On 2004-04-22 19:49:27 +0100 Wayne Stallwood ALUGlist@digimatic.plus.com wrote:
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.
I wrote it reduces demand and effort for a free software one and let everyone draw their own conclusions, as you have done. Far be it for me to tell you what the effect is on the community.
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.
No, it's commercial. It's cheaper for them to do it that way, probably because of some short-sighted contracts.
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.
Maybe they just removed really boneheaded errors from their drivers? I think those nVidia kernel modules were part of the motivation for the kernel taint warnings, so I'd guess the early ones were not good.
If those optimisations have some relevance to other graphics hardware, it would be better for me as a consumer if they were available from a choice of suppliers sooner than author life+70 years (or whatever copyright currently is where nVidia live... not really important, as it'll be ancient history long before then).