OT: nVidia driver [was: Wish list] -- understanding the GPU market

[Alan Cox]

On Tue, Jun 07, 2005 at 11:43:36PM -0500, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
> ATI should be commended for attempting to make a "clean room" DRI/
> GLX implementation.  But eventually they had to give in, and started
> withholding specifications as of R300 (Radeon 9500+).  And even before,
> many 2D and 3D interfaces were _never_ published by ATI.

Actually its not quite as simple as some people may think here. ATI maintain
a lot of stuff and help with many things. The lack of an ATI open R300 driver
is at least partly certain Linux organisations fault for not taking up 
opportunities rather than ATI's. (and more I cannot say in public)

> The concept that leading-edge video drivers will _ever_ be GPL is 
> very slim-to-none.  And as far as the license, the drivers are

Its more an inevitability than the reverse. Commoditisation means that very
soon all the 'must keep secret' IP will be only relevant to real time
ray tracing. What happens to the Radeon 9800 when Intel 9xx/VIA/etc graphics
on chip are good enough for gamers. Leading-edge video will be for VR nuts.

(And guess why Nvidia and ATI are in the chipset business nowdays)

> the PCI Standards Group (AGP was _never_ a standard, but an Intel
> trade secret of PCI), I hope Intel takes off some chains on nVidia.

Hardly. AGP is a published open specification. People like nVidia do some
really clever tricks with it for performance like the DMA contexts but nothing
major we don't actually understand AFAIK.

> There is some open source GLX code out there for both ATI and nVidia
> -- but you're _never_ going to get the "cutting edge" under the model.

Which would be why folks are currently just starting to sort out PCI express
ATI radeons right now of course.

Alan