'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

High end gaming hardware

[Hal_Porter]

If they're making expensive laptops to play games, are Linux users their intended market?

Also referencing "Meltdown and Spectre" is a bit bogus. Intel CPUs have a firmware update facility but that's already supported.

https://downloadcenter.intel.c...

And the kernel already does KPTI.

Sure they could assign someone to do LVFS contributions to do firmware updates for their USB devices, but I guess their priorities are elsewhere. It's not at all clear that significant numbers of people are not buying Razer USB devices because you can't update the firmware on Linux. I'm guessing some support engineer got the request, escalated it up to management and management said "No".

It's worth pointing out that when the CEO made his comments, the response here was less than enthusiastic

https://hardware.slashdot.org/...

Razer keyboards are not high-end

[Misagon]

Razer is not seen as "high-end" within the high-end keyboard community.
Their mechanical keyboards would better be described as "entry-level" into the world of mechanical keyboards.

The build materials are cheap. They have gimmicky features.
Most of all, their marketing is atrocious, misleading and often borderline fraudulent.

Re:Not contradictory statements

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. And honestly, if this is the sort of childish response ("I'm going to make out Razar doesn't care about Linux in a lame attempt to pressure them into complying with my demands") a manufacturer gets, I don't see why they should even bother to respond to the next person.

Re:ROCCAT cares about Linux.

[MachineShedFred]

Then make a proposal to Razer.

Come on now, msmash - you've got a nice bully pulpit here. Get in contact with Razer and ask them to put together a cost analysis of what it would take, get the number, and then Kickstarter it. If there's enough interest in it, then it becomes cost-neutral for them to do it (or even profitable due to increased sales they wouldn't have otherwise gotten because of lacking support), and there's literally no reason to oppose it any more.

Don't just bleat about it being a tiny cost of other people's money and shit all over someone else with completely valid concerns - that's what the uninformed do. Get up and do something about it if it's important enough to you to "find it sickening and short sighted" and implore someone to rethink.

I implore you to do the same.