Comments on: Time for a new Debian? http://thunk.org/tytso/blog/2004/05/20/time-for-a-new-debian/ Musings about Open Source, Linux, and Life by Theodore Tso Sat, 24 Apr 2010 16:15:27 -0400 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: Marc K http://thunk.org/tytso/blog/2004/05/20/time-for-a-new-debian/comment-page-1/#comment-2612 Marc K Tue, 23 Jun 2009 00:55:04 +0000 http://thunk.org/tytso/blog/?p=87#comment-2612 Sounds like Ubuntu to me. I don't like having to use non-free drivers for my nVidia and ATI graphics cards, but I'm glad that Ubuntu makes it easy for me to do so! I'd prefer a better or equivalent free software implementation, of course -- well, ultimately, I think the hardware developers really ought to get on the bandwagon and at least publish detailed specifications and "not-so-secrets" to get the ball rolling. Even better, they could sponsor some FLOSS developers to maintain the code for them! I can't understand them not willing to do so; it seems to be getting to the point by now that it would be quite an endorsement to be able to say that their drivers are fully open-source, and that they'll provide a similar level of functionality on the operating systems that are supported both officially (with guaranteed support from the vendor) and unofficially (without)... Having a FLOSS seal of approval would convince a few people to choose one vendor's product over another, which seems to be happening with the integrated Intel graphics drivers. Sounds like Ubuntu to me. I don’t like having to use non-free drivers for my nVidia and ATI graphics cards, but I’m glad that Ubuntu makes it easy for me to do so! I’d prefer a better or equivalent free software implementation, of course — well, ultimately, I think the hardware developers really ought to get on the bandwagon and at least publish detailed specifications and “not-so-secrets” to get the ball rolling. Even better, they could sponsor some FLOSS developers to maintain the code for them!

I can’t understand them not willing to do so; it seems to be getting to the point by now that it would be quite an endorsement to be able to say that their drivers are fully open-source, and that they’ll provide a similar level of functionality on the operating systems that are supported both officially (with guaranteed support from the vendor) and unofficially (without)… Having a FLOSS seal of approval would convince a few people to choose one vendor’s product over another, which seems to be happening with the integrated Intel graphics drivers.

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