the system processor and memory that you install on your own. IT seems like we are getting ripped off when they are marketing half the hardware as the complete product. If you like it, fine. But that is why there are problem getting it to work. I really don't know what else to say except but the engine with your car if you expect to drive anywhere you want.

Re:To me, driver problems in Linux are much lesser

[Maelwryth]

"However, where I do feel the pain is, when Linux doesn't recognize my soundchip."

I don't think I have ever had windows recognise my soundchip. With Linux (opensuse, ubuntu, slackware) all I have had to do was put the chip type into google with the distro name and follow the instructions.

Re:To me, driver problems in Linux are much lesser

[Almahtar]

I guess Linux users are not into music that much. Odd. I would be pretty unhappy with an OS that didn't recognize my soundcard. I will not accept an OS I can't listen to music with. I'm used to Windows not recognizing my stuff until I've installed the right drivers, but I've never had Linux miss the mark with my sound card (and I've used it since 1999). What chipset are you using?

And why do you hate freedom? (Ok, that was oblig, sorry)

Re:To me, driver problems in Linux are much lesser

[TeknoHog]

I agree with the basic idea in the modem analogy, but IMHO the problem with these modems is that they're tied to Windows. Openly specced softmodems do exist, I think they're fine. For one thing, they help save manufacturing resources. On the other hand, graphics cards are justified to have dedicated processors, and even with powerful CPUs there would be interconnect bottlenecks.

Sound cards don't seem to have these problems of CPU-intensive work or transfer bottlenecks. Plus, there are so many ways of processing sounds that there's little point in a specialiced DSP for a few of them.

Somehow I like having dedicated hardware, but when you look at the whole objectively, the advantages are not so obvious. For example driver issues, when you have all kinds of weird data going to the soundcard, rather than just raw PCM sound.

Re:To me, driver problems in Linux are much lesser

[Bert64]

I have the opposite issue...
I have a not exactly ancient soundblaster pci128 card, and 64bit windows fails to detect it at all, and there's no drivers available that i could find.
Linux on the other hand, picks it up by default.

Re:Ths bit sounds fishy...

[Anonymous Coward]

You clearly don't understand; the group are saying that they'll happily keep the hardware documentation top-secret, but that the source code for the resulting driver must be GPL2. There is no threat of being locked out, the driver is fully open.

This is a very good thing, but I expect the real benefits will be on server hardware, not consumer devices.

Re:Does that mean we can nominate any device?

[sumdumass]

Are you sure that the network device doesn't need some other device to load first. I have seen that when using windows .dll files though wine. The network init scripts fail to control the NIC until after the .dll files are loaded. In that case, there is some tricks that could be done to the boot process to ensure the correct files are loaded first.

I'm not familiar with Ubuntu enough to explain what and where. But I'm sure others have had the same problems/if this is true. The concept is the same for most versions of linux. Just a little different in the config files. In my case, I had to ad entries to the files in /etc/rc.d and /etc/?? I don't remeber the second place.

You might be able to check that route and find a solution on the interweb if not in a ubuntu forum somewhere.

In fact, I am surprised that more distros are ....

[WindBourne]

throwing money at this. Get the drivers and perhaps a few more apps written, and Linux has opportunities. This would be a very good time for redhat and ubuntu to hire a few coders for this team and perhaps devote 1-2 marketing ppl to encourage companies to give them work to do. The apps is a bit tougher but doable. In particular, try to encourage TurboTax to port, or develop a new version. I would work with large home apps.

Re:I'm not complaining about /.'s ad policy, but..

[speaker of the truth]

probably for easier upgradeability from their side Even if that's true (and IMO the real reason is cookies, Google is infamous for them with their ads) its pure laziness to require it.

Re:Ths bit sounds fishy...

[darthflo]

Sorry to say this so harshly, but:
Fuck the spirit of the fucking GPL. Everybody's always talking about the Evil Windows Tax and how Linux would take the world in a matter of seconds if driver support was better. And you know what? It's not gonna fucking happen as long as this permanent whine about "violating the spirit of the GPL" and "evilness of binary drivers" persists. If I understand this right, free software is about being free as in freedom. Freedom of choice, freedom of speech, freedom of releasing motherfucking binary drivers. For whatever reason, be it architecture secrets, ugly code or pure notwantingness, some manufacturers don't and will not release open drivers.

Suggestion: If you don't like binary drivers, whatever the Linux Driver Project does or Transsexual Midget Porn, ignore it. Stick to Gobuntu or any other exclusively free software distro and be happy about it, but please let the rest of the world have fun with fast, manufacturer-supported unfree binary hunks that let 'em use their hardware.

r200/ati

[phorm]

I'm not sure exactly what this references, but if it's anything like my experience (hp laptop with mobile chipset based on R200) it was the sinking reality that - if ATI windows drivers were bad - ATI linux drivers were *really* bad.

However, there's been a fairly noticeable improvement in ATI drivers since the AMD merger, which might coincide nicely with the fact that I noticed AMD posting linux-development jobs when I was checking various job boards. Overally, the trinity isn't bad. Intel is good at providing specs and getting nice drivers out there (and card performance is doing better in the i9xx series), NVidia has generally been decent for drivers, and ATI is not too bad either now. You can grouse that they're not open-source, and yes in some cases buggy, but over time I've seen a lot of improvement in this area.

Re:r200/ati

[AJWM]

if ATI windows drivers were bad - ATI linux drivers were *really* bad.

