Opinions on driver license
 

Just wanted to check how you guys feel about this issue.

Of course i consider everyone would like to see a free driver. You're also welcome to state if you care or not about the license of the software you use, particularly drivers. Thanks.

Re: Opinions on driver license
 

Sorry, there is a line missing in the poll.

* I need 3D acceleration. I use the binary driver because the free driver is not ready... I will change the moment it IS ready.

Re: Opinions on driver license
 

That's the first line : "I use the binary driver and use 3d acceleration." :confused:

If the free driver was feature complete, nobody (or few) would use the binary driver. Distros would ship with the free driver and people would have no reason to look further.

Re: Opinions on driver license
 

I use the binary driver but don't really need 3d acceleration. I need video features like hardware-accellerated mpeg2/divx/h.264 decoding with de-interlacing.

Re: Opinions on driver license
 

Yes. If driver is open source it is easier to patch if it fails. Nvidia driver is semi open so patching it is semi successful. If bug exist in binary part the chance to fix it comes down almost to zero.

Yes. Me too. If on DVD is recorded TV content it looks very ugly without deinterlacing.

Re: Opinions on driver license
 

Besides, part of this driver gets linked into the kernel, so you really can't debug anything anymore, which is a rather non trivial problem for a developer... :thumbdwn:

Re: Opinions on driver license
 

WHO CARES?!?! SERIOUSLY!! Binary or opensource drivers, who actually cares. They work anyways and NVIDIA is doing a great job on making the drivers uber. If they're doing something so great and they don't want to let out thier trade secrets, then fine, let them be. You should complain to ATI then for making crappy drivers and they might step on it or even opensource it.

Anyways, I use the binary drivers because I use 3D acceleration and I could care less about open sourcing it.

gnutux

Re: Opinions on driver license
 

No need to shout really. I never said it was wrong to use proprietary drivers, i just asked what were the opinions on the subject. Actually i'm fine using proprietary software. I just said that, considering the way FOSS is developed, it is "better" to have open source drivers, because it makes developers' work easier in many ways. So when you ask "who cares ?", they much really do. Of course, for the casual user, the license and availability of the code is irrelevant, this isn't news. But the things is, even though they don't know it, what is good for the developers is good for the users. Moreover, a free 3d accelerated driver allows users to use 3d applications out of the box, without the need to install a driver manually (though many distros support the nvidia drivers).

Thanks for your input tough. ;)

Re: Opinions on driver license
 

To be honest with you - i really don't care if drivers are opensource or not. I care only if they works as they should have, supporting all xorg features(still some old-new features are unsuported or broken, and i'm not talking about some useless stuff like xgl/aixgl) etc.

This thread is useless imho :|

Re: Opinions on driver license
 

Well you're right of course, this thread is pretty much useless. I was just curious to get other points of view on that "issue", so i asked. ;)

Re: Opinions on driver license
 

Most people don't care if driver is closed or opened software till it works. Nvidia makes better driver than other but not ideal. We are here to show Nvidia which things in driver need improvements. When I look at my geforce and read nvnews forum I see that 2D and video are most painful problems. Another problem is slowness of driver releases. It should be the same as Windows driver development: when new xorg is in beta stage or release candidate Nvidia should release beta driver like for Windows Vista does. Now we have xorg 7.1 final version and no driver for it. Imagine situation when Vista hits the shops and Nvidia says the driver will be available in few months time. :jumping:

Re: Opinions on driver license
 

Would be cool to hear an NVidia official going "I'm sorry, but our main support force has now switched to opensource operating systems. Microsoft Windows users may now have to wait a bit longer for updates." :D

Seriously, it's true that they could speed up development pace a little, as you can always go faster, but is it really important ? I think it's pretty good already actually. Of course logic would be that they provide Linux and BSD support for any NVIDIA cards out there (which is why opensource OS needs hardcore 3d upgrade-my-gpu-every-6-months gamers ;-). BTW, i think i heard the open source driver and the windows driver had a common base, so it may not be that "hard" for them to support new cards on Linux/BSD. Not sure though.