[ltp] Re: IBM/Lenovo policy on Linux ThinkPad support, vs. competition

[Pavel Machek]

Hi!

> > I think it is sad. Lenovo tries to paint itself as a friend of linux
> > (hey, here are our binary modules)... while doing big damage to linux
> > community (binary only modules!).. and also probably doing illegal
> > thing (GPL violation)...
> 
> What drives me especially crazy is the tendency to secrecy, even when there is 
> no reason that those modules should be proprietary. It's a secret just 
> because, or because the lawyers can't understand why it should be open 
> source.

They claim that SMAPI interface is not supposed to be stable... so
they do not want to document it.

> > Lenovo, can you release specifications, instead of crappy binary
> > modules?
> 
> Surely someone at Lenovo/IBM is aware of this thread by now (hey we get their 
> Outlook vacation messages from time to time) but they haven't said anything. 
> Not a good sign. :(

I do not think they will say anything :-(. We are talking at wrong
level.

> Who'd have thought: Dell of all companies being the one to say, "hey, you 
> found a BIOS bug? Drop us a line!"

I have (had?) such contacts in HP... I expect I could get "hey, this
is bios bug" contacts at IBM, but these are very different people from
the ones giving you documentation.
								Pavel
-- 
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