Quote of the week [LWN.net]

Quote of the week

Posted Dec 16, 2004 15:09 UTC (Thu) by mrshiny (subscriber, #4266)
In reply to: Quote of the week by Duncan
Parent article: Quote of the week

I understand the need to buy hardware that is supported with open-source drivers. But what if you can't get hardware that is supported? My need to use the computer outweighs my need to use open-source drivers. This is especially true of many businesses which rely on custom solutions. They can't just stop using a piece of hardware because it's not supported; they are locked in. Sometimes there is no alternative anyway, open or not.

For example, take video cards. You mentioned that you use an older model of video card because it's the last well-supported ATI card. Using an older card won't help you play Doom3; you need a newer card that has better features. Your choices are: buy ATI or nVidia, or don't play Doom3. The applications (or games) drive the computer, not political ideology. A computer doesn't exist in a vacuum.

Anyway, your comment about the relationship between ATI and XFree86 seems to prove my point: commercial companies won't support Linux/Free software if they have to keep working around the games and politics of the developers.

(Log in to post comments)

Quote of the week

Posted Dec 16, 2004 15:37 UTC (Thu) by wookey (subscriber, #5501) [Link]

You rather dimiss the option 'don't play Doom3', but I think that is the correct choice in the circumstances and the one I am currently choosing. I agree that sometimes it is not practical to avoid non-free drivers, but the advantages of doing so are huge, and personally I don't mind at all if the kernel developers build those advantages even higher.

We design hardware and one of the most important criteria is 'are there specs or a free driver for it' - if not it doesn't get designed in. I'm sure there are loads of companies making this same choice, and I'm pretty confident that free drivers will win in the end (modulo life being made impossible by bad patent law).

Quote of the week

Posted Dec 16, 2004 16:22 UTC (Thu) by mrshiny (subscriber, #4266) [Link]

Well, I used Doom3 as an example, since it is the choice I am making soon when I upgrade my hardware. However, the analogy stands, for people who have legitimate needs that are not met by opensource drivers. Don't get me wrong: I wish NVidia had better opensource support. But even if all I used linux for was 2D, the nv driver that ships with X.org is much slower than the NVidia driver. Frankly there's no choice when it comes to video cards for me: NVidia or ATI. If there were a video card maker who had cards that had nearly the 3d quality of these two, but worked with a 100% open-source driver, I'd jump on that in a second. But the reality is that there is not, and my "need" is to play Doom3, so I am locked into a proprietary driver.

Some people need other particular hardware to get their job done, and there is no chance to replace it with something better. As a hardware maker, you can make choices about the hardware and its openness, but as a hardware user I have to buy the hardware that does the job, or do without. For many people, doing without isn't an option.