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Yet Another Linux Driver Petition
Rendus writes "Just saw this over at Linux Today, a request for people to sign the Linux drivers petition. Their goal is 2 million signatures. When I signed, I was number 20." Well I've never heard of libranet, but hopefully they'll be successful in convincing a few manufacturers to either release drivers for Linux, or the specs so we can do it.
That means that, to get 2,000,000 signatures, they need 1 out of every 20 Linux Users "out there" to sign the petition. That's a -very- high percentage. You don't see that kind of turnout in almost anything. I've been told that sales-folk will reckon on between 1 in 20 and 1 in 100 actually doing anything -of those who have said they actually would-.
1% actually being interested, and 1% of those interested actually doing anything about it seem reasonable guesstimates. That would put the total at 4,000 signatures. Somewhat less than 2,000,000, but might still be enough to persuade some companies that it's worth exploring the possibility.
That, IMHO, is about all the commitment we'll ever get, until Linux matches Windows on the desktop. But a willingness to look is light-years better than a refusal to consider, which is the way it's tended to be in the past.
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)
Coca-Cola is not a means to an end like software is. You need driver software to run hardware. Without the software, your hardware is pretty much useless. Charging for drivers is valid only if it goes into the production cost of the hardware. Or, in other words, if the driver is provided with the hardware when you buy it. Charging for the source of the drivers is absolutely unjustified.
In this scheme of things, one cannot really draw an analogy with Coca-Cola. But let me give it a try. Imagine that every soft-drink can only be drunk with a special straw that is dependant on the formula of the drink. Some soft-drink manufacturers provide the straw which will enable you to drink their product. Others dont, but provide you with enough info to make / buy a suitable straw. Coca-Cola on the other hand will sell their products to anyone, but will sell straws only to bug-eyed aliens from Mars, and absolutely refuses to provide info on which straws to buy, or how to make a suitable straw. Is this situation acceptable? I think not!
There is no such thing as luck. Luck is nothing but an absence of bad luck.
they don't need my email. I'm not signing unless they don't require it. And I'm not the only
one.
Make a bogus, yet legitimate email address that you never intend to read. You can email me there, the message will be received, but will pour the shiny electrons into the bitbucket recyclotron. Use the command "adduser nospam" and you have an instant throwaway account!
I like the idea but I'm not sure a general petition would have much effect.
The company I currently work for received a request for the release of information specifically in relation to the Linux OS. The letter was also a general petition and seemed like a form letter since it didn't seemed to know what we specifically do (other than what our name specified). It was signed "The Linux Community" but nothing more specific than that.
A general petition is nice in principle, but it had pretty much no effect on how we do things for a couple of reasons (given by engineering and management).
1. Our company's hardware and software is mostly proprietary, and we've yet to see any reason to switch to Linux (not to say I personally wouldn't like to see how it would go) that would benefit us or our clients.
2. The letter really didn't identify any clients (corporate or private) specifically asking our company to change our OS or release hardware specs. Thus no actual impact on us in financially or in the PR area that we can tell.
3. The manner in witch the letter was written was not entirely pleasant. The implication of the letter seemed as if the author was accusing us of limiting our clients options in some malicious way, but again, it wasn't from any of our clients (that we know of) and wasn't specific at all.
4. Some engineering concerns have been raised about moving to an OS that we do not know much about compared to our own. Security, support and the cost of such migration weigh heavily on many minds regarding such a switch. Also concerns about trade secrets were also brought up.
The idea seems nice, but I'm not sure how much effect this will have. Our company responds much better to specific requests from clients, or groups of clients than just a general letter like we received. I believe that most companies react the same.
X - Number of Linux Users (10M according to Wayne above)
x - Number of Linux Users who give a damn about anything other than fraggin
Y - Number who read ./ and know about this cause
y - Percentage who know to put the www ahead of the URL
Z - Site capacity factor
z - Percentage who never come back after the first "this account has too many processes running,try again later"
A - Percentage who lurk everywhere and will never "Submit" even when the dreaded button says something else
a - Length of time that story will be an Article on ./
B - residence time on "Older Stuff"
b - fudge factor
With all of these variables, I estimate that the petition count will be 75,000 by 1/1/0 when the world's computing infrastructure turns into a tangled, smoking heap. Of course, I am not a coder and just factored all of the variables in my head. I just think of stupid things, I do not make them executable.