I've been toying with an idea.
I've bought some hardware recently and I'm having all kinds of hell getting it to work on Linux, my lack of broadband is one of the factors in this instance, as 3rd party drivers do exsist, but I am inspired.
I need to find someone who is a devoted fan of OSS and has very deep pockets. I want to come up with a piece of hardware, I'm leaning toward a toy that plugs into a USB port for all sorts of nifty things. I want to advertise the shit out of this toy, and of course the toy had better be really cool because I want kids worked up over it. One of the ways I want to promote this toy is to give a few to kids with Macs so they can show off how cool the toy is at school before the toy gets released.
Then I want to release the toy onto normal shelves a week or two before Christmas.
On the bottom of the box I want the system requirements to read simply "Mac OS X, BSD, RPM, Debian, or other Intel or PowerPC based binary systems" along with the USB/Hardware requirements. Then I want a very complicated front end/driver that only comes in binaries for Linux, BSD, and OSX. The binary part is very important. I want the screen shots on the box to show the control front end running on eaither a Mac, KDE or both, blue background of course. NO MENTION OF WINDOWS ANYWHERE ON THE BOX.
I then want to sit back and wait for the class action suit.
During the class action suit I want to argue that most of our developers are skilled on *nix operating systems, and we just can't expend the time or resources to develop Windows drivers. Just to be complete jackasses we might release a BeOS and Mac classic drivers during this time, oh and the oh so important for kids toys Sun Sparc driver/front end to.
Of course we would also threaten to sue anyone who reverse engineers Windows Drivers, the DMCA is at stake after all (our drivers will use DMCA protected ROT13 encryption).
Then when someone brings up the fact we didn't specificaly say that it does not support windows, we back a truck up to the courtroom full of modern hardware that doesn't work on Linux and doesn't say so anywhere on the box.
Two outcomes:
We win the suit and everyone goes away pissed off that we didn't do Windows drivers. This probably wont happen, but if it does we'll eaither make a cursory webpage dedicated to linking to third parties that have reversed engineered our hardware without our help (after we quit sending them cease and desist letters of course), so you can get half assed Windows drivers, or we'll release a total joke of a development kit so people can write their own drivers.
If we lose (likely) we then take the precedents set by the first ruling to sue each and every manufacturer who's product was in the truck, class action of course.
Q:Do I think hardware vendors should be required to write Linux drivers for the hardware they produce?
A:No, I don't think they should be required to do any such thing.
Q:Do I think hardware vendors should be required to release information the community at large needs to write our own drivers?
A:No, I don't think they should be required to do any such thing.
Q:Then why are you thwacking this beehive?
A:I like thwacking beehives. I also want to draw attention to the issue. If we win the suit against us then it solidifies the no drivers making manufacturers position, but it draws attention to the fact that they look like assholes not releaseing drivers to the open source community. Look what assholes we made of ourselves selling kids toys that most kids can't use, now we do our best to put the spotlight on Texas Instruments, LexMark, Umax, and oh so many others who do the same to us. If we lose the suit, then we get to look like assholes with the same spotlight, with the added bonus of pointing out some major flaws in our legal system. Then we get to exploit those flaws to recoup the cost from the first suit. BIGGER SPOTLIGHT on more issues plus the original issue. Unfortunately Bill Gates is one of the few assholes with deep enough pockets to pull this off, and he's not on our side. Maybe Larry Elison? Larry? Do you read my journal? PLEASE
I need to find someone who is a devoted fan of OSS and has very deep pockets. I want to come up with a piece of hardware, I'm leaning toward a toy that plugs into a USB port for all sorts of nifty things. I want to advertise the shit out of this toy, and of course the toy had better be really cool because I want kids worked up over it. One of the ways I want to promote this toy is to give a few to kids with Macs so they can show off how cool the toy is at school before the toy gets released.
Then I want to release the toy onto normal shelves a week or two before Christmas.
On the bottom of the box I want the system requirements to read simply "Mac OS X, BSD, RPM, Debian, or other Intel or PowerPC based binary systems" along with the USB/Hardware requirements. Then I want a very complicated front end/driver that only comes in binaries for Linux, BSD, and OSX. The binary part is very important. I want the screen shots on the box to show the control front end running on eaither a Mac, KDE or both, blue background of course. NO MENTION OF WINDOWS ANYWHERE ON THE BOX.
I then want to sit back and wait for the class action suit.
During the class action suit I want to argue that most of our developers are skilled on *nix operating systems, and we just can't expend the time or resources to develop Windows drivers. Just to be complete jackasses we might release a BeOS and Mac classic drivers during this time, oh and the oh so important for kids toys Sun Sparc driver/front end to.
Of course we would also threaten to sue anyone who reverse engineers Windows Drivers, the DMCA is at stake after all (our drivers will use DMCA protected ROT13 encryption).
Then when someone brings up the fact we didn't specificaly say that it does not support windows, we back a truck up to the courtroom full of modern hardware that doesn't work on Linux and doesn't say so anywhere on the box.
Two outcomes:
We win the suit and everyone goes away pissed off that we didn't do Windows drivers. This probably wont happen, but if it does we'll eaither make a cursory webpage dedicated to linking to third parties that have reversed engineered our hardware without our help (after we quit sending them cease and desist letters of course), so you can get half assed Windows drivers, or we'll release a total joke of a development kit so people can write their own drivers.
If we lose (likely) we then take the precedents set by the first ruling to sue each and every manufacturer who's product was in the truck, class action of course.
Q:Do I think hardware vendors should be required to write Linux drivers for the hardware they produce?
A:No, I don't think they should be required to do any such thing.
Q:Do I think hardware vendors should be required to release information the community at large needs to write our own drivers?
A:No, I don't think they should be required to do any such thing.
Q:Then why are you thwacking this beehive?
A:I like thwacking beehives. I also want to draw attention to the issue. If we win the suit against us then it solidifies the no drivers making manufacturers position, but it draws attention to the fact that they look like assholes not releaseing drivers to the open source community. Look what assholes we made of ourselves selling kids toys that most kids can't use, now we do our best to put the spotlight on Texas Instruments, LexMark, Umax, and oh so many others who do the same to us. If we lose the suit, then we get to look like assholes with the same spotlight, with the added bonus of pointing out some major flaws in our legal system. Then we get to exploit those flaws to recoup the cost from the first suit. BIGGER SPOTLIGHT on more issues plus the original issue. Unfortunately Bill Gates is one of the few assholes with deep enough pockets to pull this off, and he's not on our side. Maybe Larry Elison? Larry? Do you read my journal? PLEASE