An Open Letter for Open Drivers to NVIDIA

[scar3crow]

Thought you ogres and vores might be interested in this, at least the engine types:

http://www.opentheblob.com/nvidia/index ... res=normal

[RenegadeC]

Interesting, never knew Nvidia was so closed source. I'm curious as to whether an online petition has ever worked before?

[mh]

It's interesting, but - IMO - coming from the wrong angle. Like a lot of "free software" stuff, it's first and foremost an appeal to embrace the philosophy and ideals, with actually delivering something that works well seemingly tagged on as an afterthought. Putting myself in an NVIDIA exec's shoes, I don't see any compelling reasons to open source the drivers in there.

[kable]

They want basicaly the same they got from AMD/ATI, Documentation.

From the open letter:

We stand united under the name OpenTheBlob.com, but realize that legally it may be next to impossible to open-source the binary portion of your graphics driver due to patents and preserving some intellectual property in this competitive market. What we are, however, asking you for is to support the open-source community to the fullest extent possible. The open-source "nv" driver that you provide for X is an abhorrent disaster that is limited to 2D acceleration and doesn't come without its share of limitations and shrouded code. We look to NVIDIA for providing concise programming documentation to willing open-source developers that is not encumbered by Non-Disclosure Agreements or other legal restrictions.