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Major PC Vendors Push For Open Source Drivers
hweimer writes "Remember the heat the Linux Foundation took for allegedly not giving enough attention to Desktop Linux? The latest events at the Foundation's annual summit paint a different picture. Industry heavyweights like Dell, HP, and Lenovo 'announced on stage that they will now include wording in their hardware procurement processes to "strongly encourage" the delivery of open source drivers.' The move specifically targets desktop and mobile products."
Vendors like to have choices too. This is good news.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
What will these same vendors do if these strong encouragements just get ignored? Will they actually apply some economic pressure as some force for these hardware vendors to relent? Otherwise this just seems like nothing but sword rattling. I applaud the effort though and hope it has some effect.
Why Linux will triumph over Microsoft: http://comprog.freeforums.org/why-microsoft-will-not-exsist-for-much-longer-t31.html/
-- (this is a sig) My Computer Programming Forumhttp://www.programers.co.nr/
There is a difference between "strongly encouraged" and "required". Until it is required then it is not going to change much - the big hardware providers hold too much sway for Dell et al. to cancel multimillion (if not billion) dollar contracts because they won't provide the source code for a couple of piddly little drivers.
A step in the right direction if they genuinely mean it, but if it is just disingenuous chatter to "keep the OSS camp happy" then it is just PR.
More likely to be compatible and if they aren't quickly made so. Errors can be easily seen and fixed and it's much more difficult for an offshore company to introduce a back door.
Though my question, Will it make any difference to open source developers if the source code is covered under a restrictive commercial license?
15TW = 15,000 Nuclear Reactors. (Approx. one accident a month.)
This is definitely a step forward for the F/OSS community. Not only is most hardware supported already under Linux (even "obsolete" stuff and processor architectures that are no longer produced), but now the major box builders are taking steps to make sure your hardware will be recognized. Sure, this doesn't necessarily mean that drivers will be available for all products, but it does essentially mean that these large companies are standing with the F/OSS community (especially Linux, as this is the best known piece of F/OSS software in non-technical circles). This statement by the companies serves to help the recognition of Linux as a major software platform, which is good no matter what F/OSS software you use and for what purpose you use it.
McCain/Palin '08. Now THAT's hope and change!
Comments like these are why i still read at -1!
Vendors having these intentions are are good sign, but until it's more than a third of vendors (rtfa) it's not that hard a push, even though a few of the big ones are in.
To be perfectly honest, this article is much more about what linux foundation wants and needs, than about what vendors demand of suppliers.
I wish there had been some links to the actual story in the headline.
Nothing to see here, move along, and remember to encourage your dog to shit outside!
Blah blah sig blah blah blah irony blah blah
That is all.
I would SUE the hardware makers for not giving information/specs for their stuff.
The reason being is that they are only supporting Monopolysoft with drivers.
The rise of Apple must be worrying for the PC vendors since they cannot sell Mac OSX. They need to build flexibility to give them alternatives and right now Linux is the only viable choice. Dell etc see these changes and realise that they need to be able to respond quickly with Linux products, should the need arise. Thus, they need drivers.
Dell etc already screw their hardware vendors hard. The hardware vendors will bend over backwards to get Dell etc business. If that means delivering a Linux driver too - well so be it.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Did anyone notice ballmer say no more xp because the customers do not want.
Then Dell stood up and said I want. balllmer conceded and recognized his master.
No Linux or other desktop OS means MS could have said no, you do not want; and so dell would have not wanted, for there was nothing.
Vendors using Linux means they may say I DO NOT WANT to microsoft in the future and microsoft would EPIC FAIL. bill has aids to cure in africa, no time for MS
that some people are have towards the "strong recommendation", I point out that this is how businesses negotiate. It starts with "we want you to", followed by the vendor response. It's the, "I asked you nicely approach"...
If the vendor doesn't respond, then the ante will be upped. The PC sellers need more market. Things are pretty cutthroat for the Dell's and HP's of the world. If the vendor doesn't help in the company in its move to expand its market... yeah, pressure will be brought... and in this case, Linux does owe MS (so to speak), the failure of Vista to gain market share means the PC sellers have to look elsewhere
Be positive, it is a step in the right direction.
