From: jfc@athena.mit.edu (John F Carr) Subject: Re: Why not include patches for Diamond Stealth in kernel? Date: 7 Feb 1993 18:50:30 GMT
In article <ellis.729103048@nova> ellis@nova.gmi.edu (Stew Ellis) writes:
>I am against this. [...] I think to
>include the patches in the Linux or 386bsd kernel's or as part of the
>official configuration options would serve to encourage the ill-conceived
>proprietary behavior of Diamond and reduce the incentive of people to
>protest to Diamond and its dealers.
My interest in Linux is not to support Politically Correct computing. It is
to build a useful computing environment. I DON'T CARE that the startup.S
code works with boards built by evil capitalist opressors.
It's no secret that many GNU tools have been ported to AUX despite the FSF's
opposition and the inability to use the regular GNU mailing lists for
porting help or support. Even if you moderate and censor the Linux
newsgroups and mailing lists, what do you think you will accomplish aside
from inconveniencing users? An ineffective boycott just causes a loss of
credibility.
The Diamond Stealth is only the tip of the iceberg. Where are the calls for
a boycott of SCSI adapters which don't make programming information freely
available (Ultrastor support is in the SCSI kit)? Will you require that
Adaptec release ROM listings so users can write their own microcode?