On Mon, Aug 26, 2002 at 01:00:39PM +0530, Kingsly John poked the keyboard with a finger (??) and composed: > +++ Sayamindu Dasgupta [2002-08-26 11:40:07]: > > > > Have you actually gone through the source code of every single software that > > > you use ?? > > > > no, but when a company provides closed drivers for GNU/Linux and try to > > make people think that what they are doing is absolutely right, they are > > best avoided > And you believe that just because a few other people feel it's right is what > makes the software good ? Millions of people thought Adolf Hitler was great > in the 1930s.
Millions of people thoght Hitler was good simply because they were misinformed, and brain washed. i believe what i believe because my head thinks that's right > > > > <linus> > > > And I personally refuse to use inferior tools because of ideology. In > > > fact, I will go as far as saying that making excuses for bad tools > > > due to ideology is _stupid_, and people who do that think with their > > > gonads, not their brains. > > > </linus> > > > > <RMS> > > Proprietary drivers are not a solution in the Free World. Until these > > modems have free drivers, we have to consider them *unsupported* by > > the free GNU/Linux operating system. > > Pop Quiz... > > They are not a solution because ?? > > a) They are available. > b) They get the job done. > c) RMS said they are not a solution. > They *do not* get the job done. if you poke around in the [EMAIL PROTECTED] lists, you will find that in most cases, the modems are not working, or even if they work, the "quality" of work sucks. not only RMS, there are thousands in the free software world who would agree that proprietary drivers are not the solution > > > companies such as PCTel will have to start providing free drivers, not > > proprietary binaries. Encouraging people to use non-free drivers is > > not going to get us there. > > Great... so PCTel opens up the only real technology in their modem.. and > promptly someone decides to fork their GPL'd driver... and PCTel goes out of > business. Because unlike Graphics card the internal modems have nearly zilch > hardware. So open sourcing the driver will not be viable for the company. > IBM has done so - they have GPL'ed drivers for their winmodems and AFAIK, Intel is also moving towards the same direction > > It weakens the campaign that we need to > > strengthen if we are to win our freedom. > > </RMS> > > There are a million other freedoms that are being trampled upon everyday.. > (Like DMCA, Gujarat, Raju wanting to prevent people from coding etc.!! ;-) > Binary modem drivers give you the freedom to use their hardware under your OS > of choice. > No! they restrict our freedom of using them under the OS of our choice. who is going to guarantee that the manufacturer of the hardware is going to give me a driver that will work with the next kernel?? > > > Ok,, I wouldn't say that winmodems are superior... but with CPU's clocking > > > Ghz... there isn't much of a difference in performance and as I had noted > > > earlier.. the Lucent winmodem worked better than my external modem on my > > > parents comp. > > > > > > > no, the problem also lies in quality > > Just go through the above paragraph again and explain your quote in that > context ?? performance of *most* winmodems are far more inferior than normal modems of course, some people are born lucky :) > > > the drivers provided by the manufacturers have a lot of serious > > problems. > > Yeah ?? like they eat up your hard disk sound card etc ?? Get real.. they > work period... some like the SM56 don't work.. but that is because the > company is out of the business.. there are no drivers for WinXP either. no! they have genuine problems like making the whole box go down - "NO CARRIER" messages, the list of troubles with these modems are endless. > > if they are GPLed, chances are that some hacker will be able to solve > > the problems > > What are these problems that will solved ? see above > > > in doze' winmodems usually work better due to low latency > > Quite the contrary ... they probably work better under linux.. because I have > noticed that under windows the modem stops completely when ever you use the > printer or access the floppy drive. > that's only one specific modem you have seen. come to discuss@linmodems, and there, we get countless problems with these modems. yes, most of these problems are simply because newbie users cannot figure out things, but there are quite a few genuine problems too problems for example, with a few Lucent modems, it has been reported that the sound card fails to work when the modem drivers are loaded same is the case with a few PCTel modems Another extreme case is that of a guy whose machine froze whenever there was any disk/mouse activity when the modem was in use > I've been using a "propreitary closed source binary only" driver for my > Nvidia card for over 2 years now... and the driver doesn't just work... it > beats the hell out of all the other graphics cards.(and the same card under > windows). > but has ever NVidia given you the guarantee that they are going to provide their drivers for the next version of the kernel?? i had to wait till the 2.4.7 release when a proper driver was released for my PCTel modem. And even today, the driver is totally buggy (very often my entire box crashes because of that driver) > Just because some bearded guy says that it's wrong to use it.. I'm not going > to give up a great graphics card and opt for something inferior... I think I > am sane/smart enough to make my own decisions to do what is right for me... > and if you ask me you should be smart enough to do it too! :-) > Not only the bearded guy (heck - that beard is quite nice :) even Linus and the other kernel developers believe that proprietary drivers can cause problems, and so, in 2.4.18 onwards, you will get a warning when loading such drivers - and you system gets "tainted" [root@localhost root]# lsmod Module Size Used by Tainted: P ptserial 41120 2 pctel 1211904 1 [ptserial] NVidia provides great drivers, and I agree with you. However, this approach can be emulated by some other smaller companies, and the result will be inferior drivers the FS community will not be behind these drivers - they will not be able to hack them, and make them better. NVidia has a lot of resource that enables them to provide great drivers for companies that do not have so much resource, the result will be a buggy driver, full of problems - the case that has happened with almost all of the Winmodems and, thus in the end, tge NVidia drivers can cause much more harm than good -sdg- : ####[ Linux One Stanza Tip (LOST) ]########################### Sub : dbx/ mbx to mbox conversion LOST #185 It is difficult converting mails gathered over M$ proprietory format ins OE to mbox commonly used by *nix mailers. The URLs below cater for some such utilities: o http://sourceforge.net/projects/ol2mbox/ o http://mbx2mbox.sourceforge.net/ ####<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>################################ : ------------------------------------------------------- This sf.net email is sponsored by: OSDN - Tired of that same old cell phone? Get a new here for FREE! https://www.inphonic.com/r.asp?r=sourceforge1&refcode1=vs3390 _______________________________________________ linux-india-help mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linux-india-help
