win95/98/ME and printers. An ethics issue comparable to DRM servers or not?

[Jeffrey Watts]

On Wed, Aug 6, 2008 at 2:46 PM, Monty J. Harder <mjharder at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> Well, one point that has been made is that "Windows stuff" being EOLed,
> accompanied by legal threats, will actually encourage people to think twice
> about buying hardware that requires a driver tied to a specific OS version.
>
>

Sounds like a good thing.  :)


>
> There are also situations in which Linux uses Windows drivers in a
> "wrapper" when native Linux drivers are either absent or inadequate
> (generally due to NDAs preventing our developers from getting complete HW
> specs).  I don't know if that extends to WinPrinters, but there's no
> technical limitation of which I am aware, that would prevent it.
>

Sounds like a bad thing, that needs to go away.  Hardware like that ought to
remain unsupported until the manufacturer either provides an open driver or
provides the specs.

While I can understand the frustration of those that get stuck with hardware
like that, I feel that that's something that needs to be painful, in order
that people will learn to make smarter buying decisions and companies will
learn (through those smarter decisions and customer feedback) to not make
crappy hardware tied to a particular operating system (like winprinters).

In the past I went to great lengths to buy equipment from manufacturers that
were friendly to the open source community.  I spent extra for BusLogic SCSI
adapters, DEC Tulip network cards, etc.  I don't think it's unreasonable for
folks to do their homework before using Linux.  Despite advances it's still
not a beginner's OS.

Jeffrey.

-- 

"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from
oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that
will reach to himself." -- Thomas Paine
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