On Monday 09 August 2010 11:43:27 Michal Suchanek wrote: > On 3 August 2010 05:14, Quiliro Ordóñez <[email protected]> wrote: > >> | Finishing the HURD would not advance us at all in supporting these > >> | devices. The work that is needed is at the driver and firmware > >> | level. That's why our high priority task list includes items relating > >> | to free drivers, but not the HURD. > > > > Do you think that having a good Hurd would remove or at least lessen the > > problem of the non-libre firmware?
> The option to reverse-engineer non-free drivers is a workaround but > did not provide a long term solid solution so far. I think the long term solution is easily stated: 1. Don’t include unfree drivers in distributions (or at least require the users to explicitely state that they want to give up freedom – in Gentoo I have to add an entry to my /etc/make.conf for every unfree license I want/need to accept). 2. Become so big that the hardware manufacturers lose a major share of their money by not producing a free driver. 3. Provide a brand: Free Software compatible. Hardware which is compatible to the major free systems (regardless of by virtue of the manufacturer or because the firmware was reverse engineered) can get a cool brand. I think point 1 won’t change with the Hurd. Currently it’s up to the admin and the user can’t change the fact that he uses the unfree driver. With the Hurd there could be a thinner free glue layer used in all drivers and the user could simply decide to replace the unfree driver with a free one. Due to easier low-level experimenting it might become much easier to write new drivers, though, increasing the number of people who reverse engineer for fun. For point 2 we’re on a good way. Statistic evaluation (in german): → http://draketo.de/licht/politik/leserbriefe/gnulinux-gewinnt-marktanteile T his started as an answer to a journalist who was reading the data wrong… Short version: * August 2008: 8,31 GNU/Linux users per 1000 Windows or MacOSX users. * July 2010: 9,65 per 1000. Net gain of 16% in two years. But mind trusting the data: It’s just browser statistics. Point 3 I don’t know. Is already someone working on a brand which manufacturers can use to say Look here, this device is cool! It respects your freedom! Buy it!“ – maybe allowing them to use the GPLv3 brand if all necessary drivers of the device are under the GPLv3 (or compatible – they can just add some wrapper code and the derivative work becomes GPLv3)? AdBard is a nice step into that direction. Best wishes, Arne
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