wtogami ([info]wtogami) wrote,
@ 2007-02-13 22:38:00
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Ubuntu's Non-Story, Vote with your Dollars
http://lwn.net/Articles/221977/
Headline reads, "Ubuntu says no to non-free video drivers for Feisty"

On the surface the blurb summary on LWN made this look like good news for freedom and the community. But reading the actual linux.com article and technical board decision... they are only refraining from enabling the closed drivers by default.

Ubuntu continues to ship closed source proprietary drivers in potential violation of the GPL.

This is trading long-term liberty for short-term convenience.

The price of liberty is not free, nor is it comfortable. Fortunately in this case however, there is a reasonably comfortable choice. What if Free and Open Source Software communities to voted with their dollars and bought video hardware that had libre drivers?

Today with Intel video, you have the convenience of working video out-of-the-box with full 3D acceleration with upstream X.org and kernel support. Perhaps if more people voted with their dollars, the other hardware vendors would take FOSS software more seriously and become a more honest partner in order to compete.

Think about it.

Warren Togami,
Fedora Project

p.s.
Note also the recent news of Intel finally releasing an IPW3945 driver suitable for the upstream kernel, by offloading the regulatory daemon into firmware. Good job Intel. As long as you continue to be a honest partner in the FOSS community, you have my dollar.

I'm soon buying a new laptop with Intel 950 video and IPW3945.

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[info]bbbush
2007-02-14 05:01 am UTC (link)
hula! So happy that I bought my Dell 640m last June. Exactly i945G and ipw3945! Either fedora 6, 7t1 runs very good! (with the help of atrpms repo)

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[info]codergeek42
2007-02-14 05:38 am UTC (link)
I agree in full. In fact, I was deciding bewteen an Athlon64 X2 and an Intel Core 2 Duo earlier this year. (I needed an upgrade; knew I wanted 64-bit and dual-core, but couldn't decide on what else.) It was the onboard G965 video with Free drivers that drove my decision to purchase the C2D-based setup.

Its performance and feature-set, even with drivers still in-development, is quite lovely and worked beautifully out of the proverbial box.

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Firmware is free software too? Intel graphics chips on cards, not just new computers?
(Anonymous)
2007-02-14 06:23 am UTC (link)
Is the firmware free software too? If not, can I use the card fully without the firmware? I don't know what a regulatory daemon does, so I don't know if it's genuinely necessary or some frill I can do without.

Is this video hardware available in a card for a desktop machine (perhaps an AGP card)? I doubt people will buy a new laptop just to get video hardware that runs with 100% free software. I'd rather stick with my non-3D video hardware, since I don't need wobbly windows and workspaces on a cube to begin with. What I've got now continues to work for me, but I'm willing to buy this Intel hardware if I can run it with all free software (including no binary blob firmware) and add it to the computer I already have.

J.B. Nicholson-Owens
http://www.digitalcitizen.info/

(Reply to this) (Thread)
Re: Firmware is free software too? Intel graphics chips on cards, not just new computers?
(Anonymous)
2007-02-14 09:00 am UTC (link)
No it's no free software, RMS says here:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FreeSoftwareAnalysis/FSF

But looking at J5 blog (works for RH/Fedora ?) I can read this:

"No, we can not ship the firmware because of licensing terms but as far as the GPL is concerned there is no problem because the firmware is considered part of the hardware."

http://www.j5live.com/?p=206

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
But what about these Intel video devices?
(Anonymous)
2007-02-14 04:20 pm UTC (link)
It seems to me that RMS' response (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FreeSoftwareAnalysis/FSF) addresses J5's responses on his blog (http://www.j5live.com/?p=206) despite not directly referring to J5's blog. If users deserve freedom for all their software, it shouldn't matter which of their devices the software runs on. And I don't see how distributing proprietary firmware with the Linux kernel somehow absolves the distributor of supplying complete corresponding source code to the Linux kernel they distribute. I think the best approach is to remove the non-free software from the Linux kernel and distribute that version instead. I believe that is what gNewSense and Fedora Core GNU/Linux distributions do. I understand that means that Linux kernel won't work with as much hardware, but since I'm interested in software freedom I'm willing to buy the hardware on which I can have software freedom. If I wanted to eschew software freedom for convenience, I probably wouldn't run GNU/Linux in the first place.

