From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Nov 25 20:22:53 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5A72216A4CE for ; Thu, 25 Nov 2004 20:22:53 +0000 (GMT) Received: from mail.gmx.net (imap.gmx.net [213.165.64.20]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 6D22A43D5A for ; Thu, 25 Nov 2004 20:22:52 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from michaelnottebrock@gmx.net) Received: (qmail 14440 invoked by uid 65534); 25 Nov 2004 20:22:50 -0000 Received: from pD9E24B2D.dip.t-dialin.net (EHLO lofi.dyndns.org) (217.226.75.45) by mail.gmx.net (mp014) with SMTP; 25 Nov 2004 21:22:50 +0100 X-Authenticated: #443188 Received: from [192.168.8.4] (kiste.my.domain [192.168.8.4]) (authenticated bits=0) by lofi.dyndns.org (8.12.10/8.12.10) with ESMTP id iAPKMfqW039149 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO); Thu, 25 Nov 2004 21:22:42 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from michaelnottebrock@gmx.net) Message-ID: <41A63F10.2080805@gmx.net> Date: Thu, 25 Nov 2004 21:22:40 +0100 From: Michael Nottebrock User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040804 Netscape/7.2 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en, de-de MIME-Version: 1.0 To: busta@33rpm.biz References: <51611.192.168.0.200.1101398532.squirrel@192.168.0.200> <200411251706.22229.mark@markdnet.demon.co.uk> <1101405168.99948.43.camel@zircon.zircon.seattle.wa.us> <200411251807.47294.mark@markdnet.demon.co.uk> <20041125194327.C5321@bigtower.net> <1101411381.568.1.camel@grass.dyndns.org> In-Reply-To: <1101411381.568.1.camel@grass.dyndns.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new cc: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org cc: Mark Dixon cc: Fredrik Eriksson Subject: Re: the best graphicscard for FreeBSD X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 25 Nov 2004 20:22:53 -0000 alex bustamante wrote: > How many manufactures release their drivers in open source? Does Matrox > do it? No. In fact, Matrox was one of the pioneers in the concept of binary-only driver stubs with open-source interfaces (Matrox calls it HAL/hallib), which is now a pretty common way of providing closed source drivers for open source operating systems. Getting complete open-source drivers for consumer hardware in highly competitive markets is more or less a question of good relations between open-source developers (or their employers) and hardware manufacturers - the money Joe Users spend on hardware for their FreeBSD PCs does not influence the support politics of manufacturers one bit. The ati drivers with hardware 3d acceleration support which are found in XFree86/Xorg (userland part) FreeBSD/Linux (kernel DRI support) show that complete open source support can happen, but also are nice examples how such support can be very quickly discontinued once the market takes a turn. -- ,_, | Michael Nottebrock | lofi@freebsd.org (/^ ^\) | FreeBSD - The Power to Serve | http://www.freebsd.org \u/ | K Desktop Environment on FreeBSD | http://freebsd.kde.org