Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario

From: Andrew McGregor
Date: Thu Dec 08 2005 - 02:16:27 EST



On 6/12/2005, at 3:31 AM, Brian Gerst wrote:

Andrea Arcangeli wrote:

When we don't buy hardware without open source drivers, we send the
message to the shareholders that the management is causing them a loss.

The problem with this statement is that Linux users are a drop in the bucket of sales for this hardware. Boycotting doesn't cost the vendors enough to make them care. And this does nothing for people who are converting over to Linux, and didn't buy hardware with that consideration in mind.

I happen to know of an orphaned wireless chip that might be revived if we can orchestrate orders for a few thousand cards. It has a nice Linux driver that could be open sourced very easily, as so far as I can tell it doesn't derive from anything that wasn't BSD licensed in the first place... and the hardware performance is exemplary. Anyone with significant purchasing capacity reading this?

Andrew

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