Home Messages Index
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Author IndexDate IndexThread Index

Re: [News] Another Story About the Evils of Binary Drivers

On Mon, 15 Jan 2007 11:59:21 +0000, Roy Schestowitz wrote:

> __/ [ Sandman ] on Monday 15 January 2007 11:53 \__
> 
>> In article <1618460.YlFgd8tChT@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
>>  Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> 
>>> __/ [ Sandman ] on Monday 15 January 2007 10:58 \__
>>> 
>>> > In article <1278663.qzH5zGyIZt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
>>> >  Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>> > 
>>> >> Apple/NVidia Driver Bug -- Question Deleted
>>> >> 
>>> >> ,----[ Quote ]
>>> >> | When playing 3D games (World of Warcraft mainly), the game would
>>> >> | Kernel Panic the machine if I had played it for a few hours, or if
>>> >> | I swapped in and out of the game a few times, etc. I eventually
>>> >> | found out (from an official Blizzard poster) that NVidia has a bug
>>> >> | in their drivers that kernel panics a Mac Pro if any memory past the
>>> >> | 2GB boundary is addressed in the driver.
>>> >> `----
>>> >> 
>>> >> http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/14/211242&from=rss
>>> >> 
>>> >> In the past, NVidia even had a critical vulnerability in their binary
>>> >> drivers, which exposed the kernel to attacks.
>>> > 
>>> > And had it not been a binary driver, this gamer would just rewrite the
>>> > source and recompile the driver and then continue his game?
>>> 
>>> No, the criticism one has in these circumstances (this relates to the
>>> NSA's 'gift' to Vista) is that intent is unknown and a small room of
>>> developers can keep secrets. When you have pairs of eyes in multiple
>>> companies and cities (think Linux kernel, for instance), then the secret
>>> is harder to keep and the knowledge is more diverse, which leads to
>>> identification of bugs and avoidance of interests of a single company
>>> being served (exclusively).
>>> 
>>> Let me illustrate this. This morning, for example, on the WordPress
>>> hackers mailing list, one guy spotted a glitch in a new patch. Many of us
>>> receive a list of patches by E-mail and sometimes we dicuss them, having
>>> glanced at the diff (there's wp-hackers and wp-testers, among other
>>> lists). Okay, I'm drifing off topic here, but the point to make is that
>>> NVidia keeps its secret sauce (or source) in house and doesn't enable an
>>> army of volunteers to help, even is only by proposal. Many of these
>>> volunteers are concerned users who put the programs on their
>>> mission-critical servers. It's only natural to be curious, skeptic,
>>> concerned, and involved. Transparency gives peace of mind, _as well as_
>>> better quality. Want no contributions? Then fine. Ignore the patches and
>>> bug reports. Lose cusotmers at will..
>> 
>> That's all fine and nice, but Nvidia isn't loosing customers to
>> open-source alternatives, are they?
> 
> They are not gaining any, either. When the above hits the front page of
> Slashdot, many people will have a reason to turn over to the ATi shelf. An
> Open Source community could not only help Nvidia's image, but also the
> quality of its product/s.


Baloney......
If I had a product to sell, the absolute last thing in the world I would
want is to be associated with /. and in particular Linux/open source
wackos that inhabit /.  .

Being associated with Tom's Hardware is one thing.
Linux?

Hahahaha!

Talk about ruining ones reputation and I doubt Nvidia is interested in
that.





[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Author IndexDate IndexThread Index