What I recently did regarding software freedom.

[Joel Jaeggli]

I should qualify what I was thinking a bit more.

On Thu, 5 Feb 2004, Joel Jaeggli wrote:

> http://dri.sourceforge.net/doc/dri_driver_features.phtml
> 
> On Thu, 5 Feb 2004, J.B. Nicholson-Owens wrote:

<SNIP>
 
> > What you're doing is purposefully constructing a narrow situation and
> > rejecting any response that doesn't match your response.  You do this to
> > make people believe that your way is the only way to play these 3D games.  I
> > refuse to work within those silly boundaries.  I demonstrated that for a
> > rather low fee one can purchase a great deal of functionality without giving
> > up software freedom.

Part of the problem we face at this point is the development model that 
got most of of the open source drm drivers created was capital and labor 
intensive and required a careful balancing act between the percieved needs 
of the of the graphics chipset vendors and the needs of the open source 
community. The capital that was expended before, will never be recovered 
(I'm speaking as a VA Linux and redhat shareholder here). 

At this point, the graphics chipset manufacturers would be the logical
supporters of this sort of effort, and by in large they were supportive
when it was done on their terms, but the competetive edge they retain over
each other (ati and nvidia) is so narrow, that their isn't room for the
sort of friendly collaboration with a cummunity rather than individual
group/single of developer(s) that would produce high-performance open
source drivers that support that absolute latest chipsets. Personally I
resent the fact that that the two fastest cards are I have in linux boxes
are both ati r2xx chipset boards, a radeon 8500 and a 9000pro, but I
appreciate the substantial efforts of tungsten graphics and the the
weather channel that made even that possible.

I would just conclude by saying to ati, and any other hardware vendors 
that are listening. If there were and open-source driver for the r360 or 
r350 or nv35/38 I would buy one tomorrow.

As an aside this paper is highly informative even if it is 6 years old:

http://dri.sourceforge.net/doc/vendor_relationships_paper.html

> > 
> > 
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> 

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Joel Jaeggli  	       Unix Consulting 	       joelja at darkwing.uoregon.edu    
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