Luciano Rocha wrote: > On Wed, Jun 27, 2007 at 06:09:28AM +0800, Ed Greshko wrote: >> Dr. Michael J. Chudobiak wrote: >> Some folks complain that nVidia drivers should not be used since they are >> "closed source" and that is somehow "bad". Yet, the drivers are free and >> when you encounter problems you can report them to the vendor. >> >> Yet, there is another product from another company that is also "closed >> source" is also free and albeit performs a different function nobody seems >> to complain about it. I'm talking about VMware Server. >> >> Can someone if me a rational/logical reason for this? > > You're comparing apples to oranges. On one hand, you have people > complaining that a vendor refuses to give full documentation for a piece > of hardware the user bought and wants to use. So, it is a bad thing for a hardware maker not to give away its trade secrets. Right? > On the other hand, you have a piece of software that isn't needed for > the system to work at it fullest potencial. In my case I deem it so. I need something like VMware (I actually use Workstation) since I need to test products on multiple O/S without the need to have tons of hardware or an N boot-able system. Graphics performance is a very small part of my system's "potential". > You won't have people complaining that VMware Server isn't OSS. They can > use qemu, bochs, xen, whatever. The drive images format is relatively > known, so you can use them with some of the other systems. IMO, qemu, bochs, xen, and whatever are just not as easy to use. > I won't complain about vmware not being OSS. I'm not locked to it. > I do complain that the Nvidia binary is a blob. It had a security > problem some time ago and I had to wait for the vendor to issue a proper > fix, and I can't use 3d acceleration in one of my systems (PPC). Of course you are not locked into nVidia either. Don't like their policy, don't buy their hardware. Sounds simple enough to me. > I'm not even complaining that nvidia doesn't release the drivers as OSS > (though it would be nice), but I will keep complaining about releasing > proper, unencumbered documentation about the hardware. I guess I'm not clear on what kind of unencumbered hardware documentation you want nVidia to supply. Care to elaborate? Or, maybe point to the equivalent documentation that Intel provides on their video hardware. > The Nouveau project is trying to document and implement a 3d driver, see > http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/FAQ. But the last time I tried the > graphics card entered an invalid state just after entering my username > in gdm. Yeah, I've heard about that...but I still can't figure out why I would use a free "clone" of something else that is already free and supported by the OEM. Can you help me out there?