I have a feeling that this vendor push of open source drivers combined with falling prices of hardware (because of increased penetration around the world) will lead to the end of MS as a leading OS supplier for desktops. If more open source drivers are available, this will lead to cheap commodity boxes that run Linux, and these boxes will target users that use a computer only for the Internet and Word Processing (this is already happening with Wal-Mart computers). The base for the Internet/Word processor computer is growing so fast that it is inevitable that MS will falter.
Once the base of household Linux computers becomes big enough (I'm guesstimating 3%), commodity application developers (low cost applications first) will see Linux as a market, the prices of these boxes will fall further, and both these factors will contribute to further increased market share for Linux. More drivers for external peripherals will also become an industry practice (many leading companies already have Linux drivers for peripherals like printers and all-in-ones).
At some point, premium application developers for Apple and MS platforms will see that it worth their time to make a Linux port (it may happen quicker because of how relatively simple it would be to make the port from Apple to Linux). Again, this will be followed by increased market share for Linux.
Once the Linux market share becomes substantial (I don't know how much, say 10%?) the corporate world will realize the gazillion dollars in savings, and make the switch, and MS's fall will be complete. I don't know what will happen to Apple, I think they will be around with the largest desktop share if Jobs is around, considering how well he's boosting market share for Apple (with his history, he might even buy MS out of spite).
Bill Gates charities look a little smaller now, a pity actually, but Buffet will remain strong, so Gates will still have a good job.
I don't see why people think this is a bad thing. A big company like Dell can bankrupt smaller companies overnight just by failing to renew a contract or not ordering more parts.
They already squeeze them tight for the best prices and only pay them for any components they use - those stocks taking up space in Dell's warehouse don't cost them a penny until they go into a machine (That's already been paid for by the buyer).
So imagine if two companies had say...wireless cards. One has a major deal with Dell, but no Open Drivers, then the other announces they suddenly have Open Drivers. Is it anything on Dell's head to tell the first company to either cough up some open drivers or come and pick up their unused parts before they get discarded? I don't think so.
All it takes is for one company to start releasing open drivers and the rest will have to fall in line or risk loosing a lot of business practically overnight. In the end, everyone will benefit.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
Comments like these are why i still read at -1!
Exactly... often the fragments of genius are at either end of the spectrum.
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
What will make a difference is that the managers who make decision in data centers are more likely to regard Linux as supported by the hardware vendors, even though nothing has really changed. This will lead to Dell, and the others calling for more open source drivers, being in a position to make more sales. Now, as soon as that starts happening, as soon as serious money starts changing hands, drivers will be written for Linux. Not necessarily open source, in fact probably not open source, but drivers nonetheless. Hardware vendors are like sharks and lawyers - they can smell blood from incredible distances.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
With all thats gone on today, am I the only one sitting here waiting for the anti-Linux horror story that is the sum of all fears for Linux users? I keep thinking to myself: The next story is going to say something nightmarishly horrible, like -
"U.S. Government decrees that in the name of Jesus Christ, all Linux users are traitors to the US of A, and shall be imprisoned." or something that bad.
How about driver makers start producing open source drivers when the PC vendors start releasing the full design documents and specifications for all of their hardware? Yeah I don't think so either.
>> they will now include wording in their hardware procurement processes to "strongly encourage" the delivery of open source drivers
ooooh and if you don't provide linux drivers we'll still buy your hardware but we will wag our finger at you and tell your mom.
Why can't they just say that they won't even consider buying any hardware that doesn't have Linux drivers?
have to lose. I always wondered why device drivers are not open source. As they make their money on the hardware they're not losing anything by giving the driver piece to the open source community to enhance. It's worked for Linksys routers. I wouldn't have purchased my particular Linksys unless I knew I could put HyperWrt on it.
While we all seem to agree that a hardware manufacturer who supplies drivers for only windows is not doing the right thing, many of us fail to observe that providing open-source drivers for linux is no different. In the former case, windows will have an unfair advantage over other operating systems and in the latter case, windows and linux will have an unfair advantage over the other operating systems. I fail to see any fundamental difference between these two situations. The only right thing a hardware manufacturer can (and should) do is to provide 100% complete programming documentation.
And yet HP still refuse to provide linux drivers for their printers. Hmm.
Perhaps you've overlooked HPLIP?
