nVidia's policies suck (Was Re: 12 inch powerbook with nividia 32 mg vidioe card)

[Chris Gehlker]

On Dec 8, 2003, at 12:18 AM, Atro Tossavainen wrote:

> Sorry Patrick.  nVidia is to blame.
>
> I repeat, nVidia alone is to blame.
>
> If I didn't make myself clear yet, nVidia really needs to get a clue.

Why do I think you aren't a big fan of nVidia?
>
> nVidia does not provide specifications to *ANYONE*, *even under non-
> disclosure agreements*, which is why the nv support in XFree86 is 
> rather
> rudimentary and which is why the commercial X server manufacturer Xi
> Graphics can't provide any support for nVidia cards *at all*, either.
>
> nVidia provides binary-only drivers for x86.  If you can get them
> interested in producing PowerPC versions of the same, then maybe things
> will get nice and cozy for you.  Meanwhile, I recommend that anybody
> considering running Linux on any computer refuse to buy any further
> nVidia hardware.

It seems like it would be technically feasible to write a shim to call 
the binary nVidia drivers provided with Darwin. It actually wouldn't be 
nVidia specific. It would just be a thin layer to make drivers think 
that they were being called from Darwin.
>
> Did I already mention that I think nVidia sucks?

And this proposal could be considered to reward nVidia and others for 
their sucky behavior. It also might or might not be legal depending on 
the specific wording of the binaries released with Darwin. On the other 
hand, an 'ioKit for Linux' could be extended pretty easily to BSD and 
the other *nixes, leading to a single driver API. that would have to be 
worth something.