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

X.org, distributors, and proprietary modules

Posted Aug 15, 2006 15:36 UTC (Tue) by wilck (guest, #29844)
In reply to: X.org, distributors, and proprietary modules by vblum
Parent article: X.org, distributors, and proprietary modules

...on the whims of a closed-source vendor

What a weird interpretation. Did NVidia command the Fedora board not to upgrade? You seem to think that NVidia is somehow acting against the community, or trying to force everyone to comply with their will. In fact they are trying to support Linux - in their own way, which is admittedly suboptimal.

I don't like the hostility in your statement (and others on this page). There are quite a few companies freedom-loving people can justifiably detest. But I don't think ATI and NVidia are among them.

The availability of a closed source driver harms free software development by attenuating the need for free ones - conceded. But that doesn't mean that NVidia (or ATI, for that matter) are enemies of Linux or Open Source. No more than any other company (say Google, say Sun, ...) which doesn't open up all their source code.

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X.org, distributors, and proprietary modules

Posted Aug 15, 2006 17:27 UTC (Tue) by vblum (guest, #1151) [Link] (2 responses)

My intentions were not so hostile to NVidia. This is mere business logic. The question is who can apply pressure to whom.

RH decided not to upgrade a piece of critical infrastructure because a single(!) company failed to put out their closed source driver in time. From a consumer's perspective, this is not good.

I started out long ago with a similar sentiment like yours, that is, let's give NVidia a break and let's just accept that they're doing their Linux support in a different way. When Arjan van der Ven's (I think) piece on closed source drivers in the kernel came out, I thought it overdramatic at first.

However, it is now clear that any slack on the part of NVidia _is_ able to affect a distribution release adversely after all. Only a single vendor, mind you - but it can threaten RH with the anger of NVidia's users, anger that should be directed at NVidia.

What will happen if this starts affecting more than one driver, as A van der Ven theorized? Already with two perhaps conflicting vendor dependencies, we'll end up in a much more difficult situation ... do you chose X.org 7.5 which supports the latest card by Martian grafix, Inc - or do we ship X.org 7.3 instead, because the widely popular Obsolox Zillienium adapter is supported there, but not later?

Then think three conflicting vendors.

It may be possible to hold up everyone else's releases and follow only a single vendor's schedule, NVidia's. But if we allow one such case, there will be more. What then?

My take is: If vendors like NVidia insist on closed source, fine. But if they are then not fast enough to upgrade their drivers, this MUST be their problem, and that of their users. As it is now, suddenly the pressure is applied to everyone else to NOT upgrade, but not applied to NVidia to upgrade. How very wrong.

With this choice, we are moving towards the unmaintainability of the free software part that Arjan projected as his worst case scenario. That's a long way off - but he may have had a better point than I first thought.

X.org, distributors, and proprietary modules

Posted Aug 15, 2006 17:36 UTC (Tue) by mrshiny (guest, #4266) [Link] (1 responses)

I agree with most of what you're saying, except that the following distinction should be made: Fedora Core 5 is already shipped, installed, and stable. There is no compelling reason to break user functionality. I don't think anyone is saying that Fedora should delay including xorg 7.1 in FC6 if the nVidia driver isn't ready. At that point it will be nVidia's fault that their driver doesn't support a popular distribution. But at this point, with FC5, it is Fedora that would be breaking my working system, or, at best, forcing me to A) find out that a particular update will break my system, and B) figure out how to back out that update, and/or prevent it from applying, thus potentially leaving me open to other dependencies breaking and security vulnerabilities.

X.org, distributors, and proprietary modules

Posted Aug 15, 2006 19:54 UTC (Tue) by vblum (guest, #1151) [Link]

Point taken; although gentoo's default choice continues to puzzle me a bit. Anyway, may NVidia one day see the light from all this debate ...