On Wed, 2006-08-09 at 16:48 -0400, Max Spevack wrote: > another fun one for any of your thoughts. My guess is that most of the > answer to this question is a philosophic one about proprietary vendors > versus open source drivers, but I wanted to throw it out there. > > ----------- > > 2) Drivers Vs Linux > (Score:5, Interesting) > by eldavojohn > > A lot of people I talk to say they don't like Linux due to lack of driver > support. Is there anyway you see this problem being eliminated? How do you > court vendors to support their hardware on your flavor of Linux? > Would it be wrong to answer with: We don't court vendors. Vendors, for the most part, don't give a damn about linux b/c, well, we have a meager marketshare when it comes to support for desktop/end-user devices. Now, if you want to talk about support for hardware for servers then we can definitely talk about that. Vendors are practically beating a path to the lkml to give drivers to us b/c they are beginning to learn that to play nice with the linux kernel with your drivers is a good way to sell hardware. If this is in any doubt at all, just ask Dell and IBM vis-a-vis their server hardware. OR for an entirely other tack: Most negotiations with any large company for anything that they've not received huge stacks of cash for works like this: Someone has a friend who has the ear of an exec at company X. The friend has been convinced that linux is okay and should be helped. Therefore, the friend bugs the exec at company X and swears it will be good PR and will make good financial sense. Then the exec starts turning the corporate wheels and 6 months to a year (or more) later code or hardware specs come popping out the other end. All of the 'courting' is back channel and from a friend of a friend. Or what Malcolm Gladwell would refer to as a chain of connectors and a couple of salesmen. :) In short, ain't much the average person can do unless the average person is not so average. :) -sv _______________________________________________ fedora-advisory-board mailing list fedora-advisory-board@xxxxxxxxxx http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-advisory-board _______________________________________________ fedora-advisory-board-readonly mailing list fedora-advisory-board-readonly@xxxxxxxxxx http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-advisory-board-readonly
