--- Rui Miguel Seabra <rms(a)1407.org> wrote:
On Tue, 2004-05-25 at 16:18 -0700, Frank Tanner III
wrote:
> When proprietary drivers are all that's available
you
> use them. Whether or not you like it.
Not really. I didn't want to use NVIDIA's
proprietary driver so I
didn't.
> It's philosophies like yours that make it so hard
for
> any of the "proprietary" companies
No. It's people looking only into their belly
buttons...
> Because the "zealots" will rip them apart for
even
> trying. They dont HAVE to release a video driver
for
> their card in ANY format.
Of course they don't have to. I'd be perfectly happy
if they released
enough info for driver developers to make one.
> They released it because
> they wanted to sell more video cards, and they saw
> that Linux was a market share that they wanted.
> Getting a proprietary "black box" driver is better
> than getting no driver at all.
Getting MACROVISION and unstable boxes is so good,
yummy... NOT!
> Believe it or not, companies do deserve to make
money
> off of their products.
No. What you're saying makes absolutely no sense.
They deserve to *try* to make money. There is no
reason for you to get
money just because you did something. It has to be
worth it for someone.
> So what if their driver
> contains "black box" proprietary code. They're
not
> charging you for the driver. Linux is about "free
as
> in speech" not "free as in beer".
What "free speech" does the driver bring? It EVEN
restricts free speech
with it's imposed MACROVISION. You don't even know
what you're talking
about.
> Do you think Oracle
> releases an Open Source version of their high-end
> databases? Hell no. It's all "black box".
I don't care about Oracle. There's PostgreSQL.
Rui
You have your beliefs and I have mine. And mine is
that people deserve to try to make a living off of
their code, hardware, service they provide.
That includes video card manufacturers.
The *REASON* their driver is proprietary and has
"black box" components is SIMPLE. There are
proprietary pieces of code in the video card itself.
These drivers need to access these pieces of code.
The drivers would have enough information in them to
deduce exactly what the code in the card is doing.
So, in effect, they would be, in effect, "giving away"
their proprietaty card stored on the video card
itself.
Maybe YOU want them to give away all of their hard
work, but there is no compelling reason for them to do
so. Don't like their divers? Don't use their cards
and stop crying about it. It's called freedom of
choice. Me? I will use their cards, and their
drivers, because I like their products.
=====
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"Never memorize what you can look up." -Albert Einstein