Far Reaching Implications
In a move that could have far reaching implications, the Linux kernel community is making device driver development free. Yes, you heard it right, free as in free beer. In case your organization has a device and wants a driver to be developed for it, no need to think about stuff like time to ramp up engineers and stuff. Just publish your specification sheet and bingo. An army of developers are there ready to write a driver for you. More details on this are available Here.
Personally, i think this is a good move. But the point to ponder is this. Companies could have released their spec sheets all these years too and for sure, someone would have written drivers for it. But i think that the difference now would be that instead of waiting for *someone*, there is now someone.
Slowly and steadily, Linux is coming out into the mainstream. As the saying goes, "No force on earth can stop an idea whose time has come". Has the time come for Linux ? Looks like it.
K.Shyam
Tags: Device Drivers, Linux
Posted by Unknown at 10:37 PM
4 Comments
I wish so too! I can't wait for the day when Linux will be ubiquitous. IMO, Ubuntu has been making great strides in making it look user friendly and non-geekish. It's more to do with marketing now that the OS has reached a very mature stage. A lot of money has to be poured into negating the -ve markting of the evil Gates!
i think more than marketing, initiatives like these are important in making sure that no user says that the device he/she has is not supported. The rest will follow.
K.Shyam
I thought it was the desperate last attempt to put some sense into the third party vendors. not sure how many companies will take the offer though. i feel spending more time on LSB so that vendors have some linux standard to aim for will help. hope the new 'Linux Foundation' will work on this.
OSDL seems to be working on it. Let's wait and see what happens. But then again, too many egos in that world
:-(
K.Shyam
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