I like nVidia, they have a reputation of being one of the best supported linux drivers, despite not being at the point of GPL'ing their drivers (and they may never be to that point).
But the point should be made that maybe they should be congratulated for supportting Linux but should also be encouraged to properly(?) open it up.
better to have good support and a binary only driver than no 3d at all. Indeed probably better than a company that throws out some old code under the GPL and then abandons it to the community with no real info about how the code is supposed to work.
I agree to a point.
to see what really persuaded me about the crew at nvidia, read this article:
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=7146
there is a hierarchy of hardware support, running from complete support and open sourcing of both specs and drivers and active community involvement, through to downright unco-operativeness. I would put nvidia nearer the top than the bottom. as long as they remain responsive to changes in the kernel and X I have little problem with it.
Hell they are there to make money. If they didn't make any we wouldn't have the cards.
of course they need to make money. But I am not convinced that they will lose any from GPL'ing their code.
