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'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.
It's worth pointing out that when the CEO made his comments, the response here was less than enthusiastic
This is a key downside for Linux for many reasons:
1) The community has shown to be toxic with constant infighting.
2) The community is highly aggressive to anything which doesn't 100% meet their core values. Create a gaming hardware, good. Open source 99% of the firmware, great. That 1% is a closed source binary blob, BURN DOWN THEIR HEADQUARTERS!
3) The community is small so the cost benefit ratio sucks.
4) The community is fussy and has high standards (see all of the above).
5) The community generally isn't of the hardcore gaming type.
Why would any gaming company chose to support Linux when gamers have shown to be more than happy* to run Windows / stuff around with Wine to play their games.
*And by more than happy I mean they whine less about running Windows for games than the do about something in Linux not being 100% perfect.
No. They make EXPENSIVE (but extremely breakable) peripherals and skimp on the QA.
In the end, nothing of any value was lost.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
It is worse than that. Their software is cloud based.
So for example, to change the keyboard lights or mouse lights or mouse function buttons or use anything besides basic 2-button HID mouse:
1) Set up an account on Razer
2) Have client software running on windows.
3) Have holes in firewall so that client can connect
4) Your settings, for your local mouse/KB mouse, are stored in the cloud.
5) If it loses connection to the cloud you can't change any of your settings.
6) IIRC it requires cloud access on startup, otherwise it loads default profile.
FOR. A. MOUSE.
Never again.