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The notice below can be found at this Slashdot link: http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/30/044203&from=rss It is a most welcome announcement as I see it as the ongoing
lack of drivers for various products is still a massive impediment to the
spread of Linux on the desktop. Canon is a perfect example of a company
who continuously send out bland statements to customers stating that they have
no plans to support Linux with drivers. Hopefully now something like this may
encourage Canon and other companies like them to possibly change their minds
and actually offer some of that supposed SUPPORT to their customers. It is most uplifting to see something positive with relation
to Linux Driver Development. "Linux Kernel hacker Greg
Kroah-Hartman, author of Linux Kernel in
a Nutshell has posted an epic announcement
on his blog. This could portend increased device compatibility for Linux users,
higher-quality drivers, and fewer non-free binary blobs."
>From the announcement: "[T]he Linux
kernel community is offering all companies free Linux driver development... All
that is needed is some kind of specification that describes how your device
works, or the email address of an engineer that is willing to answer questions
every once in a while. If your company is worried about NDA issues surrounding
your device's specifications, we have arranged a program... in order to
properly assure that all needed NDA requirements are fulfilled. Now your
developers will have more time to work on drivers for all of the other
operating systems out there, and you can add 'supported on Linux' to your
product's marketing material." … Phil |