On the other hand, the free drivers for R200 on Linux are pretty darn good. I get about 30 fps in Flightgear FlightSim with all the effects (haze, lighting, etc) turned on. (glxgears gives 1560 fps, pulsar about 83 fps).

(For those wondering about the significance of R200, that's the last chipset for which ATI released specs before going into proprietary secrets mode, up until AMD's acquisition and recent release of R500/R600 specs. The ATI 9250 is the highest model number based on the R200 chip.)

Re:r200/ati

[LWATCDR]

I wish that some where there was a review site for the ATI Linux drivers and cards.
I shopping for a new card and would like to get one of the ATI cards but I have no idea how good the current drivers are.
Nvidia is the safe bet for Linux but I don't want to rule out ATI.

Re:r200/ati

[Sterling Christensen]

The review site you wished for: www.phoronix.com

What sound chip?

[phorm]

Look up my webpage and use the link there to mail me with the description of your chip. (you can do an "lspci" to find out).

The only one I've found to be a bit annoying lately as far as your standard with-board fare are some of the Intel HD Audio chips (82801G or 82810G, something like that) , and I just managed to get that working tonight. While I have this nagging suspicion you might have a similar chipset (it's fairly common), I might be able to help with others as well.

Re:What sound chip?

[Ant P.]

He might have a Creative sound card, who from what I've read recently are worse than even the old ATi.

Still not the Right(TM) way

[temcat]

As much as I applaud the driver initiative by GregKH, this development approach is flawed, because a handful of developers has neither the throughput nor the expertise needed to write high-quality drivers for the great many devices of vastly different kinds that are released every day. The people who made a device know its ins and outs better than a kernel developer, because that's what they specialize in; they can squeeze more performance out of it. Therefore, drivers should be developed by the manufacturer of the device in consultation with kernel developers, not vice versa.

Still, even this kind of collaboration on the manufacturers' part is better than pretending that Linux doesn't exist at all.

Re:Still not the Right(TM) way

[JonJ]

But the people that made the hardware might suck royally at actually writing a driver. This is why this project aims to give better communication between hardware manufacturers and kernel hackers.

Re:Still not the Right(TM) way

[Eivind Eklund]

Having worked both directly with hardware developers (as an embedded systems developer) and with kernel development, this is not quite that clear to me. In some cases, the hardware knowledge side is the most important; in others, the kernel side. Mostly, the kernel side of things is harder to learn than the hardware side, though, so the kernel development skills is the important side. Also, kernel developers often have more experience with working with different kinds of hardware, so they will know how to trick around the particular piece.

And, importantly: For a LOT of the hardware on the market, what's important is the chipset used, not wiring around it. And the "hardware manufacturer" has often only done the wiring.

Eivind.

Re:Still not the Right(TM) way

[Kjella]

Sure, hardware manufacturers should produce drivers for developers. And developers should produce applications for users. *snaps whip* You know better how to program than me, so get to it.

If the manufacturers want to produce their own driver, that's great. If they don't I don't see why they should "have to" any more than a developer should "have to" implement my pet feature, just because they'd be better at it.

It would after all be rather hypocritical if the community famous for "If you want something, write it yourself" couldn't take a bit of "if you want drivers, write them yourself". That's right, you don't only get to do the cool and flashy stuff but also the dirty work everybody takes as granted that should work.

Re:Still not the Right(TM) way

[swillden]

The people who made a device know its ins and outs better than a kernel developer, because that's what they specialize in; they can squeeze more performance out of it.

I'll take a not-very-wild guess and say that you've never (a) written a device driver or (b) fixed a device driver written by the device manufacturer.

I've done both (though not for Linux), and my experience is that manufacturers write lousy device drivers, and that they don't really know how their hardware works. Manufacturers know a lot about how their hardware should work, but just like with software, design is one thing and implementation is another. Devices almost always have little bugs, things that don't work quite the way the designer expected them to, and it's pretty common for the bulk of a device driver to be code written specifically to work around these hardware bugs.

This means that the manufacturer doesn't have as much of a leg up on other potential driver writers as you might expect -- no matter who writes the driver the most important factors determining the driver quality are the amount of time invested in testing and tweaking and the quality of the code. In my experience, manufacturers often don't spend enough time testing their drivers and the quality of the code is usually very poor. At least with the manufacturers I worked with (primarily ethernet chipsets), they tended to assign a hardware engineer or two to write drivers on a part-time basis. EEs, like physicists and mathematicians, don't generally write good code because they haven't been indoctrinated with the importance of writing clean, well-structured, maintainable code and writing code isn't a large enough part of their professional life that they learn these lessons themselves.

On top of that, for most device APIs and operating systems, the OS is far more complex than the device, and the driver writer at the manufacturer generally has to support multiple OSes, which usually means that he doesn't understand any of them very well. I suppose the ideal situation would be a team consisting of a EE from the mfg who is intimately familiar with the hardware and an experienced programmer who is intimately familiar with the target OS working together to build and thoroughly test a driver. That pretty much never happens, though, and if you have to lose one of the two members of that team, lose the EE because given reasonable documentation and a bit more time, the programmer can work out the best way to manage the device effectively.

Re:Still not the Right(TM) way

[AJWM]

For a LOT of the hardware on the market, what's important is the chipset used, not wiring around it. And the "hardware manufacturer" has often only done the wiring.

Very true. Many, many of the gadgets and cards out there are basically built around the chip manufacturer's reference implementation circuit from the data sheet, with only minor variations. This is especially true of the cheaper brands or relabeled house brands. It doesn't take much of an engineering team to put together a circuit board design from a reference circuit and have the production of that outsourced.

