Re: Vendor support stickers for devices supported under Linux wireless

[Daniel Gimpelevich <daniel@gimpelevich.san-francisco.ca.us>]

On Fri, 01 Aug 2008 13:09:21 -0400, Pavel Roskin wrote:

> On Fri, 2008-08-01 at 10:58 +0200, Michael Renzmann wrote:
>=20
>> How about a "Linux Wireless Foundation"? Some kind of official entit=
y
>> that wireless vendors could talk to for Linux support, certification
>> process for getting the logo, and so on.
>=20
> My concern is that giving any certification would imply that we promi=
se
> to keep the driver in the Linux sources.  However, I don't think we c=
an
> accept legal obligations on behalf of the developers.

Pardon me for butting in, but any vendor reading this thread would like=
ly=20
read "support" to mean user support, rather than exclusively developer=20
support. An often overlooked-by-vendors advantage of fully GPLing a=20
driver is that they can legitimately disclaim any and all end-user=20
support in favor of the community. If they don't fully GPL, they still=20
bear a user-support burden, regardless of whether they meet that burden=
=2E

A formal WiFi Foundation specific to the Linux kernel would be quite=20
excessive. There already is The Linux Foundation, which could potential=
ly=20
take care of any formal vendor liaison with the informal=20
linuxwireless.org group.

If certification is done, the most manageable way to do it would be for=
=20
vendors not to be able to choose what they can say about compatibility,=
=20
but just plaster on a logo with whatever number of "Tux"es shaded the=20
linuxwireless.org assigns them. This, of course, has the disadvantage o=
f=20
requiring retailers to replace compatibility stickers on retail boxes i=
f=20
and when the compatibility status of a device changes, but that would, =
of=20
course, be at vendor discretion.

Come to think of it, the above could apply to *any* hardware=E2=80=A6

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