It won't be reverse engineered. The task is non-trivial. The way to resolve
these types of issues is to band together and support free software
compatible hardware. With enough people purchasing the same hardware it can
better supported. In many cases there aren't actually any free software
compatible solutions. Which makes it all the more important that even where
something is fairly easy to get elsewhere purchasing from companies like ours
can make the difference later for devices you may want and otherwise not be
able to get. There are at least a few wifi cards for instance that until now
had no solution or will soon have no solution (if we didn't/don't step in).
Even with all the wifi adapters we sell it isn't anywhere near the number
that are needed to put a dent in funding or convincing atheros/or another
chipset manufacturer to release free drivers. We are talking with design
firms though so that we have a better idea what numbers are needed and what
goals are feasible. It will help us determine which projects to focus on.
That said I think it will be possible in the future to have an influence on
the market. As long as people continue to make purchasing decisions based on
freedom rather than trying to get everything under the sun to work (which
never ends well anyway- even on non-free distributions- in particular over
time).
In three years we have gone from having a small catalog of free software
compatible hardware, to having a decent size, to having a large catalog
(competitively speaking). It is by far the largest selection for GNU/Linux
anywhere, and the only real catalog of free software compatible hardware.
People are making a huge difference even now. It's giving more people the
*ability* to use free software that could never have gotten hardware working
before. Numbers matter. Both from our ability to get things done and the
ability to influence and get our objectives met (the release of or
development of free drivers/firmware/software). With more dollars coming in
the more hardware we can work on and the better the support will be.
If you make a purchase from http://libre.thinkpenguin.com/ we donate 25% of
the profits to the Trisquel project. This is one of the projects which needs
funding. We also donate 10% of sales from one of our channels to the free
software foundation. We are also giving people the opportunity to donate 10%
to the free software foundation from
https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/free-software-foundation
The later link is actually linked to from advertising we are doing elsewhere
(well, sponsoring of another project- which links to us) and most of those
users are new to the concept of free software.
