'Razer Doesn't Care About Linux' (gnome.org)

An anonymous reader shares a blog post: Razer is a vendor that makes high-end gaming hardware, including laptops, keyboards and mice. I opened a ticket with Razor a few days ago asking them if they wanted to support the LVFS project by uploading firmware and sharing the firmware update protocol used. I offered to upstream any example code they could share under a free license, or to write the code from scratch given enough specifications to do so. This is something I've done for other vendors, and doesn't take long as most vendor firmware updaters all do the same kind of thing; there are only so many ways to send a few kb of data to USB devices. The fwupd project provides high-level code for accessing USB devices, so yet-another-update-protocol is no big deal. I explained all about the LVFS, and the benefits it provided to a userbase that is normally happy to vote using their wallet to get hardware that's supported on the OS of their choice. I just received this note on the ticket, which was escalated appropriately: "I have discussed your offer with the dedicated team and we are thankful for your enthusiasm and for your good idea. I am afraid I have also to let you know that at this moment in time our support for software is only focused on Windows and Mac." The post, written by Richard -- who has long been a maintainer of GNOME Software, PackageKit, GNOME Packagekit, points out that Razer executive Min-Liang Tan last year invited Linux enthusiasts to suggest ideas to help the company make the best notebook that supports Linux.

Comments

Re:Must all vendors support Linux?

[ilsaloving]

It doesn't have to be that way.

Except that it IS different. PS3 is a single platform. There is exactly one PS3, with maybe a couple variations. Ditto with the XBox. There isn't that much variation.

Linux? Distros don't even TRY to maintain any sort of compatibility between each other. The LSB was supposed to provide a minimum baseline for the different distros to help fix the hideous fragmentation of the ecosystem, and they couldn't even manage THAT.

The linux community is full of so many special snowflakes that have to be unique that Linux is beyond any hope of providing a consistent baseline. Hell, look at the idiocy going on with systemd for an example of how the linux community goes out of it's way to put a tempest in every teacup, resulting is an an ecosystem so fractured that Android looks simple by comparison.

I've tried to use Linux as a desktop OS. Several times. Every single time I've had to abandon it cause Linux is a PITA to use for general end-user tasks unless you only work within the limited garden a distro happens to provide for you.

And this will not change until people pull their heads out of their collective asses and realize that they all need to work together, that they need to compromise, to make Linux less fragmented and make it easier for manufacturers and other software developers to target.

Re:You gave a time frame. Razer didn't.

[Stan92057]

But they didn't say no either did they? then in typical Linux zealot fashion......."Razer doesn't care about Linux" no wonder no one want to deal with linux