<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><div><span>Chris & I looked deeply into the SiS code and realised that</span></div><div><span>the chipset labeling was pretty misleading. I was able to write</span></div><div><span>a diff to make it work. <br></span></div><div><br><span></span></div><div><span>It's a sad state of affairs. I emailed the Linux developer who works</span></div><div><span>on SiS chipsets. He also happens to be a SiS employee. No reply up to</span></div><div><span>now. So much for co-operation among free software developers...</span></div><div><br></div><div>2 years ago, I got a taiwanese USB keyboard that wouldn't work. It had an <br></div><div>additional keycode. Intrigued I emailed the company, but they didn't</div><div>reply back. I also came up with a diff to make it work on openbsd &</div><div>netbsd by
guessing.<br></div><div><br></div><div>This affects not only OpenBSD/NetBSD or FreeBSD. It even affects Linux</div><div>users. How can you fix your chipset support in Linux ? Essentially, this</div><div>kind of support is limited to 1 or 2 people only. They don't share with the</div><div>rest...</div><div><br></div><div>Linux is free with shackles<br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br><span></span></div><div><br></div> <div style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <div style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <div dir="ltr"> <font size="2" face="Arial"> <hr size="1"> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">From:</span></b> selven <pcthegreat@gmail.com><br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> LUGM Discuss Mailing List <discuss@lugm.org> <br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Wednesday, 4 January 2012, 13:46<br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> Re: [lugm.org] the importance of hardware documentation<br> </font> </div> <br><div id="yiv138264326">Am not against NDA, simply because in the short run this may be bad, but in the long run, better hardware support means, hardware manufacturers would have to have support free software whether they want it or not, because this is what the market will want.<br>
<br><div class="yiv138264326gmail_quote">On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 1:31 PM, Daniel Shaw <span dir="ltr"><<a rel="nofollow" ymailto="mailto:daniel.shaw@point-oh.net" target="_blank" href="mailto:daniel.shaw@point-oh.net">daniel.shaw@point-oh.net</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="yiv138264326gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<div class="yiv138264326im">On 4 January 2012 11:10, Loganaden Velvindron <<a rel="nofollow" ymailto="mailto:gnukid1@yahoo.co.uk" target="_blank" href="mailto:gnukid1@yahoo.co.uk">gnukid1@yahoo.co.uk</a>> wrote:<br>
> Linux developers are very open to signing NDAs just to get hardware support:<br>
> From <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://lwn.net/Articles/203562/">http://lwn.net/Articles/203562/</a><br>
<br>
</div><div class="yiv138264326im">> This is exactly what has happened with SiS ! Sorry, you're terribly mistaken<br>
> here.<br>
<br>
</div>No, you misunderstood me. I completely agree that NDAs are bad in<br>
exactly the way you mention. My point is that although it's common<br>
(far too common) it's not EVERY vendor. There are pleasant exceptions.<br>
<br>
Another great example of a very problematic hardware vendor is<br>
Broadcom (mentioned in your lwn link). Compare this with Intel. So my<br>
point is that next time you buys a laptop, pick the one that has intel<br>
wifi, not broadcom and next time you pick a server get the one with<br>
Intel NICs, not broadcom.<br>
<br>
I'm not disagreeing with your rant - I am offering one possible course<br>
of action, which is: vote with your wallet.<br>
<div class="yiv138264326HOEnZb"><div class="yiv138264326h5"><br>
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