Hi, On Wednesday 15 February 2006 20:48, Andreas Schuldei wrote: > what do you guys think of this late talk proposal? it sounds good > to me and as far as i am concerned could be slotted in somewhere. I'm not sure if this really looks good to me. (The proposal itself and the issue of accepting talks, which were proposed too late (*), from big sponsors...) Of course, the topic itself - hardware support - is surely interesting. But then, I'm bitten daily by problems with crappy intel hardware with binary only firmware. If this talk will present solutions to the (binary-only) hardware vendors problem, making non-free drivers work within free software, I'm not interested at all. To get a more qualified opinion to that topic, I've cc:ed some people whom I trust in this area. That's why I'm quoting the proposal in full at the end of the mail. I would be happy to learn that talk is interesting indeed and I'm totally wrong here :) AFAIK there are also other proposed or worked on solutions to the problem at hand (d-i people know about the problems of supporting non-free drivers from debian main since a long time...), so I'm not sure we should give Intel such a prominent place to show off their ideas. This leads me to the other kind of problem I have with this proposal: to me it smells like being bribed by money. I have no problem having a discussion with Intel people about their proposal at Debconf, which of course would require them to introduce their ideas first. But IMO this can be done equally well in a workshop atmosphere in some little room, no need to sacrify one of our precious talk slots. There were many talk and workshops not accecpted because there were no free slots during debconf despite interesting topics. Having to learn now, that there are slots left for "people with money" (sorry, but thats how I see it at the moment), makes me feel bitter. BTW, I just realize the last words of that Mail from Michael Jennings: what has "Intel and Open Source" has to do with Debian Day ? I thought Debian Day was about Debian and free software and not about bit money and open source ? AFAIK the schedule for debian day is not fixed yet and I would ask you to not accept that talk for Debian Day. Quoating from debconf.org: "The goal of Debian Day is bringing Debian to the press, to entrepreneurs, non-profit organizations, LUGs and even curious people in general. " (*) We discussed moving that deadline which was then dismissed because that would "look unprofessional"... At the moment the situation described above to me looks, aehm, unprofessional as well. On Thursday 16 February 2006 22:03, Meike Reichle wrote: > If we have the slots I'd say okay. But I would ask you to let this be > the very last talk that we accept belatedly. It doesn't sit too well > with me that we rejected some actually nice talks that got handed in in > time and now let so many belated proposals in. What other late talks where accepted and why ? regards, Holger From: "Jennings, Michael" <michael.jennings@intel.com> Topper: An Open Source Driver Framework Max Alt, Intel Corporation Dario Rapisardi, Junta de Extremadura The discussion will center on two common hardware support issues that affect Debian and Debian-derived distributions: how to easily install and configure drivers for a given set of hardware and how to ensure hardware devices will function correctly once that software is installed. The presentation will survey questions and issues that Intel's customers have faced when deploying an ever-growing number of Debian derived distributions and will present a number of interesting analogies related to hardware support. This will segue into a discussion about an open source prototype application named "Topper", which is designed to maintain key knowledge on hardware and software dependencies. The application definition, scope, design and goals will be discussed along with Topper user interface and interface to validation environment. At the conclusion the speakers will demonstrate the prototype, in which a Q & A with the audience will be offered. Also, Danese Cooper will be presenting on "Intel and Open Source" during Debian Day.
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