Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1030352AbVLGVaa (ORCPT ); Wed, 7 Dec 2005 16:30:30 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751787AbVLGVaa (ORCPT ); Wed, 7 Dec 2005 16:30:30 -0500 Received: from e1.ny.us.ibm.com ([32.97.182.141]:22424 "EHLO e1.ny.us.ibm.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751752AbVLGVa3 (ORCPT ); Wed, 7 Dec 2005 16:30:29 -0500 To: Dave Jones cc: Geert Uytterhoeven , Arjan van de Ven , "Randy.Dunlap" , Rik van Riel , Andrea Arcangeli , William Lee Irwin III , Linux Kernel Development , Leann Ogasawara Reply-To: Gerrit Huizenga From: Gerrit Huizenga Subject: Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario In-reply-to: Your message of Wed, 07 Dec 2005 16:02:46 EST. <20051207210246.GB22690@redhat.com> Date: Wed, 07 Dec 2005 13:30:18 -0800 Message-Id: Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2964 Lines: 59 On Wed, 07 Dec 2005 16:02:46 EST, Dave Jones wrote: > On Wed, Dec 07, 2005 at 12:22:24PM -0800, Gerrit Huizenga wrote: > > > I'm a little less worried about OSDL advocating binary drivers. > > Really ? That's a worst case scenario as far as I can see. So, OSDL is an organization, sometimes referred to as "osdl.org" and OSDL has members which are listed on the members page. OSDL.org has no desire to advocate binary drivers in any way and I don't expect that they will do anything to educate or influence their members or the global vendor/IHV/developer communities to use binary drivers. Further, I expect they will do exactly the opposite, in particular, educate members, developers, IHV's on how to deploy open source drivers and the benefits of doing so. There are *members* of OSDL who continue to have binary drivers as part of their product line, in part because of IHV business choices, and some of those *members* (e.g. IBM) are working to reduce the number of binary drivers while at the same time not impacting revenue. The goal is to remove all need for binary drivers as quickly as we can. Business realities are keeping this from happening "immediately" but most of the member companies that I know of are working in a similar direction. OSDL.org has also offered to help by creating a mailing list for open source drivers with a focus on educating and supporting IHV's (see os_drivers@lists.osdl.org) and a new documentation site (brand new!!!) http://developer.osdl.org/dev/opendrivers/documentation/ which will evolve into a Wiki over time. That Wiki will hopefully help out IHV developers but ALSO will focus on program managers, product managers, executives, etc. Resolving the customer issues related to device drivers has been rated as the #1 problem impeding customer adoption of Linux today. That has been raised by several vendors as well as by the OSDL Board of directors as the #1 problem to solve. There is a contingent of us working to ensure that the future solution to this problem is aligned with the community guidelines of open source, mainline accepted drivers over time, as well as with the distro needs as we understand them. There is a lot of material that we've generated with a goal of educating the IHV's; we continue to work with them over time at all levels within our own companies and the various IHV's. This is not an easy battle - MS still owns a large share of the IHV's business and it is ultimately business reasons that are most compelling to them over time. But, net summary, I trust that OSDL would do the right thing in hosting and editing a repository of information related to helping companies move towards open source drivers over time. gerrit - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/