Re:Still not the Right(TM) way

[amolapacificapaloma]

And, importantly: For a LOT of the hardware on the market, what's important is the chipset used, not wiring around it. And the "hardware manufacturer" has often only done the wiring.

And that's real reason why most of them (hardware manufacturers) don't want to release free drivers for their devices. They know that the other manufacturers working with the same chipset will be able to use it for free in their competing products... and they don't like that.

Microsoft reaps the reputation that it sows

[Anonymous Coward]

The enormous and irrational bias on /. against anything even remotely affiliated with Microsoft is pathetic

I'm not anybody's fanboy, and that includes Linux, Unix or anything else, because I'm an engineer and I rate things on merit.

Yet I have great difficulty finding any sympathy for what you wrote, when Microsoft seems at every turn to do its darndest to spew its worst at the FOSS community, with its only concern being what's immediately good for Microsoft. You might find your arguments gather more support if you could present example cases of MS doing good in the open arena, yet even one single clear case is hard to find. Everything they do seems to have unfortunate dark corners.

I suspect that the problem is that the left hand in MS doesn't know what the right hand is doing, and the anti-openness factions there destroy any good work that others do. Well unfortunately that then creates the stigma you see, and it's not irrational as you claim but deserved.

Microsoft gets good press when it does good. For instance, WinXP became quite a good product, and really solid when used correctly and when apps like MSIE are avoided. The company earned volumes of kudos because of that, even on Slashdot, because it was deserved.

Actual merit is important for reputation, and you seem to forget that fundamental principle. Microsoft will have to earn a better reputation if it is to get one.

Wireless drivers!!!

[phorm]

How many poor laptops out there that are forced to use ndiswrapper to deal with those annoying broadcomm based chips? I know I'm one of them, and unfortunately my hardware (HP pavillion zd7000) locks me to the vendor-allowed chipsets and thus gets really pissy if I put a decent card like an Intel IPW2200 in here.

Re:Wireless drivers!!!

[JoshJ]

I've got a zd8000. It's irritating how wireless doesn't work, but I've just decided to accept that and plug into the wall. I haven't even considered swapping out the chipset because it's not really a big deal.

Re:Wireless drivers!!!

[domatic]

You can't disable this device in the BIOS? I had built-in wireless go cuckoo in a laptop and once I disabled in BIOS and removed the XP drivers, the replacement card started working. Any chance that the true problem may be your Linux drivers for the CardBus?

Re:Wireless drivers!!!

[Tatsh]

Hack it up. Worked for me (I have hp dv5000).

http://www.richud.com/HP-Pavilion-104-Bios-Fix/

Re:Wireless drivers!!!

[phorm]

What chipset? If it's another broadcomm then NDISwrapper should still do the job...

Re:I'm not complaining about /.'s ad policy, but..

[ajs318]

Because you have misconfigured your advertisement-blocker. Now, move back six spaces and miss a turn.

NovellSoft?

[Mystic Silverfox]

O.K., this is a belated post, but none the less... am I the only one who thinks it's odd that not so long ago Novell cowed to MicroS**ts bullying and inked a deal? And now they assign ONE worker to help develop drivers to make Linux more compatible with more devices? What good would it be if somehow they design it in such a way that it's only compatible with Novell's distro? Sorry, but even if I am way off, Novell has lost ALL credibility with me.

Re:NovellSoft?

[allcar]

Give them a break. It's like raising kids. When they do something bad, make them sit on the naughty chair. When they do something good (like this), praise them. As long as they are bound by the GPL, they can't do anything bad to the Kernel.

Re:Does that mean we can nominate any device?

[killmofasta]

Does any one see the connection?

Novell Makes Linux Driver Project a Reality?
AMD Releases Register Specs For R5xx And R6xx?

Does this mean that the "Novell have released a first alpha quality Open Source drivers"
will go to beta, and then GM?

The combination of these two ideas, only two days apart.
I would *LOVE* to see 2D acceleration on my X1300 in Linux.
That would be so cool!

Great idea -- FOSS-friendly promotion wiki

[Morgaine]

> where is the list touting the manufacturers that stepped forward and provided documentation

That's an excellent idea. A simple wiki page would suffice, providing links to each manufacturer, their open docs page, and their sources page, if any. Use a wiki so that people can add their own entries, and so that the admin can revert abuse easily.

As the list grows, people would start looking there before buying equipment, and to not be listed on it would become a problem for manufacturers by giving their competitors a boost. Don't list manufacturers who don't offer this, as listing them in red might get their lawyers agitated. Omitting them is enough.

Oh, and provide links below it to one or two products produced by each of these friendly manufacturers ... ie. free advertising. They rub our backs, we rub theirs.

Re:Great idea -- FOSS-friendly promotion wiki

[stu42j]

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.

Comparing apples and oranges

[mce]

Of course there is plenty potential for profit by doing things that are helpful. But you are comparing apples and oranges. Novell is helping Linux development for free, because Linux actually also is a Novell product that helps them sell a lot of other stuff in their "natural home market". TomTom sells to end-users, most of whom couldn't care less about Linux. Hell, TomTom developers could even he actively belping Linux kernel development, without it impacting the company's sales (I've seen this happen in my own company). I personally always refuse to buy computer-related goodies that do not work with Linux, but you need to look at it from the company's point of view: suporting Linux users will inevitably cost them something and if that is not compensated by extra income, be it from sales or goodwill, it makes perfect business sense for them not to do it. That's irrespective of how much us zealots would want things to be done differently.

Documentation

[Nikademus]

Also make sure they disclose documentation so that _all_ free OSes can have free drivers, not just linux.

