On 1 Feb 2005 13:22:06 -0000 "Matt" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I then cited an example of a company that does provide linux drivers >to indicate what should be the norm not the exception. Hauppague had >all of the information to build a great Windows driver.. I know, my >card works great under windows but then... it seems that the magic >information just evaporates and they are unable to produce drivers for >Linux. Correct me if I am wrong but it is possible to create the >drivers without releasing the source code... they could compile the >drivers using the same complier they use to build the Windows driver. I think hardware companies creating Linux drivers should be a normal thing. While Nvidia has done a pretty good job of making their driver easy to install, the bastard.... Uh... binary only ;) approach should not be looked on as a good thing. Linux already has OpenGL support of it's own, so for Nvidia to do it's own *special* libraries does not help Linux in general and requires odd things to be done even though they mask that fact with their installer/uninstaller. I'll take that over no driver, but it would be much better if the video card companies would work on the existing Mesa stuff for the common core functions that they all need and do any additional stuff as add on modules. S3 texture compression for example, which is patent encumbered and not able to be used in open source in the US and other places that recognize the patent or where additional regional patents have been granted. The firmware situation is bad enough, I don't want to see that whole binary only driver situation that exists with the Nvidia and newer ATI cards being played out again in the land of TV cards. The situation really sucks for newer All In Wonder users since it seems you need Gatos for the TV functions and it doesn't work with the binary only ATI driver and the open source ATI driver doesn't provide direct rendering for anything newer than a 9200. So while ATI has worked with the open source developers to get them the specs they need in the past. With the "higher level of commitment" displayed by ATI recently in improving the binary driver, the question becomes will they still feel the need to provide specs to the open source developers. Part of the greatness of open source is the ability of people to hack on code to utilize hardware in ways not thought of by the makers of the hardware and part of that is lost when specifications are not available and drivers are binary only. And then there are the people running on non x86/x86-64 architectures who probably would not be supported with a binary only driver. Going back to.... >Linux. Correct me if I am wrong but it is possible to create the >drivers without releasing the source code... they could compile the >drivers using the same complier they use to build the Windows driver. If that compiler is GCC it might be possible, but I don't know how practical it is. Even with a common code base there would be elements that are specific to Windows or Linux. Those could be a compile time option, but even with the Nvidia and ATI "binary only" drivers there is a wrapper element that is distributed as source and able to be compiled by the user to get support for the version of the kernel that is being used. Other wise only specific distrobutions with specific versions of the kernel would be supported. By name those distrobutions would probably be Fedora Core/Red Hat, Mandrake, and Suse. I run Debian as my primary distrobution and others I run are mostly Debian based so that is not very appealing to me, but even running one of the big three being tied to specific versions of the kernel sucks if you need a newer version to support some other hardware or that fixes a security issue and it breaks the binary only support. If you were to look at it differently and say Hauppauge should put some developers on the open source driver, well that would be awsome, but because of their NDA situation with Conexant that might raise questions about the "clean" state of the open source driver. Maybe not an impossible situation to overcome if they were to hire a Linux developer or two and only give them limited access to the information as I think Creative Labs did to kick start the development of the open source driver for the Soundblaster Live. The difference there being Emu is a subsidiary of Creative Labs so theoretically Creative Labs could have done even more. I hear Pink Floyd in the back ground ;) "Did they get you to trade your heros for ghosts, hot ashes for trees, hot air for a cool breeze, cold comfort for change? Did you exchange a walk on part in a war for a lead role in a cage?" Some people just want a driver that supports the features of their hardware, I can understand that. Personally if I have the choice between some hardware that has a full featured binary only driver or some other hardware with open source drivers that provides less features, I will choose the one with the open source drivers because I don't want to trade away the long term gains for short term benefits. Later, Seeker ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by: IntelliVIEW -- Interactive Reporting Tool for open source databases. Create drag-&-drop reports. Save time by over 75%! Publish reports on the web. 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