I'd still like to learn more about the Intel video hardware as I asked about above.

J.B. Nicholson-Owens
www.digitalcitizen.info (http://www.digitalcitizen.info/)

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: But what about these Intel video devices?
[info]wtogami
2007-02-14 04:59 pm UTC (link)
The issues around binary firmware are different than most people currently understand.

Fedora currently *does* ship binary firmware that is distributed as part of the upstream kernel. Fedora is planning on shipping more of the Intel firmware that is fully redistributable. Firmware that is entirely self-contained and running on the hardware device instead of part of the operating system is generally the criteria for what should be permissible.

This is NOT a violation of the GPL or copyright law.

It is however in conflict with RMS' extreme ideological views, and quite possibly common sense. Binary firmware *could* be part of the hardware itself. This is not a black and white issue.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Re: But what about these Intel video devices?
[info]ninjaseg
2007-02-14 05:13 pm UTC (link)
And next we'll refuse to run on Intel, AMD, IBM or anyone else's processors until they give use the full source to the processors microcode. Oh, and we'll need the VHDL/Verilog source for every chip in the machine.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]ninjaseg
2007-02-14 04:54 pm UTC (link)
Unfortunately, if you're in need of high performance OpenGL (lol Second Life/Doom3) and/or need something for a desktop box, you don't have much of a choice.

1) Intel (and pretty much any chipset integrated video) just doesn't cut it performance-wise.
2) ATI and Nvidia are pretty much the only ones making discrete AGP/PCIe cards anymore.

Oh well, the reverse engineered r300 driver has been shaping up nicely, so I've been buying up r300's lately.

Open box 256mb Radeon 9600 Pro AGP on newegg for $42.99! Get 'em while they're hot!

For ten bucks more I snagged an open box 256mb Radeon 9600XT a couple days ago, however they seem to have sold out already. :) Sadly I haven't made the move to PCIe yet...

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Liars.
(Anonymous)
2007-02-14 05:06 pm UTC (link)
Be true with yourself, Warren. The "nv" driver included in xorg IS NOT FREE EITHER AND YOU (fedora) SHIP IT. The license is free but the code is obfuscated, mainly updated by nvidia programmers, with really the pure minimum functionnality.

I want the Fedora hypocrits to stand to their own standards. If you really want to start a jihad against us because we want to be able to use our older hardware (i DO vote with my money : the last two computers i bought are 100% free, with 100% free drivers, intel graphic chips.), STOP SHIPPING THE DAMN NV DRIVER. The "nv", the one included in Xorg. It's obfuscated, damn it. You cannot say it's a free driver, it's not and you know it. You fucking ship this piece of shit.
You'll gain up to 200% credibility if you stand up to your own standards and show the world why they should not use the "nv" driver but only vesa if they really believe in software freedom.

(Reply to this) (Thread)
Re: Liars.
(Anonymous)
2007-02-14 05:10 pm UTC (link)
And i forgot to say, any attempt to update the nv driver with code less obfuscated and with more functionnality will move inside /dev/null. It's why Nouveau project is a totally new project, separated from "nv". NVIDIA will stop helping the "nv" development the second you try to make it better.

"nv" development is completly owned by NVIDIA. It's not what i call free. It's not stopping you from shipping it.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: Liars.
[info]ninjaseg
2007-02-14 05:16 pm UTC (link)
Nouveau is essentially a fork of nv. I'm pretty sure the plan is to dump nv as soon as nouveau is ready to replace it.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Re: Liars.
[info]codergeek42
2007-02-14 09:19 pm UTC (link)
"The 'nv' driver included in xorg IS NOT FREE EITHER AND YOU (fedora) SHIP IT. The license is free but the code is obfuscated, mainly updated by nvidia programmers, with really the pure minimum functionnality."

