Hardware Orphaned by Software

Open Source or BUST!

In the closed source world
It's about profit...
Everything else is mere coincidence.

To them Linux is a mere coincidence! Ya' ain't that a laugh. Richard M Stallman. once when asked by a Micro$oft exec, who are you, politely replied "I'm your worst nightmare" they're only now starting to get it, in the past things like FUD (Fear Uncertanty and Doubt), the Three E's (Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish) Buying their competitors, and when all else failed, stealing their code, worked for Micro$oft, because these practices are predicated on the notion that the Dollar reins supreme, Profit is the Only real motive. In a world where this is nolonger so, Micro$oft and the industry as a whole, find themselves too large to adapt to the rapid change that is possible when common people possess the right to re-write any part of the software they use. So while we in the Linux community say "Change is good", they're not so sure they like that, THEY want to be the innovators, if any innovation is to be done. Doubly so for the hardware industry. Recently an unheard of phenomenon took place, Vista with all it's restrictions, bugs, and failure to deliver on promised features, was being not just ignored, but abandoned! Yes people were buying new machines, and taking Vista off, mostly installing Windows XP in its place. But the really bad news for the hardware makers was two fold, first they gear up to maximize production at the expected release date of Vista, and second they find that Vista is actually driving Enterprise Level customers away. These are the ones that when they do order, they tend to order thousands of identically setup machines. With those prized customers saying we'll wait until Micro$oft puts out a real operating system, Profit was now hanging in the balance. Never in my memory of the Hardware---Micro$oft marriage do I recal anything like what happened next. Up to this point the BigBox stores had a sweet deal going with Micro$oft, we won't sell alternative operating systems pre-installed to our customers, if you give us a deep discount on your operating system. It was not just fancy words, it was legalese, a written signed contract, the Prenuptial language of which varied somewhat from vendor to vendor, but was essentially a marriage license between two consenting industry giants, oh and by the way did I mention that Micro$oft was a Polygamist, they even married firms they could easily swallow in one purchase, and sometimes did.

But now the magical luster had grown tarnished, Vista was a pariah, folks were going out of their way to avoid it like the viral plague it was. This doesn't sell hardware, and so while Micro$oft could afford to wait out the storm, Motherboard manufacturers, and PC makers could not. They began cautiously enough, Dell opened an American web site that asked the open ended question "What can we do to make our computers better" or something like that. The public responded nine to one free to talk on any subject, they said almost in unison, "Pre-install Linux on your machines" so Dell was the first to have a Laptop certified to run Ubuntu Linux. Talk about hedging your bet, Ubuntu uses a heavily tainted Kernel, meaning it has bits and pieces of Windows driver code woven throughout. What makes this significant is if all else had failed, Dell wouldn't be left holding a bag full of empty promises of hardware compatibility when it came time to Certify machines to be Linux compatible. The Right Thing TM to do would have been to design a machine from the ground up, to be a proper Linux machine, that is 100% compatible with a pure GPL'd Kernel, and a GPLed BIOS,(Basic Input Output System) to boot the system up clean and free of Ring minus N, malware, failing that, a distant second best thing that you as a maker of PCs could do to get a Linux pre-loaded machine to market, would be to use existing off the shelf hardware with a distro that allows the end user to boot the machine any of three different ways allowing the end user to choose how much of the Windows genome will be allowed to evilify Linux. Ubuntu is that Linux!

The Three Ways to Boot Ubuntu:

pure GPL Kernel and all GPL software

Encumbered but atleast with the Source Code made available to end users

and lastly with full binary Windows drivers Gene-Spliced into the Kernel, for which no Source Code what so ever is available now, nor is it ever likely to be in the future.

