2008/11/9 Michael Hrabanek <<a href="mailto:hrabanek@gmail.com">hrabanek@gmail.com</a>> <div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> I have been thinking recently about the restricted driver policy. It's nice to get hardware directly not supported by kernel to work at least by using non-free drivers, but on the other side this could be two-edged and lead to ignorance from hw manufacturer because of weakening the demand for free drivers or open hardware specification. So I believe it would be very useful to take the strenght of Ubuntu community and send the clean message to hardware vendors that we demand free drivers by adding for example checkbox for something like 'I agree with contacting the manufacturer of my hardware with demand for free drivers so I won't need to mess with this in the future again' and ask for user's name so that ubuntu community can send perhaps once per a month an e-mail with every signed name to vendor... Or something like that When our voices will be loud enough we can make change and get rid of proprietary drivers. -- Incoming message contains no viruses because I don't use MS products. -- ubuntu-devel mailing list <a href="mailto:ubuntu-devel@lists.ubuntu.com">ubuntu-devel@lists.ubuntu.com</a> Modify settings or unsubscribe at: <a href="https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel" target="_blank">https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel</a> </blockquote></div> Michael, What you seem to be suggesting is nothing short of harrassment. Although free drivers are nice, some manufacturers will probably never provide free drivers (Nvidia, for example). That is their own choice, and you cannot just bully them in to giving you free and open drivers. Manufacturers are not obliged to provide you with a free and open driver, and are perfectly within their rights to choose to provide you with closed-source proprietary drivers. If you demand free drivers, then you have a choice - buy hardware that is supported with free drivers from vendors that support the development of these free drivers. You don't have to buy hardware from vendors that only provide proprietary drivers. If everybody did this, then it would send a loud and clear message to the hardware vendors that choose only to provide proprietary drivers, without having to resort to bully-boy tactics like the one you've suggested. Your idea will just annoy said vendors and alienate them from the Linux community. I've CC'd this to ubuntu-devel-discuss, as I think that list is more appropriate for any further discussion. Regards Chris