Re:Documentation

[mr_flea]

Disclosing the documentation is probably exactly what the hardware manufacturers don't want. However, if they open source the drivers, then they could work with driver compatibility layers with ease, such as the one Haiku has.

Re:Documentation

[Nikademus]

So, do you prefer having "Open Source" drivers either linked to proprietary code either full of binary magic? Or real free OpenSource drivers? The last one being only available when documentation is available.

Re:Documentation

[mr_flea]

Binary drivers and proprietary code are better than no drivers.

Re:Ths bit sounds fishy...

[00_NOP]

Exceot that once you have released a driver under GPL v2, then anyone can hack it to remove the DRM check. Tivo-isation is about how the hardware behaves, not the software.

Hope it works out better than Hula

[horza]

I was really excited about the Hula project, it looked to be a very promising email/calendar server. Then Novell jumped into bed with Microsoft and promptly abandoned it. Very disappointing. I haven't much confidence this scheme isn't going to be abandoned half way through either. The great thing about the GPL is that at least any work that IS done will be forked and continued if any good. For example with Hula becoming Bongo.

Phillip.

Re:Hope it works out better than Hula

[mjorkerina]

They dumped Hula because it was not going to go anywhere anytime soon and was just not worth it, nothing to do with the MS deal.

Re:I'm not complaining about /.'s ad policy, but..

[ajs318]

Well, I block all advertisements on general principle, and I am very aggressive about it. I don't go on the Internet without my faithful Squid proxy server, and I don't watch television without the aid of Sky Plus.

And if an advert slips through, I make a resolution never, ever to buy that product. I'm fussy what I do with my hard-earned, and I don't want any part of it spent on thrusting tacky images in people's faces instead of making a better product.

That's a lot of dough they're throwing at it

[empaler]

A high-ranking developer such as him probably commands a very high salary, and for a reason. With 100 part-time developers under him that he can subdivide as he sees fit, it should play out interestingly.

re your sig (int64.org - When 4GiB of RAM just isn't enough.)
Isn't the limit a little bit less than 4 gigs on 32 bit? (ot is it only MS OSes that have that odd limit)

Is it the year of Linux at last?

[squoozer]

I've been using one flavour of Linux or another for years now and every few months someone says "this is the year of Linux" or some such and everytime we see a decent improvement but nothing like the improvement that would be needed to really cement Linux's position.

I'm starting to wonder, however, if we have actually finally turned the corner. Dell with Linux PCs, AMD / ATI promising open source drivers now this announcement as well as a myriad of others. This is starting to sound like the last few big companies holding out are finally thinking there is something worth looking at with Linux. Ok, it's still small time compared to Windows support but it's a fine start.

Perhaps it won't happen this year but I could see Linux making some good growth in late 2008 through 2009

The only thing we need now is one desktop environment rather than two. Sigh. I've given up even caring which on wins anymore I just wish we had one decent one.

Re:Is it the year of Linux at last?

[slash.duncan]

The only thing we need now is one desktop environment rather than two. Sigh. I've given up even caring which on wins anymore I just wish we had one decent one.

Not me! The problem is that in this case a single size does NOT fit all! There's a need for at least three and likely five "environments" on the desktop. Here's how I figure.

The first two are the "big two". Fairly heavyweight, the problem here is that the approaches differ and "never the twain shall meet." Then there's XFCE, lighter weight while still being rather featureful, and for the really "resource challenged" (read as <384MB memory "LiveCD", <256MB memory running of of writable media, these days, or 92MB/64MB if you wish to be really conservative), something line IceWM. Finally, some find ION type WMs more to their liking. For them, the standard WM/environments simply aren't organized or efficient enough, and can never work.

Focusing again on the "big two", the problem is as follows. The GNOME approach (characterized from the opposing viewpoint, and obviously drastically simplifying) seems to be that in most cases there is "one single best UI choice", and that if there's a split as to which way is best, it's simply because the "correct" UI presentation hasn't yet been found. Their approach to customization is minimalistic, the less setting there are to confuse the user, the better. The common complaint from the "control freak" (me) and/or "power user" and/or "developer" (Linus) is that tools and choices that should be there, tweaks that should be possible, simply aren't... at least from the GUI... and this they/we find EXTREMELY frustrating!

The perfect example is the UI elements color chooser applet. Even MS has one, yet GNOME for years somehow didn't find it necessary. I'm not talking about just a color chooser applet, sure they had that, but one couldn't use it to do something as simple as choosing the background and text color of a command button, without choosing an entire theme and changing all sorts of unrelated stuff at the same time! I'm not sure if they ever got one or not (at least in GNOME-core, I must assume someone has implemented an option applet to do it), but from my viewpoint, that's so basic a required functionality that I can't consider a desktop environment even half developed without it! Of course, in KDE, it's the colors control panel applet, control panel, right where one would expect it, shipped in kdebase, again, right where one would expect it. It has existed since at least KDE 2.x.

Contrast the "if you don't find our imposed choice best you obviously don't know what's good for you" approach of GNOME with the KDE approach, which could be characterized (hopefully even handedly simplifying/exaggerating) as "if there's a choice in UI behavior, program all possible choices and expose them as an option for the user to choose." The common complaint from the "I just want it to work" crowd is that all those options are confusing and just get in the way of actually getting things done. They find this confusing and frustrating too, I suppose in equal measure to the power users and etc trying to work with GNOME.