With a distro like that you can't loose! Dell however didn't stop there, their goal all along has been 100% Hardware compatibility with GPLd drivers and software. How well did they do? Their first foray into this endeavor was the promised Laptop, One of the more problematic areas of Linux has always been laptops, unlike desktop computers where I/O cards can be plugged, and unplugged at will, with variety limited only by ones imagination, with laptops you often have few alternative cards if any to choose from, if any. Well one review of the Dell laptop, with GPL figuring prominently in the critique, pointed out that all the hardware would run properly using pure GPL, with everything except the WiFi 802.11, and the Winmodem. They went on to mention that the 802.11 was only a temporary problem, as Atheros has just released a true pure GPLed wireless card, and as for the Win-only Modem which had no such replacement in that model laptop, was a piece of hardware he could live without.

   Dell PCs Featuring Ubuntu

   Inspiron Desktop 530 N
   Intel Pentium dual-core processor E2140 (1MB L2,1.60GHz,800 FSB)
   Ubuntu Desktop Edition version 7.04
   1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz- 2DIMMs
   250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache(TM)

   Starting Price $599
   Instant Savings $100
   Subtotal $499
   ________________________________________________________________

   Inspiron Notebook 1420 N
   Intel Core(TM) 2 Duo T5250 (1.5GHz/667Mhz FSB/2MB cache)
   Ubuntu version 7.04
   1GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 667MHz
   80GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)

   Starting Price $724
   ________________________________________________________________

The WallMart Connection:

Even the leader of the low cost superstores, offers a low cost Linux Machine yes you too can for a mere 200 Dollars break the bonds of Micro$oft. And friends... That's exactly what this machine is all about $200 Linux PCs On Sale At Wal-Mart in Nov of 2007 Wired says it's a custom version of Ubuntu Linux, Wal-Mart first began selling Linux PCs in 2002 the current one has a 1.5 Ghz VIA C7 CPU embedded in a Mini-ITX motherboard, with 512MB of RAM and an 80GB hard drive, Keyboard and Mouse, but No Monitor, the unwritten text here is you're supposed to use your Winbox monitor

   Normally, this would simply mark it as unacceptably low-end for
   use with modern software.  By using the fast Enlightenment desktop
   manager (instead of heavier-duty alternatives like Gnome or KDE),
   the makers say it's more responsive than Vista is, even on more
   powerful computers.

In Conclusion:

It would seem that it was nervousness on the part of hardware vendors when it began to look like Micro$oft's Windows Vista had been rejected rather more soundly in the market place than predecessors of the past that broke new ground in their own way, and then recovered. Not all of them did though, Win-NT was a drastic leap, and failed in the market place mainly due to the high cost of memory, and CPU speed requirements. This was not a problem for Micro$oft, much of the code base for Win-2000 and Win XP came from Win-NT, and even with all of that Win-NT did finally prove to vindicate itself, long after the Christmas Season sales which make or break many businesses, left lasting scars on many a hardware vendor. Ditto for Win-NT winning the hearts and minds of users, as it proved to be more stable. So many gave the Open Source Community that tiny little extra push it so desperately needed. However I for one do not believe the Open Source Community will repay them in kind, quite the contrary, Linux has a reputation of making the most of any computer hardware, as shown above yesterdecades computer running Linux will outperform todays hardware running Windows-anything, and keep on doing so for years on end without a crash, and that folks is a stubbornly observed fact, but it is only so when someone, some very skilled user, someone tweaks it to take advantage of its built in efficiencies. Those efficiencies are documented in the source code, the man pages, FAQs, info pages, and HowTos, both distributed with the system, and available online throughout the internet. A skilled user is expected to know where to go to get this information, or atleast how to go about searching for it. Buried within the secret sauce of Windows, deep down inside the walled Citadel that is Micro$oft; for a very steep fee is to be had, on a need to know only basis, the same level of this kind of detailed information. The only problem is that users are not ever allowed to lay eyes on it. In fact they've been deprived of this vital resource for so long that they've become acclimated to its absents, some of them now even make excuses for not even wanting to know things that are requisite to running a system securely, and efficiently.

