Dell is asking what free OS to preinstall

[John Baldwin]

On Wednesday 14 March 2007 13:26, Jeff Rollin wrote:
> On 14/03/07, Eric Kjeldergaard <kjelderg at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > drivers.)  For those of us using FreeBSD, there's not a substantial
> > advantage to proprietary linux drivers over proprietary Windows drivers.  
We
> > go unsupported either way.
> >
> >
> Hmm, well I would hope that they would use hardware with open source
> drivers only, in which case, yes, FreeBSD would be able to take
> advantage. Even if, say, the OSD's are GPL'ed, that would at least
> allow BSD users to inquire as to the specs from the OSD developers.

Not really.  Some open source drivers are developed under NDA's where the 
driver author can get the spec, but they can't share it.  There are several 
drivers in FreeBSD where this is the case in fact.  Porting a driver from 
another OS when that driver just uses magic numbers all over the place like 
many Linux drivers do can be a royal pain as well.

-- 
John Baldwin