| A few observations: 1. One of the highly distinctive characteristics of being a Free Software project leader is having the freedom to speak your mind. What Linus does (hacking the Linux kernel) and who pays him to do it (presently the Linux Foundation) are pretty loosely linked. The primary objective of LF is to fund Linux development, and Linus is pretty much the guy to get that done. If LF didn't pay him for it, someone else would. He can state his opionions on relevant technical matters with few if any fears of repercussions. I'm looking forward to next week's press releases from Nvidia. 2. Linus addresses what Nvidia are doing wrong at a few points, both directly and indirectly. Around 15 minutes in he talks about what Free Software provides in the way of developer freedoms: you can focus on what you are interested in and what you are good at. In Linus's case, issues such as maintaining Linux-related websites, init, QA, and Linux distributions is stuff he fundamentally doesn't care about (while other bits such as, eventually, creating a useful revision control system he does). Free Software lets you focus on your own core competencies. He also makes the point, around 35 minutes, that it's very important that people need to know how he feels about things. Including how he feels about support received from hardware vendors. More specifically, for hardware manufacturers, playing nice and closely with the kernel development community leads to both better product performance and customer relations. The woman asking the Nvidia question clearly wasn't happy with her Nvidia experience. I've learned in assessing hardware compatibility to treat any Nvidia componentry as at best a red flag if not a show-stopper. I'll actively go out of my way to avoid their products (Intel have gone out of their way to ensure compatibility and open specs, my most recent purchases centered on Intel chipsets, in particular for graphics). Playing well with devs also means that issues are addressed in a timely manner, compromises can be reached, and in general communications are open and positive. I don't know the full backstory on the Nvidia front (though searching the LKML mailing list should turn up some bits). 3. ... and yes, the HN moderators fubared this one. |