X.org, distributors, and proprietary modules [LWN.net]

X.org, distributors, and proprietary modules

Posted Aug 15, 2006 6:13 UTC (Tue) by arjan (subscriber, #36785)
In reply to: X.org, distributors, and proprietary modules by mrshiny
Parent article: X.org, distributors, and proprietary modules

This entire saga is a balance between what you, as non-free linux user (you are not using an open source OS, see Dave Airlied's OLS talk) want and what the people who bought an open source supported card need. The later is of course all Intel graphics (40% market share) and a chunk of ATI users (R300), both of which have drivers that made a huge leap forward in X 7.1, adding lots of hardware support.

It's not a clear case that your position is worth more than the other users position...

to post comments

X.org, distributors, and proprietary modules

Posted Aug 15, 2006 7:50 UTC (Tue) by warmcat1 (guest, #31975) [Link] (4 responses)

> It's not a clear case that your position
> is worth more than the other users position...

It's not clear, but it is pretty clear a chunk of the Fedora userbase cliff face would crack off and fall into the sea over having their working desktops broken, tainted or not. It's legitimate to shrug one's shoulders over that and go on anyway, but obviously after a few such decisions Fedora as a project will be looking at an eroded and calcified userbase with reduced new user blood coming in because of the word of mouth. Fedora can even shrug its shoulders at that situation, since it has the bubbling wellspring of Redhat money underpinning it so doesn't have to care if all around is a desert.

Binary drivers are bad news, no doubt, and keeping them at a distance and in the cold is good, but right now they bridge the gap between what some users must have and what Fedora can provide.

X.org, distributors, and proprietary modules

Posted Aug 15, 2006 10:27 UTC (Tue) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link] (1 responses)

I don't disagree that a distribution must consider usability as well as
freedom, and that there is room for different choices. However, Fedora
has made this choice. Fedora _does not_ support binary drivers. This
bridge was already crossed.

It seems the discussion found some other issues which were important as
well, and so have decided to keep with 7.0 on the balance.

X.org, distributors, and proprietary modules

Posted Aug 15, 2006 10:44 UTC (Tue) by warmcat1 (guest, #31975) [Link]

Yes Fedora has always had that stance, I think it is a good stance.

However many Fedora users for whatever reason ARE using binary drivers of one flavour or another, it's a fact. Therefore there are ramifications to 4KSTACKS or xorg 7.1 or whatever the next problem will be that shows the fissure between the open codebase that can move with it en bloc and the closed codebase that is fragile.

It is a political decision how to balance those needs, the damage to binary driver users got plenty of airing on fedora-devel and I am sure it was part of the considerations in not pushing all updating FC5 users on to xorg 7.1. And that's probably a good thing, some realpolitik, because this running sore will be with us for a long time AFAICT.

X.org, distributors, and proprietary modules

Posted Aug 15, 2006 10:58 UTC (Tue) by arjan (subscriber, #36785) [Link] (1 responses)

there is another angle as well; and that is the chicken-and-egg one. NVidia won't release a 7.1 driver until a major distro uses 7.1. And if the major distros won't go to 7.1 until nvidia supports it... nothing ever changes and progress is harmed.

Progress is harmed for the majority of users; last market share numbers that were on theregister.net were something like "intel 40%, nvidia 20% ati 20%". Both Intel and ATI users gain from 7.1 with better suppoprt for their hardware, much better support in fact.

X.org, distributors, and proprietary modules

Posted Aug 15, 2006 11:14 UTC (Tue) by warmcat1 (guest, #31975) [Link]

Yes, fair enough. But in this particular situation it is not the stasis of "nothing ever changes": nobody argues against xorg 7.1 in FC6. FC6 is very close, many (most?) FC5 people will be updating in the next month or two. Any delay in exposing xorg 7.1 to mass usage on Fedora is therefore very limited.

Stepping between FCn versions is in the hands of the user and he knows he can expect strong differences (eg, FC1 -> FC2 == 2.4 -> 2.6 ). Such a user might receive the result of nVidia binary breakage with a shrug and use nv or vesa until the new binary release, because he knows he can expect 'excitement' of the good or the bad kind from updating to a new release. It seems a good place to bring in a large core component update regardless of the binary question. The fact that an FC5 user can actually use the development repo xorg packages to get the new stuff if they really needed it (as I do) makes it even less objectionable to the FC5 user.