[PLUG] Making it easier for the open source community to support fancier hardware...

[Aaron Burt]

On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 03:17:41PM -0700, Michael Robinson wrote:
> If an organization had say ten million dollars, could it get
> hardware schematics from companies like Intel and then gpl them so
> that there's less guessing when it comes to supporting new hardware 
> with an OSS driver?

Maybe sometimes.  But why should it spend that money on paying a
dunderheaded company to be slightly less dunderheaded?
There are far, far better things to do with that kind of money.  

For instance, convince said dunderheaded company that it'd be worth
its while to spend its *own* money doing that.  
For example, the OSDL often specifies in its RFPs that suppliers
provide OSS drivers for its hardware.  No drivers, no sale.  
It's amazing what happens when the pressure comes from Marketing and
Sales instead of Engineering.

Also, has has been discussed here and elsewhere many times, many
OSS hardware support issues come down to the fear of exposing patent
violations.  There is no reasonable way to verify that your design is
totally free of violations, so opening up its specs can expose you to
very expensive lawsuits, even if the design is obsolete.

> It's ironic that companies have special procedures that have to be
> followed to set the machines they've designed up and that often,
> especially with Dell, the computer owner has a hard time getting
> this information.

Dell is up there with IBM as regards providing information.  And
they're good about using industry-standard chipsets and suchlike.

> Not very many people can afford to set up a factory to use a
> company's schematics in order to manufacture that company's product.
> Even if Intel would release the hardware schematics for it's last
> generation that could help fans of Linux and other operating
> environments.

Intel's already done an exemplary job of supporting Linux.  How would
schematics help?  Or are you a bit unclear on what "schematics" means?

-- 
"My favorite programming language is a soldering iron."
 - Steve Ciarcia