[Gllug] Graphics cards + open source or contributed drivers?

[Mike Brodbelt]

On Wed, 2003-11-12 at 16:45, John Hearns wrote:

> OK, coming to drivers.
> Huw's comment is quite right - his company needs the performance of
> a closed driver to get their job done, and get the work out the door.
> I won't say for one minute they shouldn't use them for some high-horse
> reason of principle, which would be stupid.

Really?

It seems to me that if one is always prepared to sacrifice principle for
pragmatism, then those principles count for little. If you use Linux
because it's free software, not just because it's technically better,
surely these are the things that matter? Not that is is a short argument
- it's the heart of the disagreement between RMS/ESR and free
software/open source. 

Where you're deciding these things on behalf of a company that just
needs to get work out the door, then there are material considerations.
However, I suspect that if all the Hollywood effects companies had said
to nVidia that they opened their drivers or lost the business, we might
have free drivers.

> Also recently I've seen people on the Fedora list asking about
> kernels 'other that Redhat's'.
> 
> I just kinda fear a day when 'we' are not 'allowed' to change anything
> and recompile a kernel.

If people are happy to accept binary only drivers, that'll only speed
that day. I've been happy to observe the increasing hostility towards
binary code on the kernel list. The taint flag is a good thing, IMO. 

> BUT in the spirit of open source we should understand what they are
> there for, and have a general understanding of what goes on.

Fundamentally, I'd say this is the most important thing. I use Linux
primarily because I'm philosphically in agreement with it. I'd probably
still use it on purely technical grounds even if I didn't, but I got
into it because free access to source code was a powerful enticement. I
do use some binary only and non-free software (Crossover plugin, Sun
JRE/JVM, and one or two others), so I'm guilty of pragmatism to a
degree, but I refuse to give money to any hardware vendor who's idea of
support is a binary only driver. I'd rather they provided specs and no
driver than binary only code. 

Mike.


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