Your statement lacks any forethought. Most X.org drivers are inherently somewhat obfuscated as they must deal with very low-level details of the graphics hardware, such as MMIO/DMA, register and intterupt handling, GPU command queueing, framebuffer mapping, modesetting, handling VT changes and multiple X servers (which some drivers do quite a lot more well-behaved than others...) et al.

-----

"I want the Fedora hypocrits [sic] to stand to their own standards. If you really want to start a jihad against us because we want to be able to use our older hardware [...]"

That's not true at all whatsoever. One of the great benefits of Free driver support is that you are not tied to one vendor's wants with regards to continuing to support a given piece of hardware or not. It's called Planned Obsolescence if you study introductory Economics, and is the reason that most basic-usage consumers (e.g., those who do stuff like document-writing, listening to music, email, and basic web browsing, etc.) continue to upgrade their hardware every so often when it is entirely not needed. GNU/Linux and other Free operating systems preclude the need for this: Hardware more than a decade old still has Linux drivers that STILL work and are STILL supported by the upstream kernel developers. No one is forcing you to upgrade your hardware with Free drivers; but should you decide to do so I highly recommend such hardware whose vendors truly support Linux with F/OSS drivers and whatnot. (No. NVidia's proprietary drivers, while a valiant attempt to support Linux, are not truly supportive of us. They are buggy, hidden, x86-only, and don't support modern desktop handling (like AIGLX and whatnot).

-----

"The 'nv', the one included in Xorg. It's obfuscated, damn it. You cannot say it's a free driver, it's not and you know it. You fucking ship this piece of shit."

Calm down. The first thing one should learn when arguing is that word choice and attitude are very important: Argue your opinion with research and facts, not anger and emotion. Such belligerence only hinders your audience.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: Liars.
[info]wtogami
2007-02-14 09:34 pm UTC (link)

"I want the Fedora hypocrits [sic] to stand to their own standards. If you really want to start a jihad against us because we want to be able to use our older hardware [...]"


To make matters worse, NVidia and ATI proprietary drivers regularly DROP support for older cards in newer versions of the drivers. If the drivers were open and code upstream, at minimum the FREEDOM exists to attempt to continue to use and maintain the driver.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Re: Liars.
[info]jeremiah999
2007-04-08 12:21 pm UTC (link)
"Your statement lacks any forethought. Most X.org drivers are inherently somewhat obfuscated as they must deal with very low-level details of the graphics hardware, such as MMIO/DMA, register and intterupt handling, GPU command queueing, framebuffer mapping, modesetting, handling VT changes and multiple X servers (which some drivers do quite a lot more well-behaved than others...) et al."

Nah, nv is deliberately obfuscated by....you guessed it, the same people who are the only ones who can maintain it: Nvidia. I remember seeing a response to a question "why does NV seem so obfuscated?" by the Nvidia maintainer in the realm of, "I like to code in hex. What's your problem with that?".

http://cvsweb.xfree86.org/cvsweb/xc/programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/vga256/drivers/nv/?hideattic=0&only_with_tag=xf-3_3_3 "The xfree 3.3.3 nvidia driver just after obfuscation" in 1999.

Nouveau is not a fork of nv btw. It descends from the BeOS/Haiku 3d driver for Nvidia cards. I hope that tells you how useless and obfuscated nv is, now.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
relative performance??
[info]gabryelo
2007-04-02 07:37 am UTC (link)
So Intel have open source drivers, ATI and Nvidia doesn't, do anybody knows of a website about the relative 3D performance ( desktop interface, games) of Intel graphics chipset within the others??

or knows what impact negative or positive has using shared RAM as graphic RAM overall??

regards,


Gabriel

http://gabryelo.livejournal.com/

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