Ed Greshko wrote:
Frank Cox wrote:
On Sun, 28 Oct 2007 21:29:09 -0500
Les Mikesell <lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Except that the people
providing the binary do have a reason to care if it works.
Until they decide that it's time to sell you another card and discontinue their
binary blob for the model that you already have.
You mean like when a developer of an opensource project decides he doesn't
want or can't continue to support the project and it closes down for lack of
others picking up the mantle?
The difference is that, there is a opportunity for others to get
involved which is not the case for non-free software. Most popular Free
software projects frequently are supported by multiple groups even
commercially and when one goes away, another steps up to fill in the gap
as it has happened quite often and there is also the possibility that
you hire others or get in-house people to maintain it. non-free software
does give that level of control to end users.
This is apart from the legal issues involved in combining non-free
modules and the Linux kernel for a distribution.
Rahul
