[Tfug] RMS protest - last week's news

[Shawn Nock]

Cris Robbins said:
<snip>
>
> What do most TFUGers think about binary drivers?  
I think that they are unfortunate and unnecessary step-children of 
patent lawsuit paranoia. If the driver code was released and nVidia was 
revealed to have been doing 'super-mega pixel shading technique X' and 
ATI patented 'a method of super-mega pixel processing' there could be 
corporate drama... That being said bullocks to the lot of them... I run 
the 'nv' (FOSS) driver in X.org (6.9 gave the nv driver xv acceleration; 
works great!, and gets better all the time).
> I know ATI drivers in
> Linux are routinely a pain in the ass (granted, it's been awhile since I've
> had to deal with them) 
Linux users need a pain the in the ass every now and again to reconnect 
to using a *unix* derivative, as opposed to a package manager :) [Broad 
generalization, but to the good 'linuxers' (you know who you are) I 
exclude you from the above].
> and nvidia's driver is easy to install, but what do
> people think about using them?  Is it okay to allow closed-source drivers in
> open source software?  
Big chunk of binary code, running in kernel space... It can do anything 
it wants, you don't get to know what that might be. Sounds like a sh*t 
deal to me. If one simply must play video games, by all means install 
the BLOB driver... but don't start bragging about FOSS or open source to 
all your windows friends (another linuxer trait; previous disclaimer 
applies). You (hypothetically), like the windows users, will have 
decided that flash and pretty are more important than stable and free... 
In the end it is what you (the user/sysadmin) are comfortable / happy 
with.  If you 'need' OpenGL/transparency to use you computer install the 
BLOB, if it can be avoided at all you should. Maybe you could firewall 
the hell out of a windows machine on the network and play games on a 
dedicated toy?
> This tends to bring the flames, but here's my stance
> - it's highly unlikely they'd release open spec drivers (patent issues, et
> al) and I'd like to use the hardware I purchased...I don't mind much.
>
>   
It's highly unlikely that they would release open spec drivers because 
(*suprise*) they don't care about you, your goals, or your opinion. Yes, 
patent law is destroying a lot of industries; don't reward companies 
that screw you (the user) as an alternative to fixing the problem. If 
you'd like to use 'the hardware you bought' I'd suggest that in the 
future you buy hardware that does not require subscription to the 
attitudes that are antithetical to the goals of the OS you have chosen 
to run or run the FOSS drivers that already exist.

0.02USD

Shawn


--
Shawn Nock (OpenPGP: 0xEF9B08E7)
Broadcast Engineer; KUAT Communications Group
University of Arizona
nock 'at' email 'dot' arizona 'dot' edu
--

"Despair leads to boredom, electronic games, computer hacking, poetry, 
and other bad habits."  -Edward Abbey