On Tue, Apr 08, 2008 at 11:46:48AM +0530, JoJo jojo wrote: > Thanks Greg, > > A few points for your consideration > > a) Marketing the LDP project:- > You are missing the numbers, from the LDP propaganda, > numbers/statistics etc. > (even MicroSoft quotes things like TCO ;-) in their propaganda) > > Someone may try coming up with numbers from git commit logs, > but how do we know, how many of them came from LDP efforts ? Exactly, it's not a simple "oh look, these drivers came exactly from our efforts" type of thing. The reach and range of this effort is already quite large, trying to quantify it for no good reason isn't something that I'm going to worry about. In the end, what would it really achieve? > b) You need to segregate the LDP targets into 2 categories > Enterprise endusers & Non-Enterprise endusers. I do not believe in those two categories at all. > Enterprise endusers are the ones telling you, their h/w is > well/somewhat supported, > Non-Enterprise endusers are the ones telling you, their h/w is _NOT_ supported, > > "Enterprise" segment is attractive to developers, there's money to be made.... > "Non-Enterprise" segment is _NOT_ attractive to developers, there's > _no_ money to be made.... That's not true, there is lots of money made every day in the "non-enterprise" markets. Think consumer, embedded, phones, etc. > So I have to ask, what is the goal of LDP, target only "Enterprise" segment ? The goal is "drivers for all devices from any manufacturer that wants them." We do not descriminate by market share or anything else. > c) Taking Driver support on a war footing "war"? This isn't a "us vs. them" type thing at all, despite the human nature of always wanting to create such a story to explain things. > Please work to centralize the H/W compatibility list, every distro is > rolling their own...its all a mess That is outside the scope of our effort, sorry. > Start a major effort to Whitelist/Blacklist Manufacturer & Devices, > the Idea is as below > - Centralize h/w compatibility support list > - This list will have regularly updated list of _actual_ Brand Names > & model numbers > - Users will use this before buying h/w (you wish !!) > - Users will report incompatibility too. > - Start rating Manufacturer based on its support for FSF/openness > - Users must reward the more open Manufacturer based on this list by > spending their money.(wishlist) > - this is based on the carrot & stick approach, your strategy only > uses the carrot approach, > (MicroSoft uses both carrot & stick, by funding you or your competitors.) Such a list will always fail in the end, there is no possible way to keep up with it properly due to the vastness of the computer market in the whole world. People have tried in the past, and always failed. I wish those who want to try again the best of luck, but it's not something that I ever wish to do. We are working on code and education to create more code, not white/black lists. > d) is LDP for the benefit of all endusers, or just the enterprise ones ? > (just making sure this is discussed/answered) See above. > e) reverse-engineering is _THE_ opensource way, (going back to the > time of PDP ?) > do you agree to the above statement, as a spokesmen for Linux as a OS? I am a spokesman for no one but myself, and that statement doesn't make any sense to me at all. > f) putting 2+2 together, > - If you care about doing something to help all end users (not just > enterprise ones) > - reverse-engineering is _the_ opensource way > wouldn't it make more sense to mobilize your efforts to solve this > pressing problem, > with / without documentation being made available ? No. :) > g) there's a reason manufacturers don't bother with documentation, > they make a IC in a batch, and if they only have order for 1 batch > run, why bother with documentation, > just fab it and forget about it, is their attitude. That is not true, having worked with many manufacturers in the past and present. > e) wireless is a mess because of FCC regulations, they want > manufacturers to limit the operating capabilities of the > device(frequencies), manufacturers figure that its cheaper to do this > in s/w rather than h/w, by making a closed source firmware. I don't > see how we can improve this situation unless you can help EU legislate > it away (assuming US is a lost cause) The whole FCC thing is, in my personal opinion, a big excuse that some companies are using to not release the code for their hardware. If you notice, other companies do not believe this and have released code. Either way, the very capable, and active developers of the linux-wireless projects are working to resolve all of the wireless driver issues. If you have questions or concerns about these types of devices, please contact them. thanks, greg k-h
