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806

Require Publicly available Specifications for your components

806 points posted to Accessories (Keyboards, etc.), Advertising and Marketing by jd 02/19/07

With the influence you have on the component suppliers, why not require them to provide specifications for the devices to the public? Network cards, video cards, RAID controllers all should have the programming specifications available. The Linux and *BSD groups will flock to the hardware platforms that have documented programming interfaces. It will cost you nothing to implement. Intel, TI and Broadcom, are you willing to lose business?

jd
02/20/07		 Work with the OpenBSD developers, who know the most about the issues, and develop the best drivers, and know how well Dell runs OpenBSD.
lsc
03/13/07		 yes! this is how you will get more of my money.
chris_g_g
06/07/07		 Without doubt the best way forward. Dell are a powerhouse of purchasing and wield far more influence with hardware manufacturers than us individuals.
When it comes time to make deals for hardware, Dell should add a bias in favour of those willing to freely release (programming) documentation for their hardware.

Reasons (in no particular order) for Dell to take it seriously:
1) No need to support any drivers whatsoever. The Linux project will implement and maintain their own driver based on the docs. (Many other projects will do the same)
2) Potential customer base increases beyond Linux users to include the BSDs and any others. They may be niche markets but any sales must be better than none. Also the "techies" who use these niches are often relied upon to advise friends and family.
3) Hardware "just works (TM)". With various projects maintaining drivers themselves, Dell computers gain a reputation for working solidly and completely out of the box on a huge range of operating systems. Computers like this become benchmarks against which to judge other machines e.g. "Yeah, it's nice but will it work as well as a Dell?". The value of this should be obvious.
4) Did I mention tech support? Yes, but it's worth stating again! Dell can increase the quality of their product while having to supply less (drivers on websites, CDs, etc) and reducing their tech support headache (less tech support = cheaper tech support).

All Dell need to do is lean on the manufacturers slightly and suggest that hardware docs will be a deciding factor in signing a deal. Everybody knows Dell jump up and down on their heads to squeeze out every last penny on cost - what's an extra push gonna hurt???
Then replace all Linux driver pages with pages/wiki/whatever with links to the docs. Nothing more is required.
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