These users, in such great numbers as are enamored of the Windows operating system have by their collateral actions impacted the business world and Banks in particular. By expecting these institutions to transact routine business in an insecure manner for the sake of convenience, as Windows does, when the price finally must be paid for this wreckless behaviour it won't be cheap, or tolerable. Needless to say many governments will be called upon to form a bail out consortium, and that given the fact that a good many of them fancy themselves as Western style democracies they are influenced by those same poorly run corporations, banks, and credit agencies. Mind you I'm not advocating we change anything about the way governments around the world go about their daily activities, for one thing I doubt any such move now would have any chance of success. All I'm saying is that none of this ever need have happened to begin with.

But now that it has, those low on the financial feeding chain can bypass the next costly upgrade cycle, and take advantage of the boundless ingenuity offered by the Open Source Community. I don't know how many will switch to Linux, nor do I much care, but some of the oddest, ill thought out alliances are beginning to take place in the industry. Hardware vendors, that are invested in the traditional proprietary intelectual property tradition, were embracing Linux even in a backdrop of GPLv3 that was speculated to be bristling with Anti-patent, and Anti-DRM,(Digital Rights Management) language upon release. Even Micro$oft was cozying up to Novel/SuSE Linux long before the release of GPLv3, and afterward when questioned on why they'd do such a thing, Micro$oft answered by pretending that the GPLv3 didn't apply to them. But strange as that is hardware companies, whose fortunes depend heavily on Micro$oft product acceptance in the marketplace, at the first sign of a faltering public embrace of Vista, turn to Linux to save the day. I don't know about you, but this seems loony to me. For one thing a great many of these companies have interlocking agreements that are fundamentally opposed to the kind of language in GPLv3, especially the anti-patent/anti-DRM language. Why they'd even want to embrace Linux is beyond me, oh sure it's trendy with big companies like HP, and IBM, doing it, but Linux, and the community of grassroots support from end users, that become part of the solution base to technical problems and all that Open Source stands for, is such an anathema to the normal business practices hardware companies that I have to wonder just how short sighted this "plan" was. Apparently it was very short sighted, Dell was the first to jump in, and beyond the breach of contract with Micro$oft concerning preinstalls of competing operating systems, if you looked just beneath the surface you saw disarray. They flipp-flopped on issues like Warranties of equipment sold with Ubuntu Linux installed, it was as if they couldn't decide whither Linux might break the machine, and so they didn't know whither providing a warranty was even tenable. And if you read the GPL v3 or even v2 it makes no difference, the language concerning warranties, guarantees, and the like, squarely places all onus on the end user, or someone providing a warranty or guarantee, or what ever, but NEVER on the part of the programmer who is offering his/her programming gift for free, to the Open Source community. The GPL is there to encourage programmers to give of themselves, and this is one of the ways it does it, however if you are in the business of selling preloaded Linux machines, and someone in your legal department makes you the CEO of the company, actually read the GPL, what are you going to say when that someone asks you how to proceed on the issue of whither to warant the Linux PC you're about to start selling. OK now imagine this multiplied by all the issues ingrained in the GPL, and all the other things your legal department has signed with other vendors over the years, and you begin to see how far reaching this stuff is.

