NVIDIA Plotting Open-Source Strategy?

[Thetargos]

I'm still a bit hesitant to switch to AMD graphics. I know, I know, they've come a LONG way, there have been quite a bit of improvements and what not. But there seems to be a lot more problems to solve still, for instance AIGLX + XVideo. Even though nVidia in the G80s have XVideo broken, it works reasonably OK with AIGLX running (the other series have no issues whatsoever... at least in this regard). Where as with ATi's is either, not both. At any rate, I find it rather funny that as ATI/AMD has started to get their thing together, and be more FLOSS friendly and whatnot, I can't help but notice that more people than ever before has started to have problems with nVidia hardware and sudden lockups and system crashes. Odd indeed!

[shaidtan]

I agree completely with - well with every point made here. Thetargos made a good point about market share. I'd like to add though that I've always thought those numbers were a bit skewed; more so as time progresses. As an example when I bought my laptop, despite going with Dell and Ubuntu being an option on some models, I had to purchase Vista because I wanted a 15 inch display. +1 for Microsoft and/or -1 for Linux market share despite my not using Windows at all.

If the majority of machines were offered with Linux (or better the option to buy either or both) I think the numbers would be much more telling.

[val-gaav]

As an example when I bought my laptop, despite going with Dell and Ubuntu being an option on some models, I had to purchase Vista because I wanted a 15 inch display. +1 for Microsoft and/or -1 for Linux market share despite my not using Windows at all.

you are not the only one who did it... I also wanted a 15,4 display, so I ditched the dell offer quite fast...
Anyway I ended up buying an AMD Toshiba, funny thing is it costed 600$ with Vista home basic, and similiar Dell with ubuntu would cost over 900$ ...
Sadly the only thing I regret is giving money to M$ for the OEM Vista home basic... The rest was a good choice even if AMD/ATI radeonhd didn't give us a full radeonhd driver now ... I can wait and fglrx is good enough for me for now....

About the nvidia open source support .... It's good thing for all of us. In the future it will give a choice from all major GPU venders for consumers .... and for all that own ATI or are planning to get one it's also a good news. AMD will now do everything to get a good fully functional (2d+3d) open driver as quickly as possible. I mean they want to have an advantage over nvidia so speeding things up seems likely to happen.

So the news is good now let's await the next doc drop from AMD

[lucky_]

It could be interesting to have the AMD point of view.
Do they believe in the nvidia statement ?
If so, are they confident to be ready before nvidia ? (almost full featured open source driver)
In how much time do they think AMD will be the best platform for linux, and how long do they hope to stay the favorites for linux desktop once they reach this place.
I don't want to thrown any bad statement, but this last year AMD/ATI wasn't the best linux friendly platform.

[Thetargos]

Apparently Vista not only backfired on Microsoft, but also on the OEMs. I know this is too complex an issue to hand it only to Vista or Microsoft alone. This has more to do with "consumer empowerment" than anything else. Consumers don't just "mindlessly buy" anymore, at least not many, and the number of "conscious consumers" is increasing at a rather rapid rate, this along with more users taking the plunge to alternatives (where even XP became such an alternative) has spoken problems for Microsoft and the OEMs. Even as good as XP turned out to be, it is not good for Microsoft's business to keep it "alive" much longer, as it will only (as it does now) hinders adoption of the new platform. Other factors at play are hardware needs and associated costs, downtime due to incompatibilities, etc.

To note is the increasing number of OEMs offering Linux alternatives. This can only mean one thing: Market indexes have started to reckon an increase of Linux market share or at least interest from potential customers. This has still a long way to go, but it is indeed interesting that it happening.

[Redeeman]

I agree completely with - well with every point made here. Thetargos made a good point about market share. I'd like to add though that I've always thought those numbers were a bit skewed; more so as time progresses. As an example when I bought my laptop, despite going with Dell and Ubuntu being an option on some models, I had to purchase Vista because I wanted a 15 inch display. +1 for Microsoft and/or -1 for Linux market share despite my not using Windows at all.

If the majority of machines were offered with Linux (or better the option to buy either or both) I think the numbers would be much more telling.

have you ever considered not being their pawn and actually not supporting direct terrorism against users of free software? YOU are personally supporting direct terrorism against users of free software when you give them money, and that is the sad truth. Why didnt you just buy from someone else?!

[Moustacha]

Michael (the OSS prophet) has come out with news stories before which have turned out to be true. I believe. To make life easier I would hope they spared man power or helped nouveau along, but then pride might get in the way =\

[Svartalf]

have you ever considered not being their pawn and actually not supporting direct terrorism against users of free software? YOU are personally supporting direct terrorism against users of free software when you give them money, and that is the sad truth. Why didnt you just buy from someone else?!

Heh... Ever thought of getting off your high horse? Your rhetoric is the very thing that turns EVERYONE else off from doing FOSS stuff. (I believe I have already pointed this out to you in other threads...)

In most cases, there ISN'T anyone else.

For example...

There IS no solid OpenGL capable laptop on the market offered storefront, and to the large extent, mail order, that DOESN'T have Vista install on it. Honest.

I'm hopeful that will change, but not even Dell offers an Ubuntu laptop in the class of the HP that I ended up buying as a refurb back about a year ago. And I needed the machine to carry forward things that favor FOSS.

[Thetargos]

/me points at Emperor Linux and System76 laptops

/runs

[lxndr]

Always better to cooperate then to sit on our islands and reinvent fire... Hope they (both ATi/AMD and nVidia/Intel) come up with a corporate vision that includes opensource, they never made money letting us download their drivers, only more linux-addicts jumping on their videocards I guess