[NTLUG:Discuss] CPU History

[Steve Baker]

David wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 13, 2003 at 09:37:50AM -0600, Kyle Davenport wrote:
> 
>>I've never had a problem with the couple of 3Com's I've used.   I have to
>>say I never expect any official company support for anything.  It's like an
>>extra present that we can get drivers from Nvidia, for instance.   When
> 
> It's no present from Nvidia, or at least, not any present I want.
> Nvidia's drivers are free beer, but not free speech.  Without the
> technical details of programming their chips, we are forever tied to
> Nvidia.  Our graphics run only at their convenience.  
> 
> I don't expect official driver support from hardware companies.  I do
> expect that they will release full technical specifications of their
> cards, so that we are empowered to support ourselves.

It's not going to happen.  And since none of the serious
competitors of nVidia do so either - there is no pressure
on them to do any different.

ATI's Radion drivers are closed source - and whilst they did
release details of the 8000 series cards - it wasn't ENOUGH
detail to access all of the cards features.  The 9000 series
are secret.

3D graphics cards are horribly complex devices and the drivers
are tightly integrated into the hardware.  All of the major
manufacturers agree that it would take them so much effort to
explain all of the functions of each of the registers that it's
just easier to supply a completed Linux driver.

I agree that it's a terrible shame that we don't have OpenSource
3D drivers - but I don't see it happening anytime soon for any
state-of-the-art hardware.

---------------------------- Steve Baker -------------------------
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