Hardware Drivers

Over the years, the hardware makers are reluctant to open specifications and code programs the hardware drivers that they make. Although there was already open, but many are still reluctant to do so.

If you are a hardware vendor, you may worry that being open will reveal important things about how your hardware works, so that could be imitated by your competitors. This argument is valid, but in the era of the product cycle of three to five years. Now, time spent on your competitor’s engineers to learn and imitate what you make is a very detrimental to their own. Because, at that time, they did not use the time to innovate and differentiate their own products.

This is not a new view. Former KGB chief, said Oleg Kalugin, “For example, when we stole into IBM’s blueprint for us, or in other electronic areas which the West has stepped away, and we left, it took many years to apply our intelligence efforts. At that time, in five or seven years, the West (the West) is one step further, and we became increasingly left behind “.

Accelerating the Internet makes it even more powerful effect. If you really become a leader, plagiarism is a trap that you want your competitors to fall into it.

Actually, the details of the hardware is not hidden in a long time. Hardware device drivers do not like the operating system or applications. Driver sizes small enough, easy to do dis-assemble, and easy to imitate. In fact, novice programmers who are still teenagers can do, and they often do.

Many Linux and FreeBSD programmers with the ability and motivation at the same time makes the drivers for the new board. Various types of hardware is relatively simple and its interface has a well-known standards (such as disk controllers and network cards), the hackers are very excited about this could even make a prototype drivers as fast as you can do, even without documentation and without any dis - assemble existing drivers.

Even for complex devices such as video card and sound card, you cannot block the smart programmers who were armed with disassembler. Cost is very low and there is always a gap of legal impediments. Linux is an international movement, there will be a law that legalized limit reverse-engineering.

A very clear example that the claim is true you can see from the list of hardware supported by Linux kernel. Note that the new hardware is supported and immediately added to the kernel, even though without the support from the vendor.

Another good reason to open the driver you are so you can concentrate on innovation. Let someone else take care of the hardware drivers that you have developed. Imagine how much can be saved if you do not need to spend time and pay for your internal staff to rewrite, test, and distribute new binary versions each time a kernel release. You certainly have other things that can be done by your internal staff with all abilities.

Another good reason: no one wants to wait six months for bug fixes. If you have an open source competitors, they’ll bury you just for a good reason for this.

The customers also want the open source security for investment in the future. They want it because it knew that the lifetime of the hardware they can exceed the vendor support (viewed from the cost-effectiveness).

The best reason is to sell hardware is the source of your money. Market drivers do not want your privacy. In fact the opposite. If you are hard to find drivers, running poorly, or should be updated quite often, due to the poor is less hardware that you can sell. Open source can solve this problem and increase your income.

The message is: shut the secret meetings took only driver in the short term. Perhaps it is a bad strategy in the long run (especially if you are competing with vendors that already open). Be open as much as possible to build your market and show potential customers that you believe in your ability to out-think and out-Innovate your competitors if necessary.

If you are still closed, generally you will experience the worst situation. Your secrets will remain open, no development assistance for free, and no time is thrown away by your competitors to do plagiarism. More importantly, you lose the opportunity to disseminate their initial use. A large market and will affect your company’s record label bad for your business because you do not know this. Then they would buy the board to the other party.

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