It will be like new flocked wallpaper for the BSD ghetto I live in.
This is a shot across the bow to the likes of Broadcom, Intel, Creative, etc.
How many people have run into a problem where Manufacturer X creates a new rev of their chip, and that rev isn't recognized by the drivers shipped in SuSE/RedHat/Ubuntu/nameyourdistro? In cases of a new NIC rev you end up having to build a custom kernel (or just the driver if you're lucky), put it on bootable media, install your OS, and add the custom kernel/driver to the new OS installation before rebooting. Yeah, it's a real pain for the unwashed masses, as well as those of us who have bathed in Linux for the past 10+ years.
"It was a billion times better than cobol, but still really retarded." -AC
This is the beginning of adoption. It's an ugly process and will be especially for the OSS community. When this goes full steam, there will be projects everywhere and different ways of profiting off of them (ie mainly google). You can sense it because the main distros have backed of some of their stance when it comes to desktop related software. This is where things get interesting.
One problem, is that even if there are "open source" drivers available, for what platform? Mac OSX? Solaris? BSD? Linux? Windows?
Or maybe they are drivers for an older kernel version? New kernels don't link against old drivers, and new versions of GCC don't necessarily *compile* old drivers.
And then of course, there's installation of drivers. Common stuff like video drivers tend to be included in distros... but what about things like fingerprint readers, USB printers, etc? Installing a driver, doesn't just mean running an installer. There's also the extra step of compiling for your exact kernel version. Which means you must have GCC installed, on a desktop machine that you may not want to do any development on at all.
Does this seem like a really bad system to anyone else? Why do we *ever* need to write the same driver more than once? Why not just have a standard interface for talking to X86 drivers for things like audio, video, printers, harddrives etc?
Then, one driver for Linux, OSX, Windows, etc can be passed around and we don't have to continually reinvent the wheel. Then a linux installer can get extra drives by pulling them out of a linux install. Then we can write whole new kernels without having to write tons of custom drivers for it.
Seriously, someone needs to the Linux kernel team about something called "software reuse" and "decoupling."
By Open Source, they unfortunately mean only "Linux". I use FreeBSD. I have Marvell chipset on my Dell that FreeBSD doesn't recognize. Marvell's own FreeBSD driver doesn't recognize it either. Instead of having just Open Source drivers, how about they open up the specs for their hardware? No one is asking them to give us their trade secrets they so jealously guard. Just enough information to let the open source folks write a decent driver instead of painstakingly reverse-engineering Windows drivers, or inspecting the hardware. Linux gets a lot of attention, but there are other open OSes out there that would also benefit. I'm not jealous or anything. I use Linux from time to time, but I just happen to fancy BSD more. I think opening up the specs would actually benefit open source instead of just creating "open source" (Linux) drivers. I guess one could examine the Linux drivers to figure out what they're doing and then port it over to [insert your flavour of OS here]. But if you have the open specs, you don't have to do that extra step.
Vivin Suresh Paliath
http://vivin.net
I like
Actually, any party which provide software (firmware) should provide source code:
1. If they want copyright protection
2. For security, it should be legislative to have all user have access to the code for inspection for security reason.
3. For inspect of stolen code.
The software industary is hurted by close source. The new generation is learning in the dark, every team have their own coding secret, no outsider can have understanding to their coding, it hurt the education and new comer.
Copyright law should benefit the flow of information and knowledge, not to ban it.
Allow others to re-use your code and modify your code for new feature or bug fix is your own decision and court's ruling.
Provide source code to gain copyright protect. No close source and copyright protection.
Provide source codes should be required by law!
GPL also bad!
Please hardware vendors, please open source your drivers so everyone that have your hardware (purchased legally) can use your hardware on various OS like Linux, Macintosh and other OS.
This will help sales of your product in other than the Microsoft Window environment. Open your environment so that others can use your hardware.
End of soapbox.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
What's the point of that? VLC is superior on any platform.
VLC chokes on a lot of subtitles. They'll be displayed, but it will ignore font, size, positioning, and all the special effects that make them legible.
I don't have more information other than "subtitles are broken" - it's just my experience when watching my daily fix of my beloved Japanesian cartoons. Some of them just don't render properly in VLC, which is important to me since I only pretend I can speak Japanese.
