From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1750952AbVLHJ0V (ORCPT ); Thu, 8 Dec 2005 04:26:21 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1750958AbVLHJ0V (ORCPT ); Thu, 8 Dec 2005 04:26:21 -0500 Received: from main.gmane.org ([80.91.229.2]:56259 "EHLO ciao.gmane.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1750944AbVLHJ0U (ORCPT ); Thu, 8 Dec 2005 04:26:20 -0500 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org From: Dirk Steuwer Subject: Re: Linux Hardware Quality Labs (was: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario) Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2005 09:23:58 +0000 (UTC) Message-ID: References: <6DAD0850-4943-416E-9E7B-095C6B412DD0@oxley.org> <4397E427.2070702@laposte.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org User-Agent: Loom/3.14 (http://gmane.org/) X-Loom-IP: 213.61.178.52 (Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; de-DE; rv:1.7.12) Gecko/20050919 Firefox/1.0.7) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Vadim Lobanov speakeasy.net> writes: > > On Thu, 8 Dec 2005, Nicolas Mailhot wrote: > > > Felix Oxley wrote: > > A good exhaustive online centralised hardware database, blessed and > > maintained by kernel people, will have influence with or without a logo. > > I don't think this is quite right. > > The beauty of having a simple and easily-recognizable logo plastered on > a website or product box or what have you is exactly that -- simplicity. > That's a good thing, because it means that the person looking to > purchase some bit of hardware can merely look for that one sign, and > it'll be "guaranteed" to work. > > Simplicity is a very good thing, in this case -- the easier it is for a > consumer to check/notice/comprehend something, the more likely they are > to use it and put value into that process. This leads to greater > mindshare for that logo. And besides, there are some cases where an > online database does not help you much: for example, if you find > yourself shopping in a brick-and-mortar store. > > An online database is definitely a very useful thing to have, for those > who know to look for it, and who can look at it. But aside from that, a > simple logo is what the vast majority of people wishing to purchase > hardware would benefit from the most. > Sorry for posting this in the other thread, so heres my list again, (i'm pretty much in favour of felix' scenario): - get all open operating system folks to join - have an approval organisation, that everyone is happy with - lets call it "free driver" support - create apropriate Logos for each operating system i.e. "Penguin-Logo" with "free driver since kernel-a.b.c.d" or "BSD-Daemon-Logo" with "free driver since a.b" - the hardware version numer (usb-device id, pci-id)? will be held in a database. If in doubt people can look it up there. In case future kernels will drop support, it can be marked there as well. A yearly logo is too much confusion, since hardware support for open drivers stays pretty long in the kernel. (Imagine you license in december - you only got a month...) Maybe educate people that support for kernel 2.6.x.y series means a penguin logo on blue ground. If dramatic changes to the kernel are introduced, which all drivers affect call the kernel 2.8.x.y an educate people about a new linux in town and create a penguin logo on yellow ground - hardware vendors pay someone, or provide source code themselves to be reviewed by apropriate kernel folks/bsd board... - small licence fee and endless advertising possiblilities pay for organisation folks and hosting. Keeping up database records could help kernel developers: There could be a log file attached to each device stating the current affairs about support in varying OSs Felix had a good senario for financing this, it should be an independend body providing legal/licensing and marketing support. And the kernel folks should do the technical review. dirk