Kernel 2054 breaks nvidia.ko loading

[alan]

On Thu, 16 Mar 2006, Arjan van de Ven wrote:

> On Thu, 2006-03-16 at 08:46 -0800, alan wrote:
>> On Thu, 16 Mar 2006, Gilboa Davara wrote:
>>
>>> On Thu, 2006-03-16 at 16:50 +0100, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
>>>>>  It might cut down on the number of "Fedora
>>>>> ate my baby" posts.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> so far most initial FC releases broke nvidia, so I don't expect that
>>>> backlash :)
>>>>
>>>> (and future ones most likely again will break it, at some point even
>>>> permanent. it's not a question of if but a question of when)
>>>>
>>>
>>> ...Hopefully when Linux users will have sufficiently powerful GPU with
>>> mature open-source drivers alternative *.
>>
>> That is not going to happen until the patent and copy control issues get
>> straightened out.
>>
>> Patents are an issue due to liability.  From what I have been told by a
>> chip designer, everyone steps on everyone elses patents.  If you have an
>> open source driver, it is easier to prove the violation.  If you have a
>> closed source driver, it costs a million dollars or more to reverse
>> engineer it to prove.
>
>
> I've heard this and many other excuses before ;)
> To a large degree it IS an excuse. NVidia just doesn't want to open.
> Anything else is basically them trying to find an excuse that sounds
> plausible and may get accepted by people.
>
> (It's not that those excuses are lies without any truth; but the causal
> relationship just isn't there)

The question I have is who they are afraid of.  There are only two 
manufaturers of fast video cards at this point.  (Three, if you count 
Matrox.)  They need to come to a truce and stop all this wasteful 
bickering.

Especially ATI.  They don't even support all of their shipping chipsets 
with closed source drivers.  Their api documentation (what they will 
release) is inaccurate most of the time.

It may be excuses, but until you can convince the legal department that it 
is a good idea, it is not going to happen.  Yes, it is a cop-out on their 
part, but they think that playing safe is better than the possible threat 
from some unknown entity possibly threatening them with legal action.

-- 
"George W. Bush -- Bringing back the Sixties one Nixon at a time."