But, Windows Media Player renders them perfectly, and the Vista Codec Pack makes it just as versatile. Maybe not as important for 99% of the population... But the lowest common denominator uses Windows Media Player anyway. (I wish it handled differing aspect ratios as easily as VLC player or Windows Media Center does, tho.)
DATABASE WOW WOW
Why the open source drivers? I think the PC makers want to get out from under microsoft as much as or maybe even more than anyone else. With MS Windows there is no way to be "different" so people shop by price. None of them like this race to the botom. Was long as they continue to sell Windows machines they wil remain in this destrouctive race.
Microsoft's problem is that back when PCs cost $1000 charging $40 for the OS was reasonable but now that you can build a PC for $250 that $40 paymant to Microsoft is one of the mosr expensive "parts" inside the PC. I'm sure Dell and the others woud like for the OS price to fall to zero.
Business will continue to need Windows because they need Office. Most home users really don't use Office. They only run a web browser and games so there is not a good reason to have Windows. I'm sure over time the low-end PCs will loose Windows in favor of Linux or maybe BSD unless Microsoft can offer a Winows version for nearly free.
The issue is that most hardware is a commodity now, with all of the specialization and unique features being done in the driver or firmware. Take that out with "open drivers" and you have opened the door for Dell, HP, etc. to make their own copy of anything that a vendor doesn't want to play ball with. Too much margin? Fine, just buy the Chinese copy.
This has nothing to do with Linux and everything to do with control over their own destiny. Being able to tell Broadcom, nVidia and everyone else to take a hike. Thanks, but we found a new supplier. With 100% of the functionality and 100% compatibility.
This is certainly good news for Free OS adoption and use. Increasing the availability of information and drivers should make life easier for anybody who wants to run one.
That said, though, it may well be that the PC vendors have other benefits in mind as well. Even under Windows, where hardware is generally supported, current OEM drivers have some annoying faults. Interface consistency is abominable at all stages of the process. Driver install packages are a thin layer of Vendor branding wrapped around the OEM's dubious taste in interface design. The installation inevitably includes a haphazard mixture of configuration applets, horrid little tray utilities, and weird looking menus bludgeoned into the standard Windows configuration screens. A basic consumer desktop is likely to have driver packages from several different OEMs, ensuring significant visual and interface inconsistency.
The system I'm typing on right now(a basic Dell desktop box) is hardly unusual. Some audio options are available through the standard Vista audio config widget, others are available through realtech's audio widget. Both widgets have little "speaker" tray icons and have completely different interfaces(Vista's widget is boring, Realtech's looks like a clip-art explosion in a crab and chrome factory). Video is a similar story. NVIDIA and Vista have an uneasy set of overlapping controls, each with its own dubious aesthetics. Although this system is spared, the same thing is common with both wired and wireless ethernet controllers, scanners, printers(I'm looking at you HP), and whatnot.
I suspect that the PC vendors would love to be able to use OSS driver code from the OEMs to push this disorganized mess under a consistent interface. Even if they don't care at all about Linux, that would be a fairly easy way to make the Windows experience more pleasant, and more competitive with OSX, which already enforces a fair bit more consistency on OEM drivers. Being able to swap vendors without making the slightest visually apparent change would also likely be a nice bonus.
HAHAHAH!
Funny you didn't mention your sockpuppets either.
Just who do you think you're fooling, you stupid git? Do you think Slashdot users are retarded or something?
Judging from all the cynical posts here you'd think this was another kick in the face to Linux.
As far as I can see this is great news. This is major PC vendors acknowledging that there is a market that they would like to better serve and asking their suppliers to help them do it.
Do you really expect them to say, "sorry if it doesn't have open source drivers we won't buy it?" Sorry, thats just not going to happen today. But it will never ever happen, without this step happening first. Thats the way business works.
Two words: Distributed stalking.
You're just ridiculous. Are you still pretending you're someone else?
I have said it before, I will say it again.
In the past, ThinkPads had ATI or Intel embedded GPUs. Both have documentation and proper free drivers (moreso Intel than ATI, but ATI is now just a question of time, as the documentation IS ALREADY all out there).
nVidia doesn't. Their hardware is crap if you have to drive it with what we have for open source drivers. There is no documentation.
I will believe Lenovo's position, if ThinkPads revert to ATI and Intel on the *62 line.
