[metalf8801]

Why do hardware companies make propriety drives for Linux? How could opening up their softwares source code hurt them?

Thanks
Dan

[Geeth]

Sometimes companies will just want to keep things secret.
Like the 11 herbs and spices with kfc.

[kakariko81280]

There are two basic arguments. The first is about competition.

Winmodems are cheap modems that work by having as little hardware built in as possible and have the missing functions handled by the processor in the driver. This makes them really cheap because an extra chip on board requires a few pennies multiplied by the number of modems built. An extra driver function can be copied indefinitely for free.

Now my first winmodem was awful. Totally crippled my PC when I went online. After lightning smote it (true), I got a new one that was far more efficient, almost certainly as a result of a better driver. If the second company released their driver then the first would have been able to copy the more efficient code and compete more effectively.

The second option is to do with code ownership. I'm lead to believe this one applies to nVidia graphics cards. Essentially the hardware company licenses a specialised library from another specialist company. The hardware company then no longer has the rights to open source their drivers because they don't own the code.

The library providing company wont open source anything because all they sell is code and it's much harder to turn a profit if your customers can get everything for free.

There may be other/better arguments than these, but to my knowledge they are the most common.

Chris...

[Oxygen]

I think there's also the problem of security, hackers could look through for exploits... though these problems (as Linux has proved) can be put to rest by not writing shite drivers.

[GNU-Fan]

Originally Posted by Oxygen

I think there's also the problem of security, hackers could look through for exploits... though these problems (as Linux has proved) can be put to rest by not writing shite drivers.

Are you trying to say that a security problem does not exist as long nobody looks at it?

[smolloy]

Originally Posted by GNU-Fan

Are you trying to say that a security problem does not exist as long nobody looks at it?

No, I think he's saying (correct me if I'm wrong) that that is the usual argument given by these companies.

[Oxygen]

Originally Posted by GNU-Fan

Are you trying to say that a security problem does not exist as long nobody looks at it?

Originally Posted by smolloy

No, I think he's saying (correct me if I'm wrong) that that is the usual argument given by these companies.

Yeah that's what I mean.

Exploits will be found... source or no source... by not fixing the problems you're just allowing for the inevitable to happen. Even then... based on a theory that people are mostly decent... most who saw the code would just say "yeah... fix this" and all would be well.

[techieMoe]

I look at this from a pragmatic point of view. I could personally care less whether drivers for my device are open-source or proprietary. If drivers exist, and they work, I'm good. Anything else is politics to me.

[carlosponti]

my problem in the past with proprietary drivers was that they were only available for windows. Now that its changing I feel the same as Moe.