F7 nvidia-96xx driver problem

Sam Varshavchik mrsam at courier-mta.com
Wed Jul 25 02:59:09 UTC 2007


Lonni J Friedman writes:

> On 7/24/07, Sam Varshavchik <mrsam at courier-mta.com> wrote:
>> Lonni J Friedman writes:
>>
>> > Which is the point that I made the last time this came up a few weeks
>> > ago.  OSS doesn't mean that the support is any better than closed
>> > support.  The two gentlemen who seem to be the most vocally against
>> > 'binary blob drivers' have no record that I can find in this list's
>> > archives of ever providing anyone with actual fixes for drivers.  Nor
>>
>> How many problems do you see posted here about the free drivers, for which a
>> fix is needed?
> 
> A fair share.

Such as?  I'm sure there's an occasional message, every once in a while, but 
I just don't see the same numbers.

And -- I'm damn certain -- you know that's true. Please stop playing games. 
If you really insist, I can go through the list archives, for, say, the last 
two months, and search for messages, then add up how many complaints are 
about each one of them.

But you know what the results are going to be, so, please stop the kidding.

>> For my part -- since you seem to demand to see my credentials -- over the
>> years I have logged of a handful of bugs in Bugzilla, concerning various
>> bits and pieces regarding various video hardware, across an assortment
>> Fedora beta releases, over many years. And, many of them eventually were
>> resolved satisfactory. So I can confidently say that I've done my part -- as
>> little as it might actually matter in the great scheme of things -- towards
>> improving the state of free video drivers for Linux.
> 
> Its great that you're filing bugs, but that doesn't prove anything
> about open drivers being superior.

That doesn't. But other things do, however that's a different subject. Here, 
I was only answering your demands for my credentials. You asked for them, I 
answered them, without discussing anything regarding alleged superiority of 
"open" drivers.

> No, you chose to do nothing because it aligns with your viewpoints.
> And that's fine, however attacking & mocking others because they are
> using a 'binary blob driver' is both infantile & short sighted.

How exactly have I "attacked" or "mocked" someone?  Specific examples, 
please.

> Stallman.  I'll say it again very clearly, and with smaller words so
> that you'll hopefully be able to follow:
> Open source drivers do not have support that is any better than closed source.

No, I'm afraid they do.

Where is the official "closed source" support for my ten-year old Voodoo 
card?

Where can I find it?

Where?

I know exactly where I can find "free software" support. Not "open source". 
You really should educate yourself about the difference between "open 
source" and "free software". The two are not the same, and the semantical 
difference is important.

Now, I'm sure there are specific hardware for which only the non-free binary 
blob driver works, and the free "nv" driver does not. That does not prove 
that closed source is better, in general. All it does is show that, for 
specific hardware, "closed source" driver support is better by default. 
Similarly, for other hardware, the only available support is in the free 
driver, since it's no longer supported by the binary blob.

But an absolute, unqualified assertion that "Open source drivers do not have 
support that is any better than closed source", in all cases, is flat out 
wrong.

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