An interesting thought...

[suchawato]

So, I recently posted a rant in the Community cafe about what I felt at that moment to be the sum of my frustrations.(if anyone is interested, it is in Re-occuring Discussions)
After some thought (and after deleting the rant), and some thoughtful responses by 23Meg and others, it gave me pause to thought.
The gist of what I was ranting about was the frustration of feeling like a system that (in my mind) was supposed to "just work" sometimes "just didn't" for me as 23Meg put it.
I'll quote:

from 23Meg:
On my system, it just works. On someone else's, it half works, and on someone else's, it just doesn't. This is because there are too many hardware combinations in the world, some of which aren't supported well by the kernel, which is an upstream project that Ubuntu depends on.

With proprietary platforms such as Mac and Windows, most manufacturers actually care to produce working drivers, whereas the same isn't the case with Linux.
This made me think.
If most manufacturers don't actually care to produce drivers for linux at the moment, what can we do to help persuade them to do so? And what of the case of proprietary drivers? Say Sony is willing to make Linux drivers for every vaio they've ever made, but are not willing to release the source code?
What should we do?
It seems that thecompatibility of Unix/Linux has nothing to do with the software itself, and everything to do with the avalability of drivers that work. Hardware manufacturers release new stuff al the time, but if they don't release drivers for linux along with it, it seems that linux is doomed to remain less than cutting edge, as it will always have to play catch-up as long as this is the case.
So what can we do?
We've got really great software. What can we do to make it in a Company's best interest to provide driver support? And what if, they don't want to provide them open source if they do? Are we going to refuse them on that basis? Some distrobutions probably will. But not Ubuntu I presume, but what will we do about that?
Your thoughts please, I'd love to hear about them.
-Stu

[23meg]

If most manufacturers don't actually care to produce drivers for linux at the moment, what can we do to help persuade them to do so?

Keep using GNU/Linux, improve it, spread it, so that the manufacturers cannot afford to not care. If you have 20% of desktop market share, nobody can afford to ignore you.


And what of the case of proprietary drivers? Say Sony is willing to make Linux drivers for every vaio they've ever made, but are not willing to release the source code?

The tendency in Ubuntu is to tolerate it within limits (see: restricted driver manager).



Hardware manufacturers release new stuff al the time, but if they don't release drivers for linux along with it, it seems that linux is doomed to remain less than cutting edge, as it will always have to play catch-up as long as this is the case.

We've done pretty good at playing catch-up though, and in the last five years, things have been getting much better. If you keep growing faster, conditions that let you grow even faster start to shape up faster.

[ice60]

If most manufacturers don't actually care to produce drivers for linux at the moment, what can we do to help persuade them to do so? maybe write free drivers for them if they ask??
http://www.kroah.com/log/linux/free_drivers.html
http://www.linuxdriverproject.org/twiki/bin/view
http://www.kroah.com/log/linux/linux_driver_project_kickoff.html
http://www.kroah.com/log/linux/devices_lacking_linux_support_needed.html

[Iceni]

An article from desktoplinux.com about just this:


Desktop Linux needs drivers. Right? Of course. So why is Novell's Greg Kroah-Hartman, a Linux kernel developer and head of the Linux Driver Project, having to ask people to tell him about devices that need drivers?

It's a good question, and Kroah-Hartman doesn't have the complete answer. What he does know, as he explained in his blog, is that while the Linux Driver Project now has "over 300 different developers signed up to help create and maintain Linux drivers," at the same time he doesn't have "enough work to keep them busy."
more: http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS6669895837.html

[suchawato]

Keep using GNU/Linux, improve it, spread it, so that the manufacturers cannot afford to not care. If you have 20% of desktop market share, nobody can afford to ignore you.
That's a good point Meg, A market share like that couldn't be ignored.
But what about what ice60 said:

maybe write free drivers for them if they ask??
What about that? for the interim at least? Or even asking them directly?
Lets say Cannonical went to Sony, and said, "we are willing to write drivers for you, and even keep them proprietary if you like"? Writing drivers for a hardware manufacturer for free would seem to say "we are willing to give you an expanded market for free" Perhaps one of the reasons they(Sony) don't, is that if they consider Linux a fringe player, they don't want to have to pay employees to write drivers for what they may consider a small market. But if its done for free, what have they got to loose?
And, what about the possibility of even Paying them?
As you say Meg, a 20% market share could not be ignored.
A few extra hardware drivers to make Ubuntu the best, top-notch system out there, could not be ignored. and might just be what it takes to bring whole companies over to the linux side.
Perhaps?

[songshu]

the only thing you can do is to use the power of the $

buy from the vendors with good linux support and ask for it in the store, its the only way to make sure any hardware company understands that it is wise to support Linux.

[-grubby]

Keep using GNU/Linux, improve it, spread it, so that the manufacturers cannot afford to not care. If you have 20% of desktop market share, nobody can afford to ignore you.



how can that work? Linux has 1% or so of market share. Do you suppose someone is going to give us 19% more? If we spread it,use it we'll get more people, but doubt that much.

[songshu]

how can that work? Linux has 1% or so of market share. Do you suppose someone is going to give us 19% more? If we spread it,use it we'll get more people, but doubt that much.

its definitely not 20%, but i also dare to debate the 1%.

personally i have been using Linux for 5 years by now, in the mean time i have converted 7 friends and 60 co-workers to the holy church of Linux, i don't think its an representative number in anyway, but it does show that it can be done tough,
people don't want an OS, they want to have what everybody else is talking about....

[23meg]

how can that work? Linux has 1% or so of market share. Do you suppose someone is going to give us 19% more? If we spread it,use it we'll get more people, but doubt that much.

"Someone" doesn't give you market share; you make your good product available to the masses under sane terms, and the masses adopt. Currently, GNU/Linux isn't marketed to the masses.

[sailor2001]

mac is now 8% market share and if you check are getting quite a few drivers written for them.. I think if ubuntu could hit the 3% level, you would see quite a few mfg's starting to write drivers. 3% of 100m just in the states is a lot of pc's

[suchawato]

"Someone" doesn't give you market share; you make your good product available to the masses under sane terms, and the masses adopt. Currently, GNU/Linux isn't marketed to the masses.
Of course it could be argued that without the driver support to make it up-to-date and current on most systems, that market share maye have some trouble being achieved.
And you're right, people want what everybody else is using, but everybody else is using iTunes, Photoshop, and playing World of Warcraft.
In order to convince these companies to make software for Linux, wouldn't we need to already have that market share?
Why would companies make drivers for software with a marginal market share?
So what can we do in the interim?

[mridkash]

It may seem contradictory, but I think Linux should not be free (money wise). It should be more accessible, like say one goes to a superstore and finds ubuntu boxes on shelves. I would readily pay for it, of-course if the price is reasonable (less than windows).

just a thought.

[popch]

It may seem contradictory, but I think Linux should not be free (money wise). It should be more accessible, like say one goes to a superstore and finds ubuntu boxes on shelves. I would readily pay for it, of-course if the price is reasonable (less than windows).

just a thought.

Where I live you can find some of the more 'important' distributions in departement stores, book shops and the like. That's where I got my first issues of SuSe, RedHat and even Knoppix, nicely boxed and 'book-ed'.