Re: [SLUG] Re: Linux news on slashdot

[raster@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

On 30 Nov, Angus Lees scribbled:
-> 
-> your problem is that the 3rd parties are 3rd.

oddly enough that also have the most useful stuff :)

-> as soon as nvidia gives up this silly little game, the drivers will be
-> assimilated and everyone can get on with things.

i won't say much - I can't (company NDA) but suffice to say they have
very good reasons for what they do - and to be honest - the open soruce
world needs to grow up and stop seeing things only one-sidedly. nvidia
have the fastest hardware. full stop. i have a voodoo5500 here next to
me - my test program runs 1/10th of the speed on it compared to my even
now, outdated nvidia geforce DDR. matrox is no better - matrdo have a
ncie habit of changing hardware and tellign no-one about it - they are
also bad abotu specs - ask the guy in the cbue next tome (mark v) who
wrote most of the matrox drivers and still maintains and writes them -
he';s fed up with matrox - fine - the dirvers are open soruce - but its
in SPITE of matrox that they even work (no disrespect to any matrox
employees but respone and cooperation from amtrox is not brilliant).

nvidia on the other hand are the best bunch of people i have ever had to
deal with. I find a bug - it gets fixed - faster than any open soruce
project i've seen - and thats zero work for me (no hunting code, finding
their bug then fixing it for them -i give them my program that beraks it
and they fix it). nvidia do an excellent job. they have by far THe best
drivers and they have very good reasons for what they do. it's a
cut-throat market in graphics - they just want to survive.

people why cry "open source" for the drivers mainyl don't knwo the
market, the reasons or whats going on.

-> there is no reason for anyone to be a 3rd party (and we should not
-> encourage them to be so). after all, "3rd party" is just a euphemism
-> for "badly integrated".

no - 3rd party is essential - does everyone have to wait for rehdat8
just to get a new driver for their new gfx card they just bought whne
the 3rd party can provide it? the pc industry IS an industry of 3rd
parties. thsu software follwos the same model. do i have to wait for
debain to catch up too just to get my hardware to work? no - if the
manufacturer wishes they shoudl be able to provide support (drivers) for
linux/Xfree86 for their card on a Cd or whatever with the card - thsu i
plug it in - stick cd in drive - click mouse a few times .. bingo
- it works. it shoudl not be any mroe work than this - infact even that
is too much. i shouldnt even have to click the mouse :)

-> (and we need to get linux OEM installs going, so users never have to
-> install. *this* is why the others appear easier)

that's what we do :) the problem is users like to re-install - something
like 70% of our customers re-install - not because they actually look at
the load on the machine and decide they dont like it (hell they can
cusotmize the load on their machine on the web when they order) - they
do it just out of principle - not for a good reason. user chaneg their
hardwer eventually - like get a new gfx card, new sound card, new cpu
and so on... that experience shoudl be a painless experience - it's one
of the things that makes the PC good - they you can just change hardware
bits at will - but it means a lot more work in software... and linux is
far from being at that point.

-- 
--------------- Codito, ergo sum - "I code, therefore I am" --------------------
The Rasterman (Carsten Haitzler)    raster@xxxxxxxxxxxxx     raster@xxxxxxxxxxx
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