__/ [ Brandon J. Van Every ] on Tuesday 26 December 2006 11:21 \__
>
> Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>> Nouveau: A First Look
>>
>> ,----[ Quote ]
>> | So when will the Nouveau driver be ready? The Wiki states that the
>> | project should be mostly usable in autumn 2007. Keith Packard had
>> | previously expressed hope that the driver would be ready in time
>> | for the X.Org 7.3 release.
>> `----
>>
>> http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=614&num=1
>>
>>
>> Related:
>>
>> ...pledge at least $10 USD towards the development of the open source
>> nouveau driver for the nvidia card series...
>>
>> ,----[ Quote ]
>> | For the longest time nvidia have failed to provide specifications
>> | for their hardware or a working free accelerated 3d driver for
>> | inclusion with X.org. Thus leaving the many users of their
>> | videocards on popular UN*X systems such as Linux with only the
>> | option of using a 2d only driver or using nvidia' notorious
>> | proprietary driver.
>> |
>> | With the advent of technological improvements to the underlying
>> | system to allow desktop effects this leaves a great number of users
>> | out in the cold. A project does exists to reverse engineer a driver
>> | for the existing nvidia cards, however this is a hard task which
>> | will require many man hours to complete. Thus the aim to present
>> | the Nouveau team with this no strings attached donation of at least
>> | $10.000 USD to further their nobel effort in developing this driver.
>> `----
>>
>> http://www.pledgebank.com/nouveaudriver
>
>
> That's an interesting business model. I wonder if it can ever possibly
> work? $10K is not much money to a USA developer, compared to
> commercial salaries. It's more money to a third world developer; maybe
> that's the real answer to such labor intensive problems. Otherwise,
> NVIDIA just keeps moving forwards with their chips and cards. Myself,
> I've lost interest in these footraces for the sake of idealism. I've
> found food banks and running the risk of eviction to be distinctly
> unpleasant. Also, writing device drivers is not inherently fascinating
> work. Like CMake build engineering, it's gruntwork that one does in
> the service of a higher goal. Although I do tend to underestimate the
> perversions of some people, those that are entertained by writing
> device drivers forever? Or maybe they just don't need money.
>
> For my part I have strong feelings of been there, done that. If it's
> gruntwork, show me the money. The free stuff, I do when it's for my
> personal gain / investment *AND* I'm not getting suckered into an
> external dependency battle that I just can't win.
>
> I really don't know that lining up a scrappy $10K against NVIDIA is
> wise. Seems like it would be better to throw that $10K at ATI open
> source driver development, to pressure NVIDIA to follow suit.
>
>
> Cheers,
> Brandon Van Every
In my humble opinion, there is the fallacy (or myth) while then there's the
common argument which says people are motivated by recognition as much as
(if not more then) they are motivated by concrete (or balance sheet)
rewards. The "food banks" argument doesn't fit perfectly well because, if
you have the skills, you can be hired at will. It boils down to personal
goals, I suspect.
Have a look at this one...
Introducing the Open Graphics Project
,----[ Quote ]
| One project that I've been following quite closely lately is a
| project started by chip-designer Timothy Miller, called the Open
| Graphics Project. His goal, along with the rest of the project, known as
| the "Open Graphics Foundation" is to make a 3D accelerated video card
| which is fully documented, free-licensed, and open source.
`----
http://linux.wordpress.com/2006/07/19/introducing-the-open-graphics-project/
This has attracted professors, IIRC. I have seen similar articles that
suggest progress is being made. Nothing can be shelved because it's open
source and it'll gain steam just like the Apache Foundation has. Companies
with interests will, in due time, provide backing (e.g. Google and
LinuxBIOS).
Never say never. Sun have got an Open Source CPU (with derivatives) and we've
also got KDE, GNOME, X... nobody can take these away because they are based
on duplicable source code.
--
~~ Kind greetings and happy holidays!
Roy S. Schestowitz | How I learned to stop worrying and love GNU/Linux
http://Schestowitz.com | RHAT GNU/Linux ¦ PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
1:00pm up 68 days 23:14, 6 users, load average: 1.10, 0.75, 0.33
http://iuron.com - help build a non-profit search engine
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