proprietary drivers and secretive hardware [was: Supporting Ubuntu growth]

[Gareth Evans]

I'd imagine the reason that vendors do not make software for ubuntu/linux in
general is because it does not make money (which vendors have been known to
like).  While of course it is cheaper to make the software, there can't
really be any meaningful return on it if it's going to be free (as in
beer).  Of course, there are some vendors such as Novell, etc that have
caught on that you can make a lot of money on supporting the free product -
which I hope will be the case for many more vendors.

On 8/2/06, Tristan Van Berkom <tvb at gnome.org> wrote:
>
> Chris Thompson wrote:
> > Now, now, ladies and gentlemen.
> >
> > Comments suggesting we should hope that Microsoft goes bankrupt, or that
> > this is war (meaning, I assume FOSS vs. proprietary software) simply
> don't
> > belong here.
>
>     Well let me publicly apologize for using offensive words like "war"
> and
> terms such as "ruthless organizations", from what I gather; people on this
> list are engaged in an active effort to free users of proprietary
> software,
> secret encrypted formats such as msword etc. (the recent thread about
> ubuntu
> in schools really left me impressed with this little community btw),
> primarily by offering a software suite that can safely replace all that.
>
> So I am sorry if I came across harshly, my point was only to say that if
> we want things to change (like if we want to provide a system that will
> "game" just like windows does, or if we want to start seeing gnu/linux
> systems
> running in highscools), we have to make an active effort to change things
> and not leave it up to fate.
>
> Questions we should be asking ourselves include:
>   - What can we do to make vendors _want_ to have good/fast support
>     on gnu/linux systems (how can we make it attractive ?)
>   - What exactly is fundamentally wrong about releasing hardware that
>     your not allowed to know how to use ?
>     should it be against the law for the same kind of reason that you cant
>     include an OS and a file browser coupled in the same software package
> ?
>
> Now, if I'm not mistaken and nobody has any brilliant ideas on the topic,
> this thread will just die... just putting a hopefully usefull, positive
> and
> productive spin on this topic.
>
> Cheers,
>                     -Tristan
>
> --
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> ubuntu-ca at lists.ubuntu.com
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-ca
>
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