Kernel 2054 breaks nvidia.ko loading

Arjan van de Ven arjan at fenrus.demon.nl
Thu Mar 16 16:53:31 UTC 2006


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)




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