Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by BugsJustFindMe 1854 days ago
They do have a high quality product. And then you have to buy their next high quality product instead of continuing to use the old one. Their products are hardware, not drivers, and they get more money by selling more hardware rather than letting old hardware get updated.
1 comments
matheusmoreira 1854 days ago
Can't use the hardware without the drivers. If the driver is low quality proprietary code that can't be fixed or updated, they don't have a high quality product.
link
BugsJustFindMe 1854 days ago
And yet here we all are with umpty billion Qualcomm SoCs floating around and nobody complaining about how Qualcomm's chips don't work well (except, of course, in comparison to Apple's).

The hard reality that Linux kernel driver model stalwarts must face is that the only measure that matters to these companies is profit margin, and the economics just are not in favor of upstreaming their drivers. So knowing that, do we continue to yell into the night or do we implement a solution that doesn't leave umpty billion devices without kernel security updates?

link
matheusmoreira 1854 days ago
> So knowing that, do we continue to yell into the night or do we implement a solution that doesn't leave umpty billion devices without kernel security updates?

Absolutely. Google has more than enough power and leverage to solve this problem. Why doesn't it require manufacturers to upstream their drivers instead of enabling their shitty industry practices? Literally just make it a requirement for Google Play services licensing or something. The phone manufacturers will be forced to require it from the chip manufacturers as well.

Google already does a lot of good work getting open source firmware into chromebooks. It should do even more. Use all that intellectual property for good for once.

link
BugsJustFindMe 1853 days ago
> Google has more than enough power and leverage to solve this problem.

Yep. They are using their power and leverage to stabilize the kernel driver interface so that this just stops being a problem.

> Literally just make it a requirement for Google Play services licensing or something.

Google already has enough trouble keeping manufacturers on Google Play without giving them even more incentive to develop alternatives like microG.

https://wccftech.com/oppo-vivo-xiaomi-and-huawei-band-togeth...

https://wccftech.com/huawei-executive-says-the-company-wont-...

Android really needs the chip makers more than the chip makers need Android.

link