Idea: How to Make Drivers Easier for Everyone

One of the main problems with Linux adoption is drivers. Webcams, MP3 players, wireless cards, voice recorders–most of them are problematic, and some of them are downright unusable on Linux. In fact, drivers are kind of a mess everywhere–pop quiz: Where’s your CD of that PCMCIA card driver? How quickly can you navigate a company’s website to download a new driver? Don’t forget the ambiguous, equivocal and generally misleading UI that seems to be standard in all driver-providing websites.

I have a solution: The creation of the UDR–Unified Driver Repository.

Here’s how it works:

Somebody–be they a Windows, Mac or Linux user–gets a new piece of hardware, and tentatively plug it in to their computer. If it works they move on with their life. If it doesn’t, they open up the (cross platform) UDR client, type in the model number of their new hardware, and–a la Synaptic–put a check mark next to the appropriate driver (which must be available for all three platforms, for free). They close the UDR client, it downloads and installs the driver, and zap! you have a driver.

Sound simple? It’s supposed to be.

The question is: Why would hardware makers spend the extra time and money on submitting their drivers to the UDR? Easy: Good old capitalistic competition. Consumers like the ease of the UDR. Consumers prefer hardware compliant with the UDR. Hardware makers that put their drivers in the repository will receive more business than those that don’t. Even if it means making the driver compatible for more platforms.

Naturally, Microsoft is going to join the fray. They’ll release their own, proprietary version, they’ll make it Windows-only, they’ll poke fun at Macs and Linux, and they’ll figure out how to make money off of it (at a guess, I’d say through charging the hardware makers a fee to be included on The List). That’s fine–they’ll lose anyway. Why? For the same reason nobody would use IE if Firefox had come out first. Why go with a proprietary, single platform imitation when the ‘real deal’ is better and free? The only reason is that companies would be just as happy to only release a Windows driver, but if the original UDR is good enough, that’s a faceable problem. The Linux (and open source in general) community has dealt with more serious issues.

And can you imagine walking into a store, and seeing that brand new wireless card have a sticker on it proclaiming “UDR Compliant”, with a penguin, apple and window logo? I sure want to.