[Fwd: Re: Fedora free software?]

[Rahul Sundaram]

Dave Jones wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 21, 2007 at 07:09:38AM +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote:
> 
>  > While talking to some of the Fedora games SIG folks on irc earlier there 
>  > was general reluctance to put out a Fedora games spin which I was 
>  > advocating for as a show case for all the nice games we have in the 
>  > repository . The major reason is that 3D games require proprietary 
>  > drivers to function on many systems and having just 2D games wouldn't be 
>  > that appealing. If we include 3D games and users can't run them out of 
>  > the box in a games spin on many systems that would just appear broken.
> 
> Please don't confuse the issues of binary firmware and binary drivers.
> The two are *not* the same, and have different issues.

The messaging on both of these can be different.

> Endorsing binary drivers in any way (no matter how many "you really
> shouldn't be doing this" dialogs we throw in the users way) leads
> to a support nightmare.  Over the last six months, the number of
> users filing kernel bugs tainted with nvidia, vmware and other crap
> has been increasing dramatically. (Probably a result of compiz/beryl etc).
> I really don't want this to get any worse than it already is.

I did clearly specify that the driver buddy wont be installing anything 
at all and just pointing out users to alternatives. So I don't 
understand your concern here.


>  > The solution I thought of was having a driver buddy similar to codec 
>  > buddy with the major difference that it wont install anything or add 
>  > pointers to the location of the drivers but warn/educate users on 
>  > alternatives. If they install the spin on systems where we do not 
>  > provide have 3D acceleration by default which translates into everyone 
>  > of these systems with ATI and Nvidia cards then we provide a quick 
>  > notification on their desktop directing to more information pointing on 
>  > what chipsets/systems work out of the box in Fedora with full 3D 
>  > acceleration which translates mainly to the ones with Intel chipsets.
> 
> Popping up notifications like this isn't going to make anyone
> think "Oh, ok. I'll rush out and buy a new motherboard/graphics card".

Probably it won't wont immediate effects but it might influence their 
next buy. It will also add more pressure to hardware manufacturers when 
we direct users to the ones with open drivers.

>  > Extending this we could do something similar for systems which require 
>  > binary only firmware with or without redistribution rights.
> 
> What good would this do me if my storage driver needs firmware?
> Or I need to download firmware for my network driver?

Since we arent removing those firmware end users wont have any change in 
functionality.  There are storage systems or network drivers which dont 
require binary firmware and if we point users to them this might again 
this might help influence their next buy.

Rahul