Tracy R Reed wrote:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20060424164142296
Unfortunately, a lot of what is described in the article may be inevitable. Freedom-loving Linux distributions do not have the market share to force many hardware providers to release open source drivers. Also, when there aren't any vendors with open source drivers, how does the market vote for the open one? Why, even, would the market vote for the open one? As the article states most people would benefit (int the short term) from choosing the a closed source version.
I think the article rails a little hard on Linspire for providing a closed source dvd-player for a fee. In the US, at least, dvd players are subject to license (from the DVD-CCA ?) because of patent issues. There are basically only two legal options, either license it or don't include it. Once again an example where the market is not able to vote for a better option.
-- Rick -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
