Open Letter For Open Drivers To NVIDIA

[deneb]

This has been done many times before.
...
This petition isn't even blog worthy.

But this petition has a cool new URL
(and already more signatures than those previous petitions)

[_txf_]

It also serves as a reminder that competitors are changing strategy... sooner or later those users are going to shift to competitors.

Petitioning is better than doing nothing and accepting what you're given. It probably wont make much of a difference but its not causing anyone to lose a lot of time over it. Saying "I won't sign it cos it won't make a difference" is a bit silly considering that it only takes 5 min.

[BrianS]

It also serves as a reminder that competitors are changing strategy... sooner or later those users are going to shift to competitors.

Petitioning is better than doing nothing and accepting what you're given. It probably wont make much of a difference but its not causing anyone to lose a lot of time over it. Saying "I won't sign it cos it won't make a difference" is a bit silly considering that it only takes 5 min.

Number 7386 only spent about 2 minutes on it. :-)

(With OpenBSD blob song in head...)


BrianS

[deanjo]

It also serves as a reminder that competitors are changing strategy... sooner or later those users are going to shift to competitors.

Do you really honestly think that Nvidia "forgets" about what their competitors are doing that they need a reminder? Sooner or later people will shift to the competitors ONLY if the competitors start putting out a competitive product. Until ATI/AMD can match performance, stability, and features on a class by class comparison (ie 3870 vs 8800GT) there is little to no pressure for Nvidia to even consider such a move. The corporate dollar that nvidia gets from it's linux derived sales is not going to spend money on a product that is still going through it's toddler stage just so they can get that "warm fuzzy FOSS feeling".

[Svartalf]

Do you really honestly think that Nvidia "forgets" about what their competitors are doing that they need a reminder? Sooner or later people will shift to the competitors ONLY if the competitors start putting out a competitive product. Until ATI/AMD can match performance, stability, and features on a class by class comparison (ie 3870 vs 8800GT) there is little to no pressure for Nvidia to even consider such a move. The corporate dollar that nvidia gets from it's linux derived sales is not going to spend money on a product that is still going through it's toddler stage just so they can get that "warm fuzzy FOSS feeling".

Hate to burst your bubble, deanjo... It's not a "warm fuzzy FOSS feeling" they're going to need to worry about. Being able to have someone audit the drivers as well as the the REST of the OS is going to be VERY important in about 6-12 months from now. AMD's stuff, if it's there will make the cut. NVidia's WON'T for that reason alone.

And, if you think that it won't become an issue, just wait and see.

[deanjo]

Hate to burst your bubble, deanjo... It's not a "warm fuzzy FOSS feeling" they're going to need to worry about. Being able to have someone audit the drivers as well as the the REST of the OS is going to be VERY important in about 6-12 months from now. AMD's stuff, if it's there will make the cut. NVidia's WON'T for that reason alone.

And, if you think that it won't become an issue, just wait and see.

I very much doubt that it will be any issue until a competitor can match Nvidia's offerings. Much like Maya doesn't have to worry about Blender yet and Photoshop still can ignore Gimp and Final Cut Pro has nothing to worry about from it's open source competitors.