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Hifn vs ATI

Posted Jul 20, 2006 22:54 UTC (Thu) by Kluge (guest, #2881)
In reply to: Perhaps we should start to behave more like OpenBSD? by cventers
Parent article: OLS: Open source graphics drivers

My impression from the Hifn/OpenBSD thread is that the encryption chip and graphics chip markets are different a way that isn't favorable to supporters of free/open-source software. ATI and Nvidia are the only high-end consumer graphics chip makers around. And neither they nor any of their competitors (unless you count Intel, which doesn't compete in many of their markets) offer specs for the development of open source drivers.

In contrast, de Raadt said "I can get documentation for pretty much 99% of the [encryption] chips in the industry without supplying any private information." If this was the case for graphics chips, there would be no problem. Unfortunately, there's no 99% (or even 1%) of the graphics chip market with open source friendly policies.

Given that, we can deny ATI and Nvidia our money, but who do we give it to?

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Hifn vs ATI

Posted Jul 20, 2006 23:04 UTC (Thu) by cventers (subscriber, #31465) [Link]

I recognize there are definite differences, but I think we need to be more
vocal.

Hell - go crazy with me for a second. What if we were able to organize
users and developers from GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD (since we
pretty much all have at least /some/ stake in having at least open specs).
This organized group picks 1 company to focus on (ATI) and comes up with 1
demand (programming specifications).

Then every day, every participant in our little protest calls each of
ATI's telephone numbers / departments once. Each of us calls tech support,
sales, RMA, and any other phone-accessible departments once every day.
It's eventually downright harassment, but every call costs them time,
money and frustration when they're not handling their other customers.
Eventually it becomes expensive to ignore our demand for programming
specifications.

And ironically, when we have the specifications and interested parties
have time to build r500 support, they might just have a flood of customers
(read: NVIDIA defectors) to help them earn all that lost support money
back. Then we set our sights on NVIDIA...

Hifn vs ATI

Posted Jul 23, 2006 6:48 UTC (Sun) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link]

By every single bit of advice from actual driver developers I have ever read, this is madness -- not just useless, but destructive. Venom on the mailing list had no effect at all, because nobody read it. What did have an effect was the real threat to their sales. Nothing anybody in Free Software can do can have any impact on their sales, because (1) too few are involved, and anyway (2) most of their sales aren't to end users, but to manufacturers who aren't even aware there's an issue, and would be uninterested if they did know.

What can possibly influence ATI and Nvidia? Volume sales. That's all. If you have a say in large-volume orders, and can convince ATI and Nvidia of it, you have their ear. Anything else is just grandstanding.

Hifn vs ATI

Posted Aug 2, 2006 2:11 UTC (Wed) by djm (subscriber, #11651) [Link]

Wrong. It did have an effect, as is evidenced by HiFn making their documentation completely free withouht click-through licenses or private information gathering.