Dear Fedora Community, what do you want?

[George N. White III]

On Thu, 3 Jun 2004, Scott Sloan wrote:

> I had a discussion with a friend about a week ago about Linux and
> hardware support. Basically it was the endless loop that " Linux's
> popularity is directly related to the amount of hardware support which
> is based on it's popularity of the OS"

There is a lot of hardware out there aimed at the low end market
where low cost outways considerations of durability and robustness.
These devices generally rely heavily on host-based processing and
require complex drivers that tend to break when the OS is updated.

I don't really care if linux supports these low-end devices.  I want
support for devices that conform to established standards and will
work with multiple OS's, not just the Win32 version current when it
was made.

> So I took the question to the other side of the fence to a friend who
> works in high upper management, who's words carries a lot of weight, for
> a highly respected hardware manufacture, well at least for printers in
> my book.
>
> "Give me a list of what the Linux community is seeking as far as
> hardware support and I'll see if I can get some bodies working on it.
> With a convincing email or two and we should be able to get it done"
>
> I know nothing is for certain (besides: death and taxes  :) but I would
> like to write the email just to get the issue out there. so I'm asking
> What do we want from manufactures? Just great stable drivers? GPL
> drivers? And How can we convince them that writing drivers for Linux is
> worth their time?

It isn't.  If hardware supports appropriate standards, the drivers will
be written with or without a manufacturer's participation.

I want devices with interfaces based on open standards that the linux 
community can support (e.g., not encumbered by patents, trade secrets, 
etc).  Sure such devices will cost a bit more, but the devices will be 
more reliable and will continue work until they wear out.

The important discussion is what open standards are needed.  Certainly
graphics and printer interfaces are currently a problem, but I'm not sure
how much of this is driven by limitations in the available standards as
opposed to marketing standards and intellectual property issues.

One problem area that needs to be addressed in open standards is how to 
remain open and still support intelligent devices in a secure fashion. One 
can imagine worms and viruses that program graphics interfaces to display 
commercial messages, printers to add p0rn images to documents, wireless 
cards to broadcase commercial messages to devices operating on other 
frequencies, etc.  Some vendors are using "security by obscurity" as an 
excuse for keeping interfaces hidden, but since we know that 
obscurity has marginal security benefits, so must doubt the 
sincerity of those vendors.

The challenges posed by device support in the open source community 
include designing supportable (e.g., non-encumbered) interface standards 
that work and don't create security problems and opportunities for 
"bad guys and gurls".  A manufacturer that contributes to creating these
standards will be in a much better position to implement the hardware
correctly than competitors who don't participate in this effort.

--
George N. White III  <aa056 at chebucto.ns.ca>
   Head of St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia, Canada