Per Jessen wrote:
BRUCE STANLEY wrote:
The problem will prevent Suse (on any version of Linux that goes down this path) from ever becomming a mainstream Desktop OS.
Just of curiosity - what would you say defines a mainstream Desktop OS? For instance in terms of market-share?
As to whether the GPL vs non-GPL drivers issue will prevent Linux from becoming mainstream, I'm not so sure. Very large European public administrations have already gone Linux - perhaps it's not mainstream, but very impressive nonetheless.
It's a problem if it makes it impossible to use commonly available hardware.
or Linux would have to be changed so that users could install drivers from vendors without having to go through complex Kernel rebuilds (dlls, loadable modules, etc.).
I believe some of that is already in the pipeline.
The problem with not buying products lacking open-source drivers is that you will eliminate a large number (most) of the options for the user to buy.
I beg to differ. So far we use only SUSE Linux, and we've only hit one case where 10.1 did not provide the driver - Atheros wifi. We got it from madwifi instead. Our hardware is very varied - IBM Thinkpads, misc workstations, desktops, Compaq servers.
I have an IBM ThinkPad R31, which uses the slamr modem driver. Will it still work in 10.1? 10.2?
I was hoping to put Suse 10.1 on my IBM T41 laptop, but with the lack of hardware support for the modem, I'll have to pass.
I've put 10.1 on our newly purchased IBM R51e - no significant problems.
If a manufacturer chooses to make a non-GPL module, what's the problem??? I'm not saying SUSE or other has to include it, but to actually prevent it from being used??? That's nonsense!!! What if there's no other option? Am I supposed to toss my ThinkPad, because some future version of Linux won't support the hardware?