[FSF India] WDM emulator for GNU/Linux

[Khuzaima A. Lakdawala]

Vivekananda Prabhu <vivekbp@yahoo.com> writes:

> > It will have the complete opposite and undesired
> > effect of serving as
> > "crutches" for the proprietary device driver vendors
> > who will laugh
> > all the way to the bank.
> 
> Infact they can still laugh all the way to bank by
> writing non-free Linux device drivers.

Very well, let THEM write them. But by providing this emulator
(presuming that it is technically feasible) the free software
community will, in effect, give these vendors a free ride to the bank!
(In terms of selling more devices which they would otherwise have not
been able to sell for lack of a driver for free operating systems)
That is unacceptable. If we cannot convince them to provide free
drivers for free operating systems, the *least* we can do is refrain
from facilitating and making it easy to use their non-free drivers
written for non-free operating systems. And once they have this
facility, they won't even *think* about providing free drivers in the
future.

> > The only *correct* solution is to petition device
> > manufactures to open
> > up their device specifications and/or publish free
> > drivers for free
> > operating systems.
> 
> Well this is nothing short of petitioning M$ to make
> Windows Free.

Way short of that. Windows is a product with a price. A device
*driver* is not a product with a price (with maybe a few exceptions);
the target device is the product. By providing a free driver or by
opening up the programming interface for a device, a device
manufacturer is not exposing the entire blue-print of his product (the
device). Can someone make an exact copy of the device by looking at
the source code of the device driver???

>              The goal of Free Software Movement should
> be to educate "public" on Free software & Free drivers
> & make them *demand* open specs & Free drivers from
> Hardware vendors. 

Absolutely! And no one said it would be easy. Like all good things, it
will take time.

Regards,
Khuzaima