Binary-only kernel modules may be banned

Binary-only kernel modules may be banned

Posted Dec 14, 2006 2:52 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333)
In reply to: Binary-only kernel modules may be banned by moxfyre
Parent article: Binary-only kernel modules may be banned

Removing video card support is the ONLY major set back that would practically happen.

Everything else has hardware alternatives that support Linux well. Wifi cards, SATA raid controllers, etc etc.. for every closed source driver you'd loose you'd be able to find a alternative driver or alternative peice of hardware that works just as well and is open source.

But 3d acceleration is the big example were there is no alternative for in the high-end consumer and professional market.

Right now you have very alpha stage driver support for Nvidia.

You have fully open source 3D drivers for all ati cards from 7500 to x800. The r500 and r600 series cards you don't have support for.

I have a ATI 9200 in my Ibook and I have a ATI x800 256M card for my desktop. Both have full open source 2d AND 3d acceleration. Both can run Beryl and Compiz comfortabily.

The biggest problem reverse engineering people have is that the hardware is buggier then shit. These cards are rushed to market and there is a lot of flaws in the GPU and in other parts of the hardware. Driver developers working for Nvidia and ATI have the ability to get information on these bugs from the engineers that designed the hardware when they find them.

Linux reverse engineering developers do not, so even when they do everything 100% correct they can still be wrong.

Right now Linux is used in high-end visualization workstations. Stuff that people use to make movies.

Linux is very popular and those movie studios have a LOT of money to spend on hardware.

These people ARE THE ONLY REASON why Linux has 3d driver support from Nvidia and ATI.

_period_

If it wasn't for them Linux would of never had supported propriatory drivers in the first place. ATI and Nvidia never gave a shit about the Linux consumer or the Linux user, they cared about high end Unix visualization and met customer's demands for high end 3d workstation cards.

This is why ATI drivers are called fglrx. For 'FireGL', which is their wokstation cards.

Seriously. This is a big deal for ATI and Nvidia.
IF Linux developers pulled the GPL driver card on ATI or Nvidia the first company that was to end up releasing open source drivers would make a shitload of money off of Linux.

It can be ATI or Nvidia.

Or it can be S3 or Matrix or 3Dlabs, and even Intel. All those manufacturers are capable of producing high-quality 3d graphics cards. But they can't get a foothold into the market because of the dominance of ATI/Nvidia.

This would allow them to gain a foothold again by being the only company that produces high-speed graphics cards for Linux.

Also ATI has been making noise about supporting open source developers. They could do it like Intel did were they originally hired outside developers to produce open source Linux drivers under NDA.

There is a crapload of money to be made in 3d graphics in Linux, but it isn't consumer gaming cards, it's high-end cards.

Especially when you open source them you open them up for using the GPU as a secondary proccessor for faster rendering and cluster performance. Both for scientific AND graphics work.

Right now Nvidia and ATI are also in a Antitrust investigation...
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2066727,00.asp

So it seems that other companies are wanting to get into the game, but are being forced out.

But it can backfire and cause those movie folks to run to Windows for their support. Windows is much more capable then it used to be for this sort of thing then it used to be.

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