Subtitles? ppppffft.
These are marginal at best. Even under Windows there are so
few people interested in them that the tools there are rather
immature. It tends to be really quite annoying when you want
to recompress stuff.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Hasn't Theo De Raadt of OpenBSD been pushing this agenda for a few years now? Well, actually the agenda was for open driver code so that anyone could produce an OS driver for that device. Hopefully this approach can gain some traction.
Just creating junk proprietary drivers is not enough.
what's so annoying about subtitles and recompressing ? decent subtitles are in a text file, with timestamp markers. unless your recompressing process changes movie length, they do not impact recompressing in any way.
Rich
Yeah, VLC managed to really screw up support for certain subtitle formats that are used by fansubbers (and AFAIK no-one else). I think the only cross-platform app that really supports them is MPlayer, and it's not exactly user-friendly. (On the other hand, the Windows-only solution is not only third-party, but has known bugs and is essentially abandoned.)
When sourcing capabilities of a device (network card, sound card, whatever), only consider the capabilities available under both linux and windows.
So a 11n+ card is only 11n+ if it can do that under Linux. If it can only do 11g under Linux, count it as an 11g card.
If there is no capability for that under linux with ANY hardware, either do without or source it as a purchase option.
The lower visibility of non-linux hardware means that people who don't know OS's won't buy the new whizz-bang, people who know what they are getting in to will be able to buy what they need and if there's a whizz-bang that works under linux at full whizz, it gets to seem more capable to Joe and Jane Public than something that only does it under windows.
Still leaves full capability for those who need it, doesn't ban someone who has no linux driver and is still a strong incentive for making the full capability available.
I got mine from googling on the internet because someone had already teased out their PPD for the same model printer.
Google a bit.
In the last quarter, Macs have made very impressive gains in market share. One of Apple's selling points (or talking points, anyway) is that Apple makes its own software to run on its own hardware.
Could this push for driver source be an attempt by PC makers to do the same?
Will the Linux Foundation provide the comprehensive Hardware Compatibility List so Linux users can apply their own market pressure?
It is bizarre and dysfunctional that a project which is largely about getting various hardware to work together does not itself publish an easily searchable HCL.
Maybe OEMs would be more eager to reciprocate if they saw some organized activity from Linus & Co on this front.
That way, we could spend more time using equipment after shopping among competing items that are known to be compatible, instead of relying on the method of Googling the 'word on the street', buy it , and pray we don't have to return it method (which only die-hard techies are ever going to put up with).
I know that various HCLs already exist, but they tend to be small or dated or full of guessing (non-authoritative). We need an HCL that comes from the horses mouth.
Industrial espionage is probably the largest reason most vendors don't do this. By taking a look at the code, a skilled person could get a pretty good idea of the internal design of a piece of hardware, thus allowing a compeditor to more easily reverse-engineer a product.
I'm sure you do.
There are a few MAJOR problems with open source operating systems that keep myself and the majority of the rest of the world from switching over. 1) NO GAMES. 2) NO DRIVERS. 3) NO EASY INSTALL (though I have heard that Ubuntu is simple). From my experience, it just isn't worth it to use open source. Sure I could browse the internet, or write an e-mail.. But I can do that in windows too. What does Open Source offer me, a daily computer user and gamer, that I cannot get from Windows? NOTHING. What does windows offer that Open Source cannot offer. TONS. If open source cares to be anything more than a stable server or a rarely used secondary OS partition, they (as you you nerds that meet up at conventions) SHOULD START FOCUSING ON THE THINGS PEOPLE ACTUALLY WANT. Sure, yahoo messenger for linux is cool, but is it cooler than Team Fortress 2? Sure it even has a calculator, but it takes 10 minutes of command line operations to install a video driver.... When unix/linux/open-source has developed a uniform, easy interface, from which the vast majority of popular computer operations can be conducted, is when you'll see me and the rest of the world give a crap. We're sick of microsoft, but open source is still worse.
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Wow, that's a disturbing thread. I hope something good happens to this loser so he can do something better than this with his life. That does not make me John Marriot or anything like him. It makes me sad for people like him who waste their lives on hate.
The good news is that free culture will fix problems like that. The more people share, the less scarcity their is and that's good for everyone.