Regarding UserLinux, let's stop slagging Red Hat!

[Marcus Brubaker]

On Wed, 2003-11-12 at 05:25, JoeHill wrote:
> On Tue, 11 Nov 2003 22:05:13 -0500
> Marcus Brubaker <marcus.brubaker-H217xnMUJC0sA/PxXw9srA at public.gmane.org> uttered:
> 
> > Basically, he thinks the brand-new whiz-bang hardware support is
> > lacking.  Can you really fault him much on that?  Sure, Linux supports
> > all the legacy hardware and more, but if you go out and by a webcam at
> > random, what are the odds of it working out of the box?  Hell, I just
> > recently bought a new LCD monitor and while it wasn't hard to setup I
> > don't imagine that a regular home user could've done it on their own. 
> > A*monitor* people.
> 
> But that's exactly *because* of MS's monopoly on the home desktop. If
> more people were using Linux at home, and buying the latest hardware,
> and demanding that the hardware vendors support their Linux OS, then we
> would see a very different situation. Hardware vendors have for too long

Which is precisely what I said in the rest of my email.  It's the
chicken/egg problem.  Honestly, do you expect people to spend money on
hardware which only has a chance of working and then call the company to
ask why it doesn't?  What I *do* expect to happen is that people will
choose Linux supported hardware over hardware which isn't, which will
give the vendors the incentive to support Linux.

Moreover, my point was that there probably isn't enough pressure from
the (relatively) small contingent of home Linux users to drive this
support right now, but rather the initial push is/will be from the
enterprise desktop market which wants Linux support.  When that pressure
is exerted then we will see broader consumer adoption of Linux on the
desktop which will lead to the support from the more consumer oriented
devices.

How do you think OS/2 kept getting hardware driver support for such a
long time, even though it was a dead system on the consumer market? 
Because it was very widely deployed in the enterprise desktop market,
vendors supported it.  Though the comparison to OS/2 may seem
fatalistic, remember that OS/2 died because IBM tied its own hands to be
able to support Windows.  Linux doesn't (and can't) have that liability.

> been in the thrall of MS, bowing and scraping to have their hardware
> supported. Once they realize there's money to be made from home Linux
> users, watch the drivers and support start to fly. Until now, Linux has
> had to scrape by on its own, reverse-engineering here, hacking there,
> because the hardware vendors either:
> 
> a) couldn't give a rat's ass about Linux because of the thinking of
> people like RH's CEO.

Like I said, I am annoyed at RH's CEO for voicing it.  It did them no
good and was harmful to public perceptions.  However market realities
tend to agree with it *at the moment*.

-- 
Marcus Brubaker <marcus.brubaker-H217xnMUJC0sA/PxXw9srA at public.gmane.org>

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