From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Nov 24 16:11:08 2005 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2F72516A421 for ; Thu, 24 Nov 2005 16:11:08 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from micahjon@ywave.com) Received: from smtpout1.ywave.com (ycomradius.yelmtel.com [216.227.100.60]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 35C7F43D62 for ; Thu, 24 Nov 2005 16:11:06 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from micahjon@ywave.com) Received: (qmail 12834 invoked by uid 502); 24 Nov 2005 16:11:05 -0000 Received: from dsl28149.ywave.com (HELO ?192.168.1.65?) (micahjon@ywave.com@216.227.115.149) by 0 with SMTP; 24 Nov 2005 16:11:05 -0000 X-CLIENT-IP: 216.227.115.149 X-CLIENT-HOST: dsl28149.ywave.com Message-ID: <4385E618.9090007@ywave.com> Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2005 08:11:04 -0800 From: Micah User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.7 (X11/20051112) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Ted Mittelstaedt References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Hans Nieser , freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Does FreeBSD 6.0 fully support PCI-Express? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2005 16:11:08 -0000 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