Re: Wireless support

[Jochen Friedrich <jochen@scram.de>]

Adrian Bunk wrote:

>I see at least two disadvantages:
>
>First, it doesn't encourage hardware manufacturers to support open 
>source development.
>
>Linux has only a small market share, but it's slowly growing.
>
>Linux driver support does sometimes influence the decision which 
>hardware to buy.
>
>With NdisWrapper, the hardware manufacturer can say:
>  "Our hardware is supported through the open source NdisWrapper."
>
>Without NdisWrapper, they will sometimes hear that people did choose to 
>buy hardware from a different hardware manufacturer that has a Linux 
>driver. This can make the hardware manufacturer more friendly towards 
>open source development (e.g. by providing hardware specs).
>
>Secondly, binary-only drivers have an impact on the stability of the 
>Linux kernel.
>
>E.g. during the last years the nvidia has produced relatively many 
>kernel crashes - and I doubt that binary-only drivers for Windows are 
>much better in this respect.
>
>The users only see their kernel crashing blaming the Linux kernel and 
>harming the reputation of the stability of Linux.
>  
>

Third, both ndiswrapper and binary-only drivers only work on one platform.

E.g. broadcom has a binary-only driver for their WLAN card on Linux, but
only for mipsel (wrt54g).

On Alpha or PowerPC, most WLAN equipment doesn't work under Linux, at all.

Jochen