On Mon, Aug 08, 2005 at 03:06:58PM -0400, Lee Revell wrote:
> On Mon, 2005-08-08 at 12:56 -0600, Alejandro Bonilla wrote:
> > Again, the point is that ndiswrapper is a great project, but people
> > uses it for the leftovers! We *shouldn't* buy leftovers or from Manuf
> > that don't care about Linux.
>
> If you are always speccing out new systems then of course, but in the
> real world I have some customers who need to dual boot and ideally it
> would work on their existing hardware. Linux is a harder sell if people
> need to replace a lot of their gear.
That's the advantage of such drivers.
I see at least two disadvantages:
First, it doesn't encourage hardware manufacturers to support open
source development.
Linux has only a small market share, but it's slowly growing.
Linux driver support does sometimes influence the decision which
hardware to buy.
With NdisWrapper, the hardware manufacturer can say:
"Our hardware is supported through the open source NdisWrapper."
Without NdisWrapper, they will sometimes hear that people did choose to
buy hardware from a different hardware manufacturer that has a Linux
driver. This can make the hardware manufacturer more friendly towards
open source development (e.g. by providing hardware specs).
Secondly, binary-only drivers have an impact on the stability of the
Linux kernel.
E.g. during the last years the nvidia has produced relatively many
kernel crashes - and I doubt that binary-only drivers for Windows are
much better in this respect.
The users only see their kernel crashing blaming the Linux kernel and
harming the reputation of the stability of Linux.
> Lee
cu
Adrian
--
"Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
"Only a promise," Lao Er said.
Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed
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