The problem is that in terms of basic UI approaches, as I said, "never the twain shall meet." Sure, there can be some working together to make an app from one desktop work well on and function somewhat like the other if it finds itself in that environment, and there are projects to that end. However, I've come to realize that the two approaches are both necessary and fill a need, and that if either desktop project were to suddenly collapse, the developers on the other would likely be first in line donating to get a new one started! Why? Simply this. As long as the folks taking the other approach have their own sandbox to play in, they won't be trying to change the rules in and screw up ours! I'd hate to have GNOME users and devs trying to "simplify" KDE to their liking, removing all the tweaking ability many KD

Re:Is it the year of Linux at last?

[squoozer]

There are some really good points in your post and I agree with a large part of it. When I thought about "desktops" I was thinking about workstation type desktops. I fully agree that there are at least two other classes of desktop environment for smaller devices. Neither Gnome nor KDE can serve these smaller devices as they are simply to large and resource hungry.

Looking at workstation desktops though makes me think that a single desktop environment is possible. I agree with you that there is room for both types of desktop environment. There are a lot of people that need / want a desktop environment with very few settings. When people compare and contrast KDE and Gnome basically all their arguments boil down to "Gnome doesn't have enough settings - it's restrictive" and "KDE has too many settings - it's confusing".

No one says "Gnome doesn't have x functionality" or "KDE does have very good y functionality". It all boils down to how many settings are exposed.

Surely in that case then this is a presentation layer issue not a fundamental architecture issue. Wouldn't it have been better to have developed one desktop environment engine and two presentation layers. One that looked like Gnome that presented the user with virtually no settings and one that looked like KDE and presented the user with loads of settings.

I'm actually fairly sure that both Gnome and KDE have the ability (with some effort probably) to mimic the others design ideas to a greater or lesser extent. IMHO we have wasted a huge amount of effort developing two systems that are basically the same under the hood.

Re:Is it the year of Linux at last?

[slash.duncan]

Re Workstation vs. smaller device:

That's one comparison and it's reasonably valid, but it's not the one I had in mind. Rather, I was thinking desktop/workstation, but sorted more by age. Linux is known for its ability to give old hardware new life. While I removed any trace of proprietary OS from my systems some years ago, I've recently had a bit of experience again with them as I've a bit of a reputation as a computer guru and some folks have needed password resets and the like done.

One I had to work with was an old half GHz machine with 64 MB of memory, running (what I refer to as) "eXPrivacy". It basically wouldn't run the recovery LiveCDs (STD and INSERT) I had downloaded because it simply didn't have enough RAM. Well, it booted to CLI mode and I could do a bit from there, but it wouldn't load X, as it said X required at least 64 MB memory and as this was a liveCD, it was running out of RAMDisk and using part of that 64 MB for that. FWIW, the desktop environments they tried to run were IceWM and something similarly light, I forgot what. Sad to say I didn't have a lot of luck with this computer (which I was trying to virus scan), because I simply wasn't familiar enough with the territory to know how to accomplish what needed done without enough memory to load X and get at the normal documentation and set up the network, etc. As it wasn't my machine I didn't really know the territory well enough to safely do a lot on my own, I didn't try shrinking the main partition to give me enough swap to work with to do what I needed to do. The owner took it back and I believe had another "friend" reinstall whatever pirate stuff they had to work with.

That's why I gave a higher figure for LiveCD use. The half GHz, 64 MB machine would have worked well enough with IceWM installed locally, so it wasn't trying to run off RAMDisk and had some swap space available, but I was trying to run off LiveCD/RAMDisk, and it just wasn't working. 92 or 128 MB would have worked much better.

The second machine I had to work with (password reset this time not malware, legit as I knew the guy and it was his data) was again eXPrivacy, but a bit higher speced, 1.2 GHz or so, 384 MB RAM. Both recovery LiveCDs worked MUCH better on it, and even off LiveCD, it ran rather noticeably faster than the eXPrivacy Pro it had loaded. It could have handled a heavyweight desktop if necessary, but I'm sure it was much more responsive with IceWM and etc.

Thus the minimum decently workable memory for a reasonably light (reasonably modern, not Win9x era) desktop LiveCD is going to be 92-128 MB, 64-92 MB running native installed to disk with swap. It'll be rather higher with either of the full heavyweight desktops -- 256-384 MB is probably about the low end I'd consider reasonable to work with, altho a lot can be done with swap and 128 MB might be barely usable, if it's absolutely necessary.

The point there is that for a lot of folks running second hand hardware, this level of resources is what they are working with.

No one says "Gnome doesn't have x functionality" or "KDE does have very good y functionality". It all boils down to how many settings are exposed.
Surely in that case then this is a presentation layer issue not a fundamental architecture issue. Wouldn't it have been better to have developed one desktop environment engine and two presentation layers[? They] are basically the same under the hood.

Basically the same under the hood? Let's just say I disagree. GNOME's C based, KDE's C++ based. KDE's much more integrated, designed and implemented with much higher reuse of components (at a cost of very high and cross-interlinked dependency requirements, much higher and with more interlinked complexity than GNOME, even to run a single app or two in another desktop environment -- compile these things and all updates from source as I do on Gentoo and you KNOW these things =8^/ ) There are other differences as well with the current generation, dbus vs. dcop, et

Please, someone rush a clue to Enderandrew

[kaiwai]

Novell effectively admitted fault that the entire Linux community had infringed on patents, and if you hadn't signed a deal, you could be in trouble. I'd argue that severely hurt Linux and the F/OSS community.

However one action does not fully define a company. Novell has done a great deal to support Linux, but there is no taking away the patent fiasco.

