On 2006-07-12, Dieter wrote: > > o Why closed-source drivers are a problem > > > > In my opinion stability is the most important point. > > I would say stability is more like 4th. > > The most important issues are correctness and security. If you ever > use a computer for online banking, investing, shopping, etc. or other > important secrets, then the kernel and anything that runs as root must > be trustworthy. Closed-source drivers are not trustworthy. Computers > also need to provide answers that are correct. Everyone who wants to > cross a bridge designed on an Intel CPU raise their hand. You cannot > verify the correctness of a closed source driver.
Yes, security is more important than stability, but what is the more common problem with graphics drivers? Are there examples of a graphics driver which secretly transmits pixels back to their makers? Are there examples of graphics drivers which crash the system, and maybe brings the data with it to /dev/heaven? Anyway, I didn't want to mess with the ordering of the items, Tim knows best what's the natural order for the presentation. I was just slighly puzzled that ideology was above stability, given the debate about free vs open. Then, ordering doesn't need to reflect importance. > In third place, we want to avoid data loss. The "nvidia" device driver > can cause data loss in some systems. I have experience here. Just installed SuSE some years ago. "Want 3D?", the installer askes; "jes cool!" Well, not so! I had to reinstall the system after giving up on fsck. When the system freezes, I keep in the back of my head that the system may actually be doing just about anything. I guess that's why the kernel is programmed to panic if something's funny. _______________________________________________ Open-graphics mailing list [email protected] http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-graphics List service provided by Duskglow Consulting, LLC (www.duskglow.com)
