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This. Linked post is a misconception of how EU actually work. They will never "hardcode" something like "linux drivers" into the law. But, in theory, they could
by msm_ 3y ago
This. Linked post is a misconception of how EU actually work. They will never "hardcode" something like "linux drivers" into the law. But, in theory, they could write a law like "If you want to sell your device in the EU, you must publish a freely available technical spec with enough level of detail to write a functioning driver".
- adrian_b 3y agoThis would not even be something completely new. It would just revert the market for computer peripherals and interfaces to how it was before the launch of MS Windows 95. In the MS-DOS days everything was provided with detailed technical information, so you could write your own device drivers, for any operating system. This ended in 1995, after which most hardware vendors stopped providing documentation and replaced it with MS Windows device drivers.
- lostlogin 3y agoThe days spent trying to get drivers to work and deal with their bugs and conflicts were seriously grim.
- scarface_74 3y agoDo you realize how much the PC ecosystem sucked back then?
- kichimi 3y agoDo you have any point of substance to make here? What do you mean by it sucked, and how does that relate to publishing driver specs?
- scarface_74 3y agoYes, it’s a dumb idealistic idea that never worked in practice. Geeks spent forever trying to get crappy drivers working IRQ conflicts fixed, etc. It wasn’t until Windows 95 and WinHec and “Plug and Play” that x86 based PCs became usable for the mass market
- jandrese 3y agoThat was largely hardware issues. In particular without a way to negotiate between drivers conflicts were doomed to happen regardless of who was writing the driver, especially with the relatively small number of resources to pull from.
- scarface_74 3y agoAnd yet, Apple’s integrated solution didn’t have those issues with the Apple // in 1977 yet alone the Mac II with Nubus in 1987.
- jandrese 3y agoYeah, PC clones were a right mess. The ISA bus was extremely primitive, even by the standards of the day. There is a reason the PCI bus was such a breath of fresh air.
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y agoMaybe, but that's a separate matter from publishing specs that would let someone write a driver.
- scarface_74 3y agoHow well did that work in the past when for profit companies had a motivation to write good drivers? You think it’s going to be a seamless mass market experience this time?
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y agoI don't see the connection. Two things appear to be true: 1. In the past, it was common to publish actual specs for talking to hardware. 2. In the past, drivers often sucked. You appear to be claiming that the first thing caused the second, but I can't see any reason for that to follow. It's not like hardware manufacturers couldn't, or indeed didn't, write their own official drivers, and on the other hand there's no reason to believe that a 3rd-party driver written using proper hardware docs wouldn't work well. In fact, it's quite reasonable to suggest that the improvement in quality is entirely tied to overall architecture improvements, mostly (as cousin comments point out) device enumeration standards and possibly OS improvements (preemptive multitasking and memory protection).
- bubblethink 3y agoAnd the ability to use such a driver. Hell, even the spec wouldn't be such a strong requirement as people can reverse them. The issue is usually the firmware and signature checks.