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Announcing Foresight 2.0Announcing Foresight 2.0Posted Mar 14, 2008 6:42 UTC (Fri) by djabsolut (guest, #12799)Parent article: Announcing Foresight 2.0
Users should also find it much easier to use binary video card drivers from Nvidia and ATI than in Foresight 1.x.
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Announcing Foresight 2.0 Posted Mar 14, 2008 17:41 UTC (Fri) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link] There is nothing wrong with shipping the latest ndiswrapper or making it easy to do something, even installing proprietary video drivers. After all Foresight Linux tries to bring the latest free software to the users, so that it can be tested early and by more users. A bug found in GNOME by a user with a non-free video driver would be likely relevant to all GNOME users.
Announcing Foresight 2.0 Posted Mar 15, 2008 4:21 UTC (Sat) by djabsolut (guest, #12799) [Link] ... nothing wrong with shipping the latest ndiswrapper ... even installing proprietary video driversThere's also nothing wrong with someone buying Microsoft stock when looking from a purely financial point of view, but if looked at in the bigger picture, buying Microsoft stock amounts to curtailing software freedom and supporting a bully. A similar idea applies to supporting NVIDIA, either directly or indirectly. When it comes to open source drivers for video hardware, ATI is on the way to making good and Intel is an active pariticpant. Let's say Joe Bloggs happens to buy a laptop with an NVIDIA chipset. After poking around for a solution he installs the NVIDIA binary driver, in effect supporting closed source software. Joe Bloggs tells Jane Doe what a great laptop he has and how well Linux runs on it. Jane buys the same laptop model. NVIDIA profits and is not encouraged to make their drivers open source. The cycle continues.
Announcing Foresight 2.0 Posted Mar 15, 2008 20:49 UTC (Sat) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link] I understand what you mean, but I doubt that any coordinated boycott of NVIDIA or other unfriendly companies by distributions would work. There will be distributions who put immediate convenience of their users above everything, even long term wins.On the other hand, routing around some obstacles can bring long term benefits. It the hardware is already available, it's better to use free software on it. It may not translate to immediate financial benefits or losses, but it will have a significant effect in the long term. If people get familiar with free software at home, it will be easier for them to find a job where free software is used, and vice versa. Children familiar with free software are potential developers. More users means more eyes that make bugs shallow. Granted, not in the non-free code, but there is plenty of free code that will be tested in real life conditions. Please remember the profits of the hardware makers are proportional to the number of users, but the network effect is proportional to square of the number of users.
Announcing Foresight 2.0 Posted Mar 16, 2008 16:24 UTC (Sun) by bangert (subscriber, #28342) [Link] > I understand what you mean, but I doubt that any coordinated boycott of > NVIDIA or other unfriendly companies by distributions would work. i suppose, you don't go vote either... fair enough. but please let us live our (pipe?) dream...
Announcing Foresight 2.0 Posted Mar 17, 2008 12:08 UTC (Mon) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link] I don't vote and make no secret of it. Not sure is it disqualifies my arguments.My experience with MadWifi (wireless driver for Atheros chipset) shows that excluding non-free software from the distributions doesn't make the chipset maker cooperative. But reverse engineering efforts work, or at least help get vendor's attention.
Announcing Foresight 2.0 Posted Mar 15, 2008 4:42 UTC (Sat) by beoba (guest, #16942) [Link] What would you rather they do?
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