Pardon? you do realise that EVERYONE infringes on EVERYONE elses patents. Almost every damn thing immaginable has been patented. Hell, I'd be surprised if this very post code hasn't been patented by some twit running a nameless patent harvesting company in some hick state.

Simply signing a patent agreement with Microsoft is no more an admission on Novells part than on Microsofts part regarding who is infridging what - and shock bloody horror, it might mean a working silverlight implementation on *NIX.

If you hate Silverlight - whats the alternative? the Linux hating outfit called Adobe who refuses to give Linux desktop the time of day - both in their crap support for Flash, their refusal to either work with wine to improve product support or port their applications to *NIX. The only thing left is JavaFX which is highly unlikely to take off given Sun's rank reputation for producing cruddy IDE's that make developing for their platform as painful as being kicked in the balls with steel cap boots.

Re:Please, someone rush a clue to Enderandrew

[segedunum]

Pardon? you do realise that EVERYONE infringes on EVERYONE elses patents. Almost every damn thing immaginable has been patented.

What Novell have done with this deal is do what Microsoft wanted. Admit to their customers and to the corporate world that Linux and open source software infringes on Microsoft's property. You can slice it and dice it all you want, but that's what Novell have done.

Simply signing a patent agreement with Microsoft is no more an admission on Novells part than on Microsofts part regarding who is infridging what

That, however, is not the impression that the people Microsoft have wanted to get to have of the deal. What may or may not actually be a part of the deal is quite irrelevant, and to Novell and others that seems to have gone completely over their heads.

Good start but .....

[ajs318]

This is a good start, but I would prefer to see the problem tackled from the other end. That is, I would like to see it made law that manufacturers must release specifications that would enable a competent programmer to create a driver for any hardware device they manufacture, if they want to be allowed to sell it at all. They shouldn't necessarily have to include a printed copy in the box if it would adversely affect the cost, but they should be obliged to supply it gratis to anyone who can prove that they own the hardware. Then you get it both ways. The purists get Free and Open Source drivers, and the "I don't care as long as it works" brigade (I bet they'd start caring pretty bloody quick, if the manufacturer suddenly stopped supporting the product with even closed binary-only drivers) get something that works.

And before someone whinges that this will lead to copying, allow me to say a big fat "screw you!" If what you make can be copied so easily and cheaply, then it's not so special. In a genuinely free market, it's the buyer who decides how much something is worth.

I believe this might even actually be the law in some parts of Europe. If so, perhaps they need to start enforcing it.

Re:Good start but .....

[mrjb]

"If what you make can be copied so easily and cheaply, then it's not so special." You just stepped on my soul. I write software for a living. *sob*

Re:Good start but .....

[ajs318]

The people who fitted oil lamps to horse-drawn carriages dealt with it. You can too.

amazing

[setrops]

Get over yourselves, this is a good thing at a time that may be most crucial. Vista has been widly viewed as bad. And unless Microsoft comes out with something new in the next 2 years the Linux/Mac community has all that time to show the regular Windows users why they should switch to Linux/Mac.

Mac is winning, not because it's better but because of Linux is an incoherent mess of dozens of distribution with no clear reason why to select one over the other.

You want mom and pop and aunt Rose to use it? Well here is your chance. don't fuck up!

Re:Ths bit sounds fishy...

[Kjella]

Look, as part of being an employee you're implicitly covered by your work contract etc. not to reveal sensitive things. Consequently because there is no clear separation you don't keep what's "could be public" internal and "could not be public" internal information apart. What's going on here is simplly "Rifle through these papers and see if you find what you need, but we need an NDA if case you find some other eensitive stuff mixed in."

Besides, the GPL unlike the BSD/X11 license states that it must be in the preferred form for modification. That's why nvidia can have a completely obfuscated 2D driver, which in essence makes all arguments about being able to fix the code yourself invalid.

Re:Just great...

[kc2keo]

I think a tear a joy just dripped off of my face!

not the case

[free space]

If that is indeed what worries the original poster then he can res assured, from the project's FAQ:

Q: How are you going to write a GPL driver by signing an NDA? Is it going to require a binary blob or some other way of obfuscating the code?

A: No, not at all. I have written many drivers after signing NDAs with companies. They are usually signed either to keep information about the device private until it is announced at a specific date, or to just keep the actual specification documents from being released to the public directly. All code created by this NDA program is to be released under the GPL for inclusion in the main kernel tree, nothing will be obfuscated at all.

Re:not the case

[mystran]

Having written one or two drivers for a completely irrelevant toy operating system of mine (making me just marginally less incompetent to comment on this thread), it is very helpful to have datasheets that actually describes the operation of a given device, instead of just something like a list of it's registers and their meaning. Even descriptions of sequences of commands required are not always helpful without understanding the internal workings of the device. The resulting code ofcourse has to take all relevant device details into account, but the code itself is typically not sufficient to figure out anything beyond what the original code has at least attempted to take into consideration, if even that (ofcourse any sample code is invaluable when trying to decipher datasheets but that's another issue).

So based on what little I understand about the whole subject, I'd say letting somebody develop a driver under NDA and just releasing the driver source instead of all the documentation is likely to keep a LOT more details about the device essentially secret, even if the code itself was pretty decently commented with remarks about the particular implementation (assuming ofcourse that said internal documetation isn't duplicated in the comments).

