Nvidia with support for xorg 7.1 is out!

Question

http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_disp … -8774.html
AIGLXAIGLXAIGLXAIGLXAIGLX! :-D :-D

Answer 1

Even a bleeding edge distro like Arch has to be careful about upgrades. We want to be up to date, but at the same time we don't want to worry that a "pacman -Syu" is going to hugely break our systems without warning. Anyone running an Nvidia card would have been awfully upset when their chosen distribution chose to break their previously flawless 3d acceleration. Given that it was reasonable to assume that Nvidia would produce a driver fairly soon (as indeed they have) I have no problem with the fact that the decision was made to delay the transition for a little while.
Surely if Nvidia had broken their tradition of above average Linux support the move to X.org 7.1 would have been made regardless. I don't think the plan was ever to wait "as long as it takes."
I like open source software a lot myself. If my every whim were to be satisfied, running a completely free-as-in-freedom system would near the top of my list. However, nothing ever gets done without compromise. A person has to give as they take. They give a driver, and we give by relaxing our principles a little. Is that wrong, or is that cooperation?
Stiff positions with no wiggle room don't solve problems or get you what you want. They start wars. Obviously a war over device drivers is what they call "unlikely", but the same mistrust, ill wishes, and lack of progress that wars entail are what you'll get. You've got to examine the trade-offs, and make a decision on a case-by-case basis. Sometimes you just can't work with the other guy. Much more often, you can.
The question is whether what Nvidia is doing is so awful and anti-freedom that we can't let it slide. You contend that it is, and if we use their system we'll be trapped in a hell of proprietary drivers and vendor-controlled computers. I contend that you're probably wrong.
It seems preferable to control your life completely. Do what you want, when you want. Sounds nice. In the real world we depend on others for nearly everything in our lives. There is nothing wrong with that. What is wrong is when the others we depend on attempt to force unfair terms on us. Nvidia isn't doing that. It's not unfair to keep their driver secrets to themselves. It's not the most generous thing to do, but none of us are as generous as we could be. Self-interest is par for the course in human affairs.
There is such a thing as "free enough" and it falls short of a completely open system. "Free enough" is different for everyone, but for me running a system which is entirely free software except for a few well-supported drivers is free enough to get by. Nvidia isn't stopping me from using my computer as I want. In fact, they're helping me to do it, by providing functional drivers that don't attempt to control me (as DRM software does, for example).
Would a fully free system be better? Possibly. I would like it better. More important though, is to say *why* it would be better. If the driver in question behaves like a "by us, for us" driver would, is available gratis, and comes with no odious restrictions, where is the problem? If they give us what we would make ourselves (or better), why complain?  Because using free software gives us a warm, fuzzy feeling that proprietary software can't match. We like to feel "in control" of our computers even when that control would buy us nothing.
There are cases in which it's better not to be beholden to your vendors. Unsupported and poorly supported hardware is trouble. In that case, "open source or we won't buy" is completely appropriate. That company doesn't take care of its customers. Well-supported hardware? Not so much. Paranoia about running proprietary code rears its head. We're afraid of losing control over our systems, because we don't trust these evil proprietary corporations. After all, they're not with us, so they must be against us, right? Wrong. Nvidia isn't the enemy. They're a company that makes a product, and we are their customers. They've shown through their actions that they care about us enough to support us. That could change, but so could a lot of things. No one can be in your corner all the time. For the time being, Nvidia is.
In an interdependant world, ultimatums are nothing more than sand clogging up the machinery of society. There are freedoms that we should under no circumstances surrender, and there are those which we can trade, for our long term or short-term good. The freedom to control our computers? Let's hold on to that one. The freedom to modify every single piece of software on the computer? Maybe being able to modify nearly every single piece of it is enough, as long as we are free to add or remove the unmodifiable software as we wish.
Deciding where to draw the line is a hairy question. Unfortunately, dodging that question by adopting an absolutist philosophy isn't an option. One extreme leaves you with no control over your computer. The other sounds nice until you remember that most of the world does not want to operate like you do. If you won't work with others, then they won't work with you. Big companies don't come around to your way of thinking just because they like you.
I mention Nvidia a lot, because they're the topic of the day. Other situations are different, which is my entire point. One-size-fits-all answers are wrongs answers.
Each situation must be evaluated according to its own merits. Sometimes "good enough" is good enough. I'd say this is one of those times.
markzzzsmith wrote:If you think I'm a open source "zealot", and binary and proprietary device drivers are quite ok, then I'm afraid you just don't get what open source is actually about. Linux wouldn't be where it is today if it wasn't for a very large number of manufacturers opening their programming specifications. I know this to be a fact, I've been using it since 1992, many years before the first binary driver showed up. The only way we could run it in those days was to use hardware with open programming specifications. If you're now using Linux with proprietary drivers, you're now supporting the idea of closed hardware specifications, which would have prevented Linux's birth in the first place. Would you much rather have not had Linux available ? Encouraging vendors to close their specifications by accepting that decision and continuing to buy their hardware will cause that to be the eventual result.
I think you're too uncompromising: that's what I think. I'm very glad that many manufacturers have made it possible to produce free software drivers, and that we have the Linux we have today.
I also think that your crystal ball is at least as foggy as mine. There's no way you can say for sure whether using proprietary drivers will ruin our free system or not. Perhaps favoring free drivers while reaching out to proprietary software companies will be more effective.
Linux might not have gotten of the ground without using only free software, but now is not then. Linux is well-established, as is free software. Perhaps now is the time to gain ground in another way (I sound like ESR here).
EDIT: This is way longer than I'd like it to be, but I've edited it as best I can right now.