Linux hardware support is about to get much better

[Edvard]

I can't believe I missed this. Can I get a w00t!?

For years, device and peripheral builders could get away with ignoring the Linux desktop market. It was too small to matter, they would say.
Things have changed...

...To be precise, the companies announced during the meeting that they would start including wording in their hardware procurement processes to "strongly encourage" the delivery of open source drivers. Off the record, several of the PC makers said that they would be going further still. In their next round of OEM contracts, they intend to insert language that will require OEMs to deliver equipment either with Linux drivers or with open APIs (application programming interfaces) so it will be easy to build Linux drivers.

 

http://www.linux.com/feature/134125

from Linux.com

[jgpaiva]

Now that is VERY good news!

[mouser]

That is good news.

[f0dder]

And it wasn't posted April 1st? That sounds prettttty interesting. Especially since it's some pretty big vendors behind the thing. Guess some people got fed up with having Vista showed down their throats

[Carol Haynes]

Excellent - I might be a convert yet

[Lashiec]

Poor Tux, look what face he has with that Gatling in his hands

Apart from Microsoft pressure, and refusal to uncover certain hardware secrets (understandable anyway), I never saw a real reason to not make them as open as possible, I mean everyone wins in the end (yeah, yeah, even Microsoft).

[zridling]

Holy freakin' crapzilla. I've been fortunate not to have any driver problems with Linux (except with one new printer that I didn't like anyway), but this is great news indeed. Open sourcing hardware is a whole 'nother animal compared to open source software, for a lot of reasons. So any openness at all is welcome.

[f0dder]

Open source drivers != open source hardware.