Ofcourse that DOES have the effect that anybody willing to improve the driver functionaly in regards to the device would need the same documents under NDA (or reverse-engineer the relevant details, which might be easier with a working driver to tweak), but at least a source driver let's the kernel developers deal with things like driver API changes internally. Say, you want to change the protocol by which drivers reserve IO resources because you've found a new, totally fair way to do that. Now, with binary drivers you can either break the drivers or implement workaround wrappers. Source drivers, you can simply change the driver code yourself without having a clue what the driver actually does. :)

Re:Ths bit sounds fishy...

[OriginalArlen]

Fuck the spirit of the fucking GPL.
[...]
If I understand this right,..

You don't understand this right. What you're talking about is, in crudely generalistic terms, the difference between the BSD and GPL licenses. If you don't like the GPL, don't use software licensed under it. Or just don't release your own code under it; no-one's forcing you to do so. But to use a system that wouldn't exist without the GPL and then whine about something you obviously don't understand just makes you sound like a twat.

Sorry to put that so harshly ;p

Why is secretive deal needed to interoperate?

[walterbyrd]

The entire thing does not smell right.

novell advocates keep saying that it's about interoperability, but that makes no sense, if msft wants to interoperate, what's stopping them? Why do they need this sneaky deal? BTW: if msft wants to interoperate then why all the OOXML BS?

And if it's about patents, then what's the big secret about which specific patents?

Re:Why is secretive deal needed to interoperate?

[pablochacin]

if msft wants to interoperate, what's stopping them? Don't get me wrong. MS doesn't want interoperability, but their costomers does and Microsoft has started to feel the presur from them. Actually MS will try to make this "interoperability" as dificult as possible and also will try to even take advantage proposing their technologies as "standards".

With respect of the patents I don't believe it has to do with patents in the linux kernel, but many people forgets that reverse engineering a product can lead to violations in patents. Some example: Evolution, Mono, Open Office. All those are products that need to interoperate with MS products and Novell has been supporting quite actively.

Free?

[nurb432]

I doubt that.

Re:Just great...

[HeroreV]

Why? Probably because you don't know that those specs were under an NDA and these newer specs aren't.

Novell trying to bust GPLv3

[crush]

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.

Re:Novell trying to bust GPLv3

[porl]

the kernel itself is definitely not moving to gpl3 anytime soon... all internal kernel modules *must* be gpl2 to be accepted into the mainline kernel (or at least a more permissive license, which gpl3 is not). of course any part of the driver external to the kernel might be able to use gpl3 or another license i think.

porl

Re:Novell trying to bust GPLv3

[crush]

Well one of the "pragmatic" reasons advanced for the kernel not moving any time soon was the difficulties of getting a few major contributors like Greg K-H to move to GPLv3. Greg has gone so far as to try and discourage people from using the "GPLv2 or any later" wording to ensure that things stay as GPLv2. A kernel isn't much use without drivers and now lo! and behold Greg is heading up a project which out of the choices of:

• GPLv2 only
• GPLv2 or any later version
• GPLv3

decides to plump for GPLv2 only. Coincidence? I think not.

Re:Novell trying to bust GPLv3

[PastaLover]

Not I don't think it's coincidence. So what? It's still open source. The GPLv2 has served us well. Not all people in the open source world (I'd say most) are writing software just to stick it to Microsoft y'know.

Re:Novell trying to bust GPLv3

[crush]

The GPLv2 has served us well.

And has been discovered to have significant flaws which allow leeching of community IP by Tivo and the undermining of the community by Novell.

I'd agree that not many people are interested in sticking it to Microsoft, but most of use are not interested in having Microsoft stick it to us either. That's why the GPLv3 is necessary: community protection. If it doesn't get used in enough projects then we'll be looking back at 2007 as the hey-day of Free Software.

Re:It's all about GPL v3

[crush]

agreed. I'm surprised no one else is mentioning this.

Re:Ths bit sounds fishy...

[jZnat]

I thought this only applied [explicitly] with the GPLv3? If it's only implicit with other free software and open source licenses, then I'd imagine it would take a court case to decide that.

Really?

[Burz]

The enormous and irrational bias on /. against anything even remotely affiliated with Microsoft You couldn't tell it by the moderation in this thread.

Sequel to scox-scam?

[walterbyrd]

Now that scox is as good as dead, I guess msft needs another bitch company to continue msft's FUD campaign.

Msft has made it very clear that they intend to attack Linux from a legalities angle. Msft had alluded to that even before the scox scam. It's a good strategy for msft, after all msft can put Linux out of business. The scox-scam was a great FUD bargain for msft, but that scam is waning.

There are a suspicious number of strongly pro-novell posts on slashdot. Essentially, the posts re-state the novell party line: "this is all interoperability" and "why on earth would you be suspicious of this deal?" and "slashdotters are just too negative about msft to be objective."

Why be suspicious?

1) Msft's history: msft does not do interoperability. Msft wants to own the standard. Monopolizing the standards is central to msft's very successful business model. Msft's recent shenanigans with OOXML, and defiance of the EC, and the scox-scam, reveal msft's true motives and tactics.

2) Miguel de Icaza is sneaky little msft worshipping turd.

3) Why all the secrecy? Why not spell out these supposed patent violations? Why not spell out the terms of the deal? Why not specify exactly what they mean by interoperability?

4) This deal has too much in common with the scox-scam. During the scox-scam, both scox and sun boasted having the only *legal* version of Linux. Sound familiar? And msft behind all three companies, what a coincidence.

Novell advocates keep saying that it's about interoperability, but that makes no sense, if msft wants to interoperate, what's stopping them? Why do they need this sneaky deal?

Re:Sequel to scox-scam?

[Burz]

I agree about the MS astroturfing apparent here. Belittling the community's aversion to an abusive, all-consuming monopolist is not cool or defensible.

