On Fri, 2004-12-17 at 09:10 -0500, Dave Robillard wrote: > So, you want to make companies support open-source operating systems by > turning those systems into proprietary operating systems? Well then > they wouldn't be supporting open-source operating systems would they? Oh, please. This is just handwaving, and I don't buy it at all. The binary Nvidia driver doesn't seem to be "turning Linux into a proprietary OS". Many of the kernel developers run it. Look at VIA and Intel. They are releasing specs and open Linux drivers for most of their new stuff. Just the other day Intel posted a driver for their ICH6 HDA codec to alsa-devel, with a link to the data sheet. Within a week the ALSA developers had rewritten the driver and merged it. And an Nvidia engineer of all people has contributed many patches. Given the choice between open and closed Linux drivers I believe the overwhelming majority of vendors will choose the former. The rest we should try to convince otherwise - it has worked in the past. But giving vendors the closed driver option is _certainly_ not going to destroy Linux or make it proprietary. If you are convinced like I am that open source is fundamentally technically better than the alternative then you should not be worried about it. Either the vendor will wise up or someone else will eventually come along with an open alternative. If you make outrageous claims like "allowing binary drivers will destroy Linux" then you really need overwhelming evidence to back it up. Lee
