On Thursday 22 April 2004 00:13, MJ Ray wrote:
I don't think it suspicious. This hardware seems to be made more troublesome by the manufacturer producing their own inVidious proprietary drivers, which reduces the number putting effort into a free software one, as well as the common problems with lack of manufacturer documentation.
So are you saying that Nvidia producing a closed linux driver actually has a more negative impact on the community than then doing nothing for Linux at all. I'd never thought of it that way.
Maybe this is why we see so little Linux support from other manufacturers. They either can't get their heads around (or can't for technical/political or legal reasons) releasing open drivers or open hardware documentation. They think as you do that releasing proprietary drivers simply stops the development of an open solution, so figure the best they can do for linux support is nothing and let the reverse engineering gurus figure it out.
I see the logic behind your argument, but I still feel the motivation behind Nvidia not providing open drivers or proper hardware documentation is more a technical or legal one.
There is far more to the Nvidia drivers than just hardware interfacing, how else do you explain the speed improvements between releases, what if those optimisations have some relevance to other Graphics hardware for example.