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Old 10th December 2013
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jggimi jggimi is offline
More noise than signal
 
Join Date: May 2008
Location: USA
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I'd like to add my own comments to this discussion, which I have not yet joined, regarding hardware support.
  • Commodity hardware manufacturers want to sell as much product as they can to as many customers as possible, all at the lowest possible cost. If they perceive "Unix-like systems" as a market at all, commodity manufacturers see them as secondary to their primary market, Windows, and most perceive this market as "Linux". Unix and other Unix-like systems that are not "Linux" are not mass markets. As ocicat mentioned, they are able to address the largest portion of that secondary market by writing drivers for Linux. They can keep their driver closed source, and provide binary executable files only, or if they need to they can partner with the key players in the market (e.g.: Redhat) via NDAs.
  • The BSDs are usually not invited to this party. OpenBSD would refuse the invitation, per its stated policies on NDAs and closed source material.

Last edited by jggimi; 10th December 2013 at 02:42 PM. Reason: typo, clarity
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