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Could EU force hardware manufacturers to make working drivers for Linux?

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Re: Could EU force hardware manufacturers to make working drivers for Linux?

#41

Post by scarface_74 »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #10

They don't necessarily have to: there's another, more comprehensive hammer they (or the US for that matter) could use: disallow vertical integration. Force hardware vendors to only sell hardware. If any software that can be changed remotely or by the user is off limits. Even firmware. Conversely, software vendors can only sell (or freely distribute) software. For vendors from abroad, don't go extra-territorial, just…

I know no other way to say this. But this idea is just dumb. The entire value proposition would be worse for everyone. Software and hardware integration is what makes a product better.

Re: Could EU force hardware manufacturers to make working drivers for Linux?

#42

Post by scarface_74 »

adrian_b wrote: post #16
msm_ wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Linked post is a misconception of how EU actually work. They will never "hardcode" something like "linux drivers" into the law. But, in theory, they could write a law like "If you want to sell your device in the EU, you must publish a freely available technical spec with enough level of detail to write a functioning driver".

This would not even be something completely new. It would just revert the market for computer peripherals and interfaces to how it was before the launch of MS Windows 95. In the MS-DOS days everything was provided with detailed technical information, so you could write your own device drivers, for any operating system. This ended in 1995, after which most hardware vendors stopped providing documentation and replaced…

Do you realize how much the PC ecosystem sucked back then?

Re: Could EU force hardware manufacturers to make working drivers for Linux?

#43

Post by pca006132 »

mschuster91 wrote: post #30
askonomm wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that world would suck immensely, with horrible integration between hardware and software like exists right now outside of the Apple world. Case in point: can you copy text on your phone, and paste in your computer (and vice versa), seamlessly as if it were the same device, without any configuration, hacks or programs needed? Things like that are amazing and I'd never give up. And I'm sure most people wouldn't wa…

> Well that world would suck immensely, with horrible integration between hardware and software like exists right now outside of the Apple world. Why? The hardware people at companies like NVIDIA or Apple already have to write detailed documentation for their stuff anyway so that the software people can do their side. Assuming they do a good enough job at writing documentation and testing their hardware, it should no…

1. Hardware companies need some software to test their product, so this will be wasting their effort.

2. Good documentation and testing is probably not as common as you think.

3. It takes a huge amount of effort to write high quality drivers by reverse engineering. The thing about Asahi Linux is that the hardware does not have many variants, but there are a lot more different hardware for PCs.

Re: Could EU force hardware manufacturers to make working drivers for Linux?

#44

Post by the_third_wave »

askonomm wrote: post #13
loup-vaillant wrote: post #10

They don't necessarily have to: there's another, more comprehensive hammer they (or the US for that matter) could use: disallow vertical integration. Force hardware vendors to only sell hardware. If any software that can be changed remotely or by the user is off limits. Even firmware. Conversely, software vendors can only sell (or freely distribute) software. For vendors from abroad, don't go extra-territorial, just…

Well that world would suck immensely, with horrible integration between hardware and software like exists right now outside of the Apple world. Case in point: can you copy text on your phone, and paste in your computer (and vice versa), seamlessly as if it were the same device, without any configuration, hacks or programs needed? Things like that are amazing and I'd never give up. And I'm sure most people wouldn't wa…

Yes, that works if I want it to, e.g by running KDE Connect (which works outside of KDE). Works on Linux, Android, Windows and even on Apple-things in case you need to escape the walled garden...

Re: Could EU force hardware manufacturers to make working drivers for Linux?

#47

Post by jksk61 »

askonomm wrote: post #13
loup-vaillant wrote: post #10

They don't necessarily have to: there's another, more comprehensive hammer they (or the US for that matter) could use: disallow vertical integration. Force hardware vendors to only sell hardware. If any software that can be changed remotely or by the user is off limits. Even firmware. Conversely, software vendors can only sell (or freely distribute) software. For vendors from abroad, don't go extra-territorial, just…

Well that world would suck immensely, with horrible integration between hardware and software like exists right now outside of the Apple world. Case in point: can you copy text on your phone, and paste in your computer (and vice versa), seamlessly as if it were the same device, without any configuration, hacks or programs needed? Things like that are amazing and I'd never give up. And I'm sure most people wouldn't wa…

Literally never needed to copy text from smartphone to pc (or viceversa). At best anyone needs to sync between photos, docs or stuff like that. For that you just need a sync on the cloud like Dropbox, Drive, Box, and so on (also never heard of bluetooth for small files?)

moreover, apple's software is generally very buggy.

Re: Could EU force hardware manufacturers to make working drivers for Linux?

#48

Post by unix_fan »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #10

They don't necessarily have to: there's another, more comprehensive hammer they (or the US for that matter) could use: disallow vertical integration. Force hardware vendors to only sell hardware. If any software that can be changed remotely or by the user is off limits. Even firmware. Conversely, software vendors can only sell (or freely distribute) software. For vendors from abroad, don't go extra-territorial, just…

This would be terrible for specialized hardware, such as assistive technology. Open source software doesn’t really exist for it because there is simply no interest.

Re: Could EU force hardware manufacturers to make working drivers for Linux?

#49

Post by slim »

gray_-_wolf wrote: post #31
askonomm wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that world would suck immensely, with horrible integration between hardware and software like exists right now outside of the Apple world. Case in point: can you copy text on your phone, and paste in your computer (and vice versa), seamlessly as if it were the same device, without any configuration, hacks or programs needed? Things like that are amazing and I'd never give up. And I'm sure most people wouldn't wa…

> Well that world would suck immensely Maybe. > Case in point But this does not really support your statement no? What you described seems to me SW only functionality no? And if in requires any special HW (BT? I have no idea how it works under the hood), why does it need tight integration? I do not see a technical reason why Android and Windows could not provide the same feature out of the box, despite neither the Go…

the most probable cause is patents

Re: Could EU force hardware manufacturers to make working drivers for Linux?

#50

Post by phumberdroz »

jksk61 wrote: post #47
askonomm wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that world would suck immensely, with horrible integration between hardware and software like exists right now outside of the Apple world. Case in point: can you copy text on your phone, and paste in your computer (and vice versa), seamlessly as if it were the same device, without any configuration, hacks or programs needed? Things like that are amazing and I'd never give up. And I'm sure most people wouldn't wa…

Literally never needed to copy text from smartphone to pc (or viceversa). At best anyone needs to sync between photos, docs or stuff like that. For that you just need a sync on the cloud like Dropbox, Drive, Box, and so on (also never heard of bluetooth for small files?) moreover, apple's software is generally very buggy.

Never typed a 2FA code from the phone to the computer?

Just copying them on the iPhone and pasting them on the mac is super convenient.

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