nVidia is just a company trying to make money on the PC market [LWN.net]

nVidia is just a company trying to make money on the PC market

Posted Jul 20, 2006 12:41 UTC (Thu) by etienne_lorrain@yahoo.fr (guest, #38022)
Parent article: Open letter to nVidia: Please open source the legacy nVidia video drivers

case 1: They release GPL drivers or specification.
consequence: you can continue to use that old video card.

case 2: They do not release GPL drivers nor specification.
Consequences:
- You can no more use that old video card, so you have to go and buy a new one. You may even buy from the same hardware provider, in average a lot of people will buy a new video card from them.
- Basically, it means a cash loss within a few month - and as a hardware provider, they can not even ask for a higher price when providing documentation for Linux drivers (to compensate for their loss), Linux users will not pay more for their hardware.
- Due to clever people writing free drivers without documentation, they have to design some kind of encryption at the software/hardware interface for their next generation hardware.

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nVidia is just a company trying to make money on the PC market

Posted Jul 20, 2006 16:09 UTC (Thu) by __alex (subscriber, #38036) [Link]

You can already use that old video card, you upgrade for the hardware, not the new drivers. I don't
understand how free drivers would make people not want to upgrade to newer, faster, shinier
hardware.

The only thing I can imagine is that there is a lot less difference between their Quadro line of cards
and the GeForce ones than the price tags suggest. There are already mods (both in hardware and
software) that let you convert your standard GeForce card into a Quadro which enables additional
driver features I believe. So I don't see why that would put them off either particularly other than
making that sort of conversion any easier doesn't seem like something they should actively
participate in.

nVidia is just a company trying to make money on the PC market

Posted Jul 20, 2006 17:19 UTC (Thu) by thoffman (subscriber, #3063) [Link]

On the contrary, I won't upgrade my video card hardware until there's free software drivers for the hardware I buy. And I'm not alone in that either.

So if NVidia and ATI had open source drivers for some of their newer hardware, many people might actually buy some new hardware from them...

For now, I expect my next motherboard will have an Intel video chip since those are well supported with free software.

dangerously rapacious

Posted Jul 21, 2006 5:17 UTC (Fri) by kirkengaard (subscriber, #15022) [Link]

There is a point, in business, where pursuit of raw profit becomes detrimental to income. This occurs coincidentally with offending customers. The minute that you are more about the money than about the customer is the minute things start to tip. Customer service keeps business, and even creates business.

Extorting new purchases from old customers by obsolescing their functional product artificially is right in that general neighborhood.