linuxaudio.org

On Sun, 28 Nov 2004 15:02:33 -0500

Lee Revell  wrote:

quoted text
>

> On Sun, 2004-11-28 at 13:50 -0500, Chris Metzler wrote:

> > Passing the info on to the DRI project folks got no

> > response at all; further queries revealed that the DRI project's

> > Matrox experts effectively aren't involved in the DRI project

> > anymore, so now no open source developers are working on the Matrox

> > drivers.  A little bit of time spent in the XF86/X.org/DRI bug

> > tracking systems will show similar Matrox bugs that don't get any

> > responses from the developers.

> >

>

> According to the DRI folks, the issue here is that 3D drivers are

> _hard_, and there are just not enough open source developers who have

> the skills to fix these kinds of things.  For example there are 3 or 4

> 3D chipsets for which we have docs but no driver.

>

> So it's not quite as simple as "release some docs and the community will

> write a driver".

No doubt; and I hope my post didn't suggest otherwise.  I was merely

trying to make the point that in some cases:  1) free software/open source

solutions have fallen short of meeting some people's needs (and that's

not a criticism of anyone, believe me; it's just a statement of reality);

2) for those people, it can come down to using proprietary software to

accomplish what they need to, or not accomplishing what they need to at

all.
Put another way, opting for closed source drivers does *not* mean that

one doesn't care at all about the importance of free (as in speech)

software.  It doesn't even necessarily mean that one thinks closed source

drivers are OK.  One can think that proprietary software is bad, but not

paying one's bills is worse.
-c
--

Chris Metzler			cmetzler@speakeasy.snip-me.net

		(remove "snip-me." to email)
"As a child I understood how to give; I have forgotten this grace since I

have become civilized." - Chief Luther Standing Bear