this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2024
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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People are replacing lost/damaged organs and limbs with computer-controlled hardware. The same problems that occur in computers that exist outside of humans will occur in computers inside of humans. Do you trust non-open drivers from Corporation X or Government Y in your eyes telling your brain what you do or don't see?
That's the extreme, of course, but it isn't any less scary than computers you trust with your credit card, bank account, etc information.
Open source drivers means when corporation X goes under, your hardware still can work and isn't automatically abandoned. It keeps more hardware out of landfills longer, with the ability to drastically reduce e-waste.
I agree with your point, but I find it very unlikely to have cutting edge medical technology using open-source software - after all those pacemaker / brain implant companies want to protect their research (and profits) - and I'm not even sure if a FOSS solution for that would ever get approved by any legal body.
All those systems that process your financial transitions run on tons of proprietary software and the banks and credit card companies believe that software is secure enough.
This is probably the most reasonable thing about having open-source drivers... however hardware is diverse and complex and so are drivers. The community might not be able to maintain such the driver for specific-version-x-hardware I have because it might not have access to all the design documentation of the hardware nor the time to reverse engineer it. It might not be worth keeping a driver around if it only serves a few people because everyone is mostly on a different revision of the hardware or some other detail like that.
To be fair Linux removed support for 386, 486, floppy drives, "Carillo Ranch", and a bunch of other older hardware recently... at some point the few users that still have a piece of tech won't care about it because they can just replace it by a new and better alternative for cheap.
You make wonderful points, but I think we can both agree that I've demonstrated that there is value open source drivers, however insignificant they may be in comparison to non open drivers isn't really relevant. It shouldn't be such a shock an individual may want an open source only version of Linux which is the topic of discussion here.
Fair enough :)