So far I've just been talking about the machine but there are areas beyond the mere computational marvel sitting on ones desktop. Hardware manufacturers that make products that connect to PCs have enjoyed a relationship with Micro$oft that allow for some pretty crooked practices aimed squarely at the end users pocket book. Did you ever stop to think about how improved life would be if the GPL forced hardware vendors to provide you, and the Open Source community at large with the Source Code to the driver that runs on the computer that interfaces the operating system to their secret sauce proprietary communication protocol that runs their hardware, beit a printer, modem, WiFi card, Cell phone, Video gadget, Dish washer, or what ever. The way it is now, the next time Micro$oft upgrades their operating system if the hardware vendor refuses to provide you with a replacement driver, you are forced to buy a new device, regardless how much it costs. This is more insidious than it first seems, as they can time the obsolescence of their device to coincide with market forces beyond the control of even the largest of corporations. Doing binary drivers for Linux is unworkable, for one thing there are hundreds of distros they'd have to write drivers for, and if you recompile your Kernel, as many people need to do, their binary driver nolonger works, so their device is effectively off the market. On the other hand if they play ball with the Open Source community, and make the Source Code available, members of the Open Source community at large will submit patch files for all the different distros, which is great for end users, as their piece of hardware if treated well, will last until it literally wears out, but this is not so good for the vendor who would rather force end users to fork over tons of money during the Christmas season which they can, the way things are now, force this to happen. You have to wonder why they even consider embracing Linux under any circumstance at all. The truth is, soon they may have to anyway, a whole new paradigm in hardware capability is about to burst upon the scene. Here's some of what I have in mind. We're beginning to see devices made specificly for use with Linux and Open Source. Mostly sold over the internet at present, things like

The Asterisk Card to turn a Linux system into a PBX,(Private Branch Exchange) but also this effectively interfaces the machine to both a local telephone line, and the internet at the same time. Think of it, Caller ID is now under your control, you can share your local phone line service with others in a long distance coop where the internet carries the voice signal as data, for the cost of a free local call. Plus all the cool stuff a PBX can do, things like Voice Mail, SMS, and the like.

Trolltech Qtopia's Greenphone A full blown Linux system built into a Cell phone handset, but as near as I can tell, it failed in the marketplace somehow.

Openmoko But a good idea can't be held down for long, Openmoko is the Greenphone all over again, but with WiFi,(802.11xx interface) So what happens when folks start using these gadgets in ways the guys who designed the Cellular System never expected it to be used. For instance a device available to Police in the US, but also to Private eyes in the UK, called an IMSI catcher, is part Cell phone, and part Cell tower. What you do with this thing is follow someone at a safe distance after grabbing his/her auth-code. The next call they make, or recieve, your IMSI device wakes up and says to their phone, hey use me, I'm the closest Cell site, then it says, Oh by the way, I'm too busy right now to process encryption, if you want the call to go through, drop your encryption first. Since most all of the Closed Source phone providers default the phone to silently dropping encryption and continuing such a call, the end user is completely unaware this action has been taken on their behalf. Meanwhile the other half of the IMSI device fakes a plain ole cell phone request to place or recieve the call in question, and does so by communicating through a real cell tower. At the point the two halves of this IMSI assisted connection are joined together both streams of communication pass across in the clear, and are recorded to a harddisk inside the IMSI device itself! If you follow them home, or to work, and if they continue to use the cell phone you get every call they make. Up to now, this technology has been rather limited, because the only way a bad guy in the US could get their hands on one of these little gems was to bribe a Private eye in the UK, and that generally cost a bundle, a few thousand anyway. But now programmable radio devices are comming onto the market, from all quarters, and Hey, if the technology can be made to do a thing, it's only a matter of writing the code to do it. Concern over the Genie we've just let out of the bottle, won't manifest until long after this stuff is widely deployed. These engineers try to keep everything a simple as possible, often noone sees the need for any security until long after a technology has been widely deployed. Remember my mentioning that the Asterisk Card can forward Caller ID but that you set the data that Caller ID carries? Well it's true, and not only is it true, but since Caller ID was an afterthought, a crude hack glued onto an existing telephony infrastructure as soon as PBX systems began implementing it, the whereabouts of the source of a call can be routed in so many confusing indecipherable ways, that the system basically just has to take the PBX's word for where the call came from. It's even worse than that, especially when you consider what happens when one PBX routes a cal through another one, and the first one doesn't even bother supporting Caller ID. So when some enterprising guy put together a website that for a fee, you could program a phone to call your number, and another number of your choice, and that person's Caller ID box would read out any number or phrase you keyed into the blank for his Caller ID to display, while you were on his website setting up the call. His website was an instant success, and most of his clients, were bill collectors, whose debtors cryed foul. At some point the US Congress got into it, and tried to insist that the Caller ID system be made secure. This betrays just how totally out of touch lawmakers are with technology. To even ask such a thing when there already is a system called the ANI,(Automatic Number Identification) system that was designed from the beginning to be secure and reliable, but of course you can't give that kind of service to just anyone, due to Congressionally mandated privacy limitations. But if you make a 911 call, they get your number through ANI, as do all emergency services. So this really was a tempest in a teapot. Still what this points out is that people are far too trusting of technology.

