Re: Linux on the desktop - it's come a long way, but is it there yet?

["Ruben Safir Secretary NYLXS" <user=91@nabble.blu.org>]

 On Mon, Jul 14, 2008 at 11:48:05PM -0400, Tom Metro wrote: 
> Derek Martin wrote: 
> >Remember that Microsoft is a near monopoly, and that hardware vendors 
> >code drivers that work to Microsoft's specifications before they 
> >release a product.  With Linux, some vendors do this, but many simply 
> >still don't care about the Linux platform, leaving the job to be done 
> >by the thousands of developers who volunteer their free time to do so. 
> 
> That was a good explanation for the situation 10 years ago. 

No, that is still the case, despite increased comerical support. 

Even Red Hat has to reverse engineer stuff and they're desire to do so 
for desktop hardware is limited. 

>Now Linux 
> development is heavily sponsored by large corporations like IBM, Novel, 
> and RedHat. So the real question is why isn't new hardware supported 
> more quickly by these commercial OS vendors? 
> 
> The answer is probably that there is just too much hardware to cover 
> even by these large companies with deep pockets. With Windows, Microsoft 
> writes drivers themselves only for a minority of the hardware. The 
> vendors do the rest. 
>