We need a good and simple hardware database for Free Software users.

[Exile In Paradise]

On Mon, 2003-12-08 at 11:31, wayne wrote:
> I truely hate to continue this 'religious' discussion but ...

<snip snip>

> Anyway, back to the topic of this thread ...
> 
> What we really need is a simple database of hardware and the support it
> has under Linux. nVidia *should* be listed. Furthermore, the list
> *should* make it very clear that the drivers are not open source. This
> would serve both sides. <tongue_in_cheek>The leaches that just want to
> profit of the work of others would be able to figure out how to use
> their proprietary nVidia drivers, and the free software zealots would
> have a quick list of who do boycott</tongue_in_cheek>

Actually, since XFree86 includes an NV driver, their cards should be
listed, but it also seems fair to ME to limit the "support" to covering
the NV driver only.

Maybe adding a note like "NVidia offers a binary driver with licensing
that is incompatible with Fedora's licensing. Many users prefer to use
the binary driver and information and support for that driver may be
found at the NVidia website. Use at your own risk."

And leave it at that? 

For my part, the NVidia GeForce 4 MX 440 has been an excellent card for
several versions of RedHat and Fedora.

Now that I have heard ATI offers open drivers and supports open source
community directly, I am not sure I would buy NVidia again, unless they
matched ATI's stance, which would let the end users keep the comparisons
down to pure performance concerns. I personally rather put my money
behind open source, which is why I bought several RedHat boxed sets and
some training and went for the RHCE and such. Money talks still counts
right?

I suppose some may find even mentioning the binary driver unacceptable,
but I still feel it should be since the NV driver does not *fully*
support the features of NVidia cards or match the performance of the
NVidia binary driver. Please no flames on this, and lets keep it to
facts only? Linux is about choice right? Chosing freedom OR features in
this case is still about making a choice right?

Ah well... you can't keep everyone happy all of the time.
-- 
Exile In Paradise
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