On Monday 10 February 2003 06:52 am, Leon Brooks wrote: > Hello, I'm contacting you on behalf of the many people who inhabit the > Mandrake Linux `Cooker' development list (as distinct from representing > Mandrake themselves). ehhhh,, before you go contacting _anyone_ on _MY_ behalf, you DAMN well better have contacted me and have my permission. I REALLY don't like to have anyone claim to speak for me. and as such I DEMAND a retraction to be posted, but not on the developer list,,,, please post your retraction and apology to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" and keep this list for the developers.
> One of the few chipsets which Mandrake Linux and other OSS-respecting > distributions cannot support `out of the box' is NVidia's nforce and > similar chipsets. > > The audio for these chipsets is basically i810 so is now handled natively > by every new Linux kernel, but the network driver is not so simple to deal > with. We can re-write that with some effort, but would much rather that > NVidia released the code for the ethernet driver under a BSD or GPL > license, perhaps with a rider to the effect that the driver shall not be > adapted for use with competing network interfaces, and/or shall only ever > be used as part of an Open Source operating system, something like that. > > NVidia would earn `brownie points' - that intangible asset which > accountants put on the balance sheet as `goodwill' - which is probably > important in this time of being `second best' graphics card provider, and a > 100Mb LAN interface can hardly hold anything radical or market-important by > way of trade secrets at this stage in development. > > We would be delighted if NVidia were to similarly release code for their 3D > drivers (an X licence would be most appropriate), but are not expecting a > miraculous social transformation any time soon, and will be pleased with > whatever advances we can get. (-: > > If there are any barriers to NVidia's joining the world-wide Open Source > community wholeheartedly, please spell them out to us, as we may be able to > do something about some or all of them. > > Thanking you in advance > > > Leon Brooks
