Comments on: Why are hardware manufacturers keeping specs to themselves?

By: DailyDigital » Blog Archive » The main problem with linux…

DailyDigital » Blog Archive » The main problem with linux… — Thu, 08 May 2008 05:44:36 +0000

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By: cinezone

cinezone — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 08:03:02 +0000

How do you find out if the Hardware comes with Free Software ? Do you have a website with a list ?

By: Andrey

Andrey — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 06:23:36 +0000

There are no specs since people allow for it. People allow for it because they are “users”, not pros. Years ago when computer buyers were pros all the specs were in place. Now, how do you expect the people who buy Windows to be treated?

There are no standards because it is hard to create a standard before a class of devices is established. It is hard to do anything right on the first try. After a class has been established, everyone is happy and there is no incentive to create a standard. Besides, any standard simplifies compatibility but hinders innovation.

USB mass storage is exceptional since it is just a merge of two well established concepts: a bus and a storage device.

By: a1000

a1000 — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 12:15:18 +0000

the manufacturers have found drivers as way of income. google for radeon upgrade to firegl. most radeon card use the same chipset with different quality peripherie chips. an open sorurce driver will of cause use all available power, where is the need to buy a new (better) card ? that support OpenGl ?
The lack f standardisation is a other point even with IDE. reason: the have out-sourced the development to some clueless third party people. they just imlement the suff and forget out it. Mosttimes only the standard stuff works, use advanced features and find you device freesing. Additional that means that the formal producer has no clue what chips are inside and what the driver is doing. (see what problem cisco had after it was found to use GPL code, they did not have the sources nor did they know how produced the code, it took them same time to comply to GPL).

By: stoobie

stoobie — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 22:09:01 +0000

A very good example of this issue in all the problems that Dennis K had when he released a bunch of “home-spun” drivers to allow legacy Creative sound cards to work with Windows Vista. Creative accused him of using their IP, and even though they have been quite slow to release any drivers of their own, they forced him to stop releasing his. Fortunately, this created such an uproar within the Creative community that Creative was eventually forced to allow him to continue.
THIS is exactly the sort of co-operation we FOSS types can expect from the hardware industry – unless we vote with our wallets to the extent that they feel our pain, they will NEVER lift a finger to help us out.

By: Mike Harden

Mike Harden — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 20:57:41 +0000

I seem to recall and article about graphics card makers saying that they didn’t release their source code because they didn’t want their competitors to use it against them. Apparently some hardware that is highly dependent on silicon chips need some hacks in the driver code to deal with manufacturing variances in each chip. So if vendor X published their code, vendor Y might say “Look, their code is full of all these hack jobs and so their product is poor quality”.

But otherwise, yeah, open specs would be nice…

By: johrt

johrt — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 13:34:21 +0000

I think the reason more drivers aren’t open is that the manufacturer is afraid of getting sued by patent trolls in the USA. Many devices are relatively dumb and depend on the processing power of the host system to provide functionality. The more complex the driver the greater chance of getting sued.

I agree there far too many cases of forced upgrades due lack of drivers for a new OS.

By: daz

daz — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 10:30:42 +0000

you have answered your own question

why should moving from win95 win98 winxp stop my printer from working, having no way to get this working in the next level of os means one thing… a dead printer..
meaning if i wish to print i need to purchase another one.

which is why i did not purchase another printer from lexmark. I never purchased another printer full stop.

you used to get printers and devices with drivers for x86 Amiga, Atari and Macs all out of the box… never had to think about is it compatible…

in the end you get what you pay for… which is a sad world as most just purchase the cheapest thing they see…

By: Boycott Novell » Links 07/04/2008: ASUS and GNU/Linux, UMPCs and GNU/Linux as Commodity Platform

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 10:19:57 +0000

[...] Why are hardware manufacturers keeping specs to themselves? [...]