Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
Micah,
Would you please list a cite that the nv driver is open
source?
>
There is also another site here:
http://news.com.com/2061-10795_3-5762319.html
>
although I will admit this is 5 months old - please cite
a more recent article where nvidia has reversed their policy?
As Mike Harris eloquently said a couple years ago:
Nvidia doesn't release their technical specifications for their
hardware to *anyone*, not even under NDA (non-disclosure
agreements). One might be tempted to think "well you have the
source code though right?", however the source code isn't enough.
None of the video hardware registers are documented, instead they
are programmed as a series of random "magic" numbers, so you have
absolutely no idea what the purpose of a given register is, that
is getting written seemingly random information into it in the
driver. The driver is for all intents and purposes obfuscated
unless you have the hardware documentation which turns numbers
like 0x3432 into a useful name like NVIDIA_SUCH_AND_SUCH_REGISTER
with documentation of WTH that register actually does.
That's the long story, the short story is, that even though the
"nv" driver is open source, it is more or less supplied as-is and
the only way it gets updated is if Nvidia updates it, because
nobody outside Nvidia has the foggiest clue how their hardware
works.
So if a card isn't supported, that's unfortunate. If 2D doesn't
work, that's also unfortunate. By reporting bugs that occur in
the "nv" driver to http://bugs.xfree86.org, the bug report will
get assigned to Mark Vojkovich, who is the official driver
maintainer, working at Nvidia, who has access to pretty much
every Nvidia card ever made, and the technical specifications to
go along with them. If he can't fix the bug, then more or less,
nobody can. Not without getting hired by Nvidia to work on the
'nv' driver. ;o)
Micah, if this has changed, please cite where. I myself also happen to
have a system with an onboard nvidia card so I really am interested,
not just trying to flame-bait.
I think I understand your claim. Source code with an open source
license is not Open Source unless it is actively maintained by someone
and has freely available specs. Under that criteria, I guess NV isn't
open source.
Later,
Micah
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