jabjoe

I feel bad buying things DRM'ed, so I very rarely do, and not for myself. I don't want to fund that. Feels much better funding DRM free work.

You can of course write drivers for them, but then it's you own abstraction not the standard Linux abstraction. (You can hack something up with IIO for that stuff, but it's not pretty). There is CUSE (part of FUSE) you can do some character devices with.

Existing drivers in Python are messy to use if you our not developer in Python.

The nice thing about in kernel is:

• it's done for you already
• the interface is standard and will work with anything that uses that class of device
• it's langauge agnostic.

The Linux kernel does hardware abstraction. It's not a microkernel. There is limited support for proper userspace drivers.

If you doing some application specific app, that will only work with those chips, use do it in userspace. But to make a normal system for normal use, you want things in kernel like normal.

Only a fraction of it is RTCs. What is in the Pi overlays folder is from everything. Not even all the DT I2C RTCs. There is loads of ADCs, DACs, IO extenders, all sorts.

It's really annoying you can't do DT on x86 Linux. It's a bit of a gap in the platform. It would make Linux ARM based developer's lives easier.

GPIOs are the easy bit. You can get those no issue on x86. It's I2C and SPI that are the issue with x86. You can get the buses sure, but all the device drivers are Device Tree based. You can't just throw in Device Tree overlays on x86.

Regulations can work. Latest is EU's USB-C phone/laptop/tablet standardization. It's great! No more crazy range of different laptop power supplies.

Some stuff is pretty much as I want already. Henry vacuum cleaners for example. Tough as nails and easy to get parts and help for. Framework laptop and fair phone aim to be good for repair and upgradablity.

France repairablity index can be rolled out further field.

Things used to be more repairable and last longer. We can reverse the trend down. No need to despair.

I think the EU will be first to role it out at and scale. Like USB-C device power standardization.

Seriously, no one is going to mention "Right To Repair"? If this was law, and companies had to divulge how there stuff worked and was assembled, as well as sell parts, things would last longer. If every trade zone had a repairablity index, competition would make things last longer still.

I don't think there is a way that always works.

It's not always possible to get a clear spec and do big design up front in R&D. The whole point can be to work out what can be done and how.

Rewrites are great. You have a specification that is so defined it is literally code.

When it's blue sky, it's harder. Plans will be wrong. The users don't understand really what they need or want. It all ends up evolving. Anything with a GUI is worse because users/customers need (want) things moved about, re-themed, with no regard to what's below. Best to nail them to mock up designs they signed off on. Same with API interfaces. If they signed off on the design, you can then point out "spec change" and get more time/money. It's more about ass covering than using the outcome or process.

Exactly!

I worked at one Agile place they had all their sprints and milestones in a Gantt Chart waterfall. They also did big design up front and a lot of process. They had do all kind agile and scrum training, but it was the most process heavy place I worked.

Sounds so much like a abusive relationship for a reason.

I've been happy on FOSS desktop OSs for home for nearly 20 years and work 12 years. It's certainly possible to leave. Windows wasn't my first OS, RISC OS was, so I already I could be treated better.

You don't have to put up with it! Windows will take all it can from you and give as little as it can.

And forced the hardware obsolescence nightmare.

And the big tech surveillance nightmare.

And the nightmare of the war on general purpose computers. (OK, that is more GNU and GPLv3)

And a few other nightmares!