Back to my question: Do these hardware companies really know what handing over the source code as the GPL requires, actually entails. Engineers tend to keep systems as simple as possible, adding needless complexity often begs for a failure later on. Now I don't know this for a fact, but it's fun to speculate. No really! This is a work of pure unadulterated fiction... What if the reason that printer manufacturers are so darn reluctant to turn over the register information is something like this... A printer company makes low end Win Printers, that are almost devoid of smarts, the actions that would normally be taken by an onboard CPU, stuff like running the stepper motor to move the paper, move the print head, and the like, are in this Child of a lesser God printer nowhere near as well endowed, instead Windows is mandated, so that and anytime the user prints something a Closed Source driver forces his Pentium-Zebra-Star-Cross slows to a crawl to play the role of an eight bit CPU to move all the right printer parts at exactly the right time, to get the ink on the paper. Well I guess you get what you pay for, and the fact that the Win Printer was fifteen dollars cheaper, mostly the cost of the aformentioned eight bit CPU, gives that printer manufacturer an edge in the cut throat world of selling cheap printers. They also believe that their Secret sauce would be revealed to their competitors if they ever shared the code with anyone, so they don't. Linux remains unsupported, and they're OK with that. Years go by, they've even tried binary drivers for Linux, but they didn't even make back their cost of the High School programmer who wrote the Closed Linux drivers. Then a curious thing happend, someone leaked the Source Code to the Linux drivers for their printer, and sales of that old almost obsolete Win Printer suddenly had a growth spurt, and right about the time they were about to End Of Life that product line. Why you ask would they shut down a perfectly good product line? The answer will become painfully obvious. Their sales of Ink cartridges have been falling like a rock, and they had traced it to refill kits that people can buy to refill their own cartridges up to five times, before the ink jets are so worn out that they actually need another cartridge. This is a serious problem, they make three times as much selling ink cartridges, than they do selling printers! The new printers will be a slightly modified version of the Win Printer they've been selling all along, the only difference is that two of the wires on the parallel port are switched so that the old driver won't work, and this new model has a low cost photo transistor to sense light and dark patches on the ink cartridge as it moves past the photo transistor, enabling the printer to read the serial number of it's own ink cartridge! The new driver now counts the number of ink spurts, and if the Windows driver notices that the customer is getting too many ink spurts, for any given serial numbered ink cartridge, it shuts down, and gives the ink-well dry icon. All too soon the customer finds out that refilling the ink cartridge doesn't work on these printers. Meanwhile someone looking at the two model printers side by side, notices that the only difference other than some stupid ink cart serial number reading photo transistor that doesn't seem to serve any useful purpose, and two of the signal wires have been exchanged. Now one could rewire them back, and the printer would work with the old driver, but there is this leaked source code for Linux and it can easily be recompiled after re-defining the two signals to come in on each others port bit wires, and once that change is made, and integrated into the standard Linux printer drivers, for this new model, nobody will have to rewire anything... Later... Someone from the Windows world, gets to looking at the Linux source code for their printer because they've heard that Linux doesn't penalize end users who re-ink cartridges for this printer, they figure out how to tweak the binary of the old Win printer driver to switch the two signals back so that this new model won't care that the ink cartridge has been re-inked. So the moral of this story, is that it is possible that the reason many hardware companies won't play ball with the Linux community and the GPL, is because they are crooked to the core, and the GPL forces them to play fair.

Broken Link

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