I have also noticed a dearth of mod points being used in many recent (otherwise popular) threads. Relatively few messages in these other threads are getting moderated, or perhaps the modding has been gravitating to stories I haven't read... Seems rather odd to me.

Re:drivers shmivers

[MajinBlayze]

what problems have you had with it? I recently switched to openSUSE from Gentoo, (primarily for yast) and have been very happy with it so far.

As far as hitting company servers, you can always point your repositories to any of the mirrors (in fact, download.opensuse.org is just a redirect service IIRC). It's easy enough to say "no" when it asks if you want to register.

Novell apologists read

[Vexorian]

This is a threat to open source, since Novell may just add duhbious terms to the drivers' licenses. Or purpotedly add MS code to them so they are the only ones able to legally distribute them.

Some stuff before the Novell apologists come to bash me:

• Thanks to Novell's deal, the only distro able to legally include moonlight is SUSE enterprise, you are right, not even OpenSUSE, and they say moonlight is open source, sure it is licensed open source but due to 'patent issues' only novell can distribute it, Don't believe me? It is something that both Miguel Icaza and a Novell guy called Bruce have publically accepted, hope a google
• Novell is now actively being a predator spreading FUD and lies about other distros and faking numbers to show how their "superior windows integration" (which is null) is a competitive advantage.
• Novell has accepted MS' proposal of effectively turning Linux into a windows program, so that people can easily migrate their Linux servers to MS' servers, they have accepted that only Linux is going to be virtualized, and 0 virtualization of windows on Linux, Yeah, this is the "open source supporter" Novell, turning Linux into a second class operating system.
• Novell is actually the only company that will support OOXML, oddly enough not even MS would support it if it was approved as an standard, fun?

Denying that Novell's deal is a threat is like denying water is composed of Hydrogen , if you prefer Novell over Linux and open source, friging accept it, but we are growing tired of people that keep their blind Novell fanboyism and pretend they do not want to destroy Linux for their own convenience, they want to make their own propietary, MS dependent OS out of open source projects.

Re:Novell apologists read

[chromatic]

This is a threat to open source, since Novell may just add duhbious terms to the drivers' licenses. Or purpotedly add MS code to them so they are the only ones able to legally distribute them.

I won't speak to Moonlight, but you'll have to do a lot of work to convince anyone who knows Greg K-H that he'd put up with that in the kernel.

Re:drivers shmivers

[superwiz]

The problem was that I had to point it to a repository on the Internet. So everytime I tried to change packages it would go through parsing of something it pulled off the net. Previous (9.x) versions could be pointed to the local repository, so changing of packages was nearly instant. After a while I completely gave up on using their tool and just started updating rpm's by hand.

irrational /. anti-Microsoft fanaticism

[symbolset]

It's not just here man. Microsoft is poison. Everyone knows that. You get in bed with them and you might as well kiss your business goodbye, if not your entire part of the industry.

Thank you Sir, for proving my point. Your post stands as a genuine example of irrational /. anti-Microsoft fanaticism.

"I once preached peaceful coexistence with Windows. You may laugh at my expense -- I deserve it." Jean-Louis Gassée, former CEO, BeOS

The Register:

If Sendo's case progresses, it's likely to add new stars to the litigation firmament - one which has already brought us phrases such as "cut off the air supply", "knife the baby" and faked videotape evidence, and the most likely star in this turn should be one Marc Brown, who simultaneously served as a Sendo director while being employed by Microsoft. More on Marc in a moment.

And

Sony makes explicit its fear that: "Microsoft will use its monopoly power to force its OEM licensees to give up intellectual property rights, thus affording Microsoft the opportunity to expand its power."

Irrational. Yeah.

Apply here to screw Java: Microsoft recruits more J# developers During Chase's cross examination the DoJ produced a memo from Gates written prior to the meeting, where he says "we have to make sure that we don't allow them to promote Netscape" Screws went onto IBM at Gates' bidding HP, Gateway: MS Seattlement terms screw us too The following is the text of Stac Electronics' patent infringement complaint against Microsoft Corp.

I see what you're saying. Completely irrational /. anti-Microsoft fanaticism. That's what it is.

Dear Novell...

[nimid]

...many thanks for the wooden horse.

We are of course grateful that you've finally come around to our way of thinking but as I'm sure you're already aware, we had the advantage and would have won eventually.

Anyway, we're now off to celebrate to excess with lots of wine and eager ladies. Hope there are no hard feelings.

P.S. Take no notice of Helen and Cassandra, we think your gift is beautiful.

Oh, lighten up, I'm just kidding.

Re:Cool - Not so much

[tomhudson]

I am against the Mono project, and always have been. Its stupid to implement YANCPoSfM (Yet Another Crappy Piece of Software From Microsoft). We don't have to play catch-up to Microsoft, when we should be leading with our strengths.

I'm not worried for Red Hat. Linux needs more than one major distro - we've seen what happens when one company has a virtual monopoly. Products stagnate.

Microsoft may have an agenda, but that agenda is impossible to realize. They can no more control and kill of open source than King Kanute could hold back the tide by ordering it. Nothing can stop an idea who's time has come, especially when that idea has a lot of support internationally.

Colour me unimpressed.

[jotaeleemeese]

So Novell are trying to write drivers that would potentially benefit only them (and the other meretricious Linux distributors that signed agreements with MS) while in the other hand would expose other Linux distros to MS's patent trolling threats.

Please probe me unnecesarily pessimistic and show me that they are releasing these drivers under GPL3...