should have
|
| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| incinerator Jan 04, 2007 12:16 AM EDT |
Ryan Lortie should rather have written an open letter to all the h/w vendors who screw around with Free Software developers, denying them the most basic documentation to write drivers on their own, backed by ridiculous excuses. There's no sane reason why nvidia, ati et al. couldn't release drivers under a free software license, the same goes for firmware. The least they could do is provide documentation that enables other developers to write drivers independently. Their ongoing denial to do so is a good indicator that the powers that govern these companies don't know what's going on in the world of today. |
| tracyanne Jan 04, 2007 1:00 AM EDT |
quote:: There's no sane reason why nvidia, ati et al. couldn't release drivers under a free software license, the same goes for firmware. ::quote Why should they, when there's no competitive advantage in doing so. |
| incinerator Jan 04, 2007 1:44 AM EDT |
Aye, just another of these pointless and wrong excuses. |
| tqk Jan 04, 2007 11:13 AM EDT |
Any IP lawyers about? What IP would be threatened by releasing API specs? All a developer needs is what to call and how to call it. Black box programming has been an ideal for a long time. Haven't they heard of it? |
| Sander_Marechal Jan 04, 2007 9:45 PM EDT |
> What IP would be threatened by releasing API specs? The API's are available (OpenGL). It's the drivers that we want. They may not be able to release the source even if they wanted due to the 3rd party stuff they licensed. |
| incinerator Jan 05, 2007 2:57 AM EDT |
"They may not be able to release the source even if they wanted due to the 3rd party stuff they licensed." This actually is a bogus excuse that sympathetic lusers invented. For example, according to Theo de Raadt none of the companies he contacted ever used that particular excuse. Vendors just started to pick that one up later on. Kernel developers don't need the source anyway, all they need is sound documentation of the interfaces and they are ready to go to write drivers on their own. Most projects wouldn't pick up some foreign chunk of code straight away anyways, most of it being crappy low-quality works requiring lots of cleaning-up to do before inclusion into mainline. |
| Sander_Marechal Jan 05, 2007 6:51 AM EDT |
Some of those interfaces might be licensed as well. Okay, not the 3D rendering pipeline probably, but think stuff like hardware video decoders and the like. Also, the licensing point I made above is a possible reason why they cannot open source their own driver, not a reason why they cannot provide the specs so we can write our own. |
| dinotrac Jan 05, 2007 7:17 AM EDT |
>Any IP lawyers about? What IP would be threatened by releasing API specs? I don't think the issue is legal so much as technical - or, perhaps, perceived technical. Three arguments come to mind: 1. Releasing a low-level API generates pressure to stabilize the API from outside developers and to document it sufficiently. Weak argument, I know, but it's an argument. 2. Releasing a low-level API will give competitors an insight into the hardware, reducing competitive advantages. That one is just paranoid, but it's an argument. Heck, nobody has to look at the driver to deduce the workings of the hardware. The tools exist to look the hardware itself over pretty darned well. 3. The one IP issue would be something along the lines of trademark dilution, though not in a legal and actionable sense. "Real" trademark dilution comes when people sell shoddy goods with your trademark or some other device/claim/what have you that suggests you are the actual producer. One could argue (I said argue, I didn't say argue convincingly) that opening the low-level api would lead other developers to write drivers that would reflect poorly on the hardware, either because they lacked skill or lacked access to hardware engineers. I'm sure there are other arguments. I'm equally sure they don't make a whole lot of sense. |
| dcparris Jan 05, 2007 9:58 AM EDT |
In other words, they're afraid I might try to write the drivers and make grand claims about them. ;-) |
| jimf Jan 05, 2007 10:09 AM EDT |
> In other words, they're afraid I might try to write the drivers and make grand claims about them. ;-) Yes, we all confirm that this is a major threat to them :D I've heard ATI give #3 and #2 in that order. The truth is that since ATI supplies 'special' drivers at a premium to the business cad market, this is a real cash cow. So, this is also about perceived profit. |
| tuxchick Jan 05, 2007 10:20 AM EDT |
I've heard it said more than once that granting the premium, cash-cow high end to the vendors is no problem. Let 'em have it. But why not open up the medium- and lower-end cards, and the old cards that are being discounted down to nothing, but are still useful and popular? Boring old ordinary users like me are not going to buy the premium guff- bleeding-edge adopters are a separate market that are willing to fork over gobs of money to get a couple molecules of improvement. And I've heard the same excuses in response :) |
| azerthoth Jan 05, 2007 11:21 AM EDT |
Curiosity kills the cat here. Anyone know how the kernel developers get the API for CPU's? Is it reverse engineering or out of the goodness of the manufacturers hearts? I know Intel and AMD share architecture information to a point due to a court case AMD filed way back when, but is it shared out to the developers and if so is there some kind of regulatory statute that deals with that. If so why then would that not extend to GPU's being nothing more than glorified daughter boards for a co-processor. It may be a simplistic take on it, but if someone has an answer for that I would like to know. For personal interest if nothing else. |
| jezuch Jan 05, 2007 3:52 PM EDT |
Quoting:Anyone know how the kernel developers get the API for CPU's? Isn't it called the "instruction set"? It has to be public, otherwise nobody could write programs for these CPUs... |
| jimf Jan 05, 2007 4:34 PM EDT |
> Isn't it called the "instruction set"? It has to be public, otherwise nobody could write programs for these CPUs... And, if we substitute GPU rather than CPU? |
| jezuch Jan 06, 2007 2:54 AM EDT |
Quoting:And, if we substitute GPU rather than CPU? GPU is a bit different, as it is not supposed to be programmable, only accessible via drivers and APIs like OpenGL. The exception, of course, are shaders, which do have public specifications and programmatic models, so no problem there, at least. That's how I understand it, anyway :) |
| Sander_Marechal Jan 07, 2007 3:35 PM EDT |
> Anyone know how the kernel developers get the API for CPU's? Is it reverse engineering or out of the goodness of the manufacturers hearts? You can get them for free from the manufacturers. Intel used to ship free dead-tree versions of their full CPU specs to anyone that asked for them. I think they still do, but I'm not sure the dead-tree version is still free. Get them at http://developer.intel.com/products/processor/manuals/index.... |
| tracyanne Jan 08, 2007 4:11 AM EDT |
quote:: Ubuntu is more or less 99% free. It doesn't even come anywhere close to being as awful as Vista is. Besides -- I bet your computer is already at least a little non-free. Is your BIOS open source? The ROM firmware on all your devices? Your CPU's microcode? We all put up with these things in the meantime because we understand that the only chance of success will be to get people on to our platform. Without users, we can't make demands. ::quote Without users, we can't make demands. |
| tuxchick Jan 08, 2007 9:40 AM EDT |
We already have more than enough users, if the different distributions would work together instead of competing. Especially for fundamental components like ROM firmware and CPUs, because all the Unix-type systems in the world far outnumber windows. The open letter has nothing to do with promoting free software- it's just another Ubuntu fanboy spouting off. A pox on Ubuntu fanbois. They have become excessively tedious. |
| dcparris Jan 08, 2007 12:29 PM EDT |
WIthout people - users or not - demanding the FOSS drivers, we can't make demands. In other words, it doesn't matter how many actual users we have, many of them simply don't care enough to ask, demand, or request anything. |
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