http://www.ng2000.com/fw.php?tp=linux

06/24/2008: The Linux Foundation has issued a statement, directed at Nvidia, calling for open drivers.

On Jun 24, 1:06*am, ad...@ng2000.com wrote:
> http://www.ng2000.com/fw.php?tp=linux
>
> 06/24/2008: The Linux Foundation has issued a statement, directed at Nvidia, calling for open drivers.

Dude, get xorg-xserver-utils. And compile your own...

admin@ng2000.com wrote:
> http://www.ng2000.com/fw.php?tp=linux
>
> 06/24/2008: The Linux Foundation has issued a statement, directed at Nvidia, calling for open drivers.
>
>

On this issue, I don't really care. My Nvidia GeForce 8500 card works
fine with the closed-source drivers, Nvidia are a proprietary-based
company, and I really don't see a drastic need to suddenly make all
their drivers open source, which may reveal trade secrets and such. No,
let Nvidia release their drivers how they like, we're pretty lucky
they're making good Linux drivers for their hardware as it is, anyway.

Ben wrote:

> On this issue, I don't really care. My Nvidia GeForce 8500 card works
> fine with the closed-source drivers, Nvidia are a proprietary-based
> company, and I really don't see a drastic need to suddenly make all
> their drivers open source, which may reveal trade secrets and such. No,
> let Nvidia release their drivers how they like, we're pretty lucky
> they're making good Linux drivers for their hardware as it is, anyway.

hopefully can your closed driver work with further relaeses of compiz,
fusion, distro, kernel, ..........
--
EOS
www.photo-memories.be
Running KDE 3.5.9 / openSUSE 11.0

EOS wrote:
> Ben wrote:
>
>> On this issue, I don't really care. My Nvidia GeForce 8500 card works
>> fine with the closed-source drivers, Nvidia are a proprietary-based
>> company, and I really don't see a drastic need to suddenly make all
>> their drivers open source, which may reveal trade secrets and such. No,
>> let Nvidia release their drivers how they like, we're pretty lucky
>> they're making good Linux drivers for their hardware as it is, anyway.
>
> hopefully can your closed driver work with further relaeses of compiz,
> fusion, distro, kernel, ..........

Every time I've seen a new release for the kernel pop up on Yum, so has
the new release for the Nvidia driver on Livna.

The only problem this could have argued to have caused so far was the
brief period where Fedora 9 was incompatible with the Nvidia drivers
because of the new version of X11 they were using, which was resolved
within about 2 weeks.

Ben wrote:
> admin@ng2000.com wrote:
>> http://www.ng2000.com/fw.php?tp=linux
>>
>> 06/24/2008: The Linux Foundation has issued a statement, directed at
>> Nvidia, calling for open drivers.
>>
>>
>
> On this issue, I don't really care. My Nvidia GeForce 8500 card works
> fine with the closed-source drivers, Nvidia are a proprietary-based
> company,

And I'm a primarily off-line non-proprietary-based buyer/user so
they'll have to decide if they will continue getting my money. My
GT6600 is here to stay for another 4 years but finding the correct
drivers under SuSE is already less than seamless.

Ben wrote:
> EOS wrote:
>> Ben wrote:
>>
>>> On this issue, I don't really care. My Nvidia GeForce 8500 card works
>>> fine with the closed-source drivers, Nvidia are a proprietary-based
>>> company, and I really don't see a drastic need to suddenly make all
>>> their drivers open source, which may reveal trade secrets and such. No,
>>> let Nvidia release their drivers how they like, we're pretty lucky
>>> they're making good Linux drivers for their hardware as it is, anyway.
>>
>> hopefully can your closed driver work with further relaeses of compiz,
>> fusion, distro, kernel, ..........
>
> Every time I've seen a new release for the kernel pop up on Yum, so has
> the new release for the Nvidia driver on Livna.
>
> The only problem this could have argued to have caused so far was the
> brief period where Fedora 9 was incompatible with the Nvidia drivers
> because of the new version of X11 they were using, which was resolved
> within about 2 weeks.

If you want accelerated GLX to work in the future you're probably going
to find it won't. I had an older GeForce 2 card that worked fine, but
with recent kernel changes or something related to that, I couldn't get
it working after upgrading. Eventually the current Nvidia packages will
become legacy packages, and they don't maintain those as well (as I
found).

With Nvidia providing a tainted kernel driver they've made it so that
many users depend on them not being sold, staying in business, and so
on.

You could blame the kernel developers for not having any sort of stable
kernel API, or you could blame Nvidia. Nvidia doesn't seem to
understand they wouldn't need to maintain things as much and provide as
much support if they released the sources to their driver.


GPS

Can I release a low-tech mechanical invention under GPL?

If I write some code or a document it's a straigt forward issue but
what if it's a (real) device? I want to release it into public domain
in a way that will also prevent anyone else from ever getting a patent
on it. I don't want to apply for a patent just to be able to release
it, especially since GPL is supposedly entirely autonomous.

user@nouse.org wrote:

>
> Can I release a low-tech mechanical invention under GPL?
>
> If I write some code or a document it's a straigt forward issue but
> what if it's a (real) device? I want to release it into public domain
> in a way that will also prevent anyone else from ever getting a patent
> on it. I don't want to apply for a patent just to be able to release
> it, especially since GPL is supposedly entirely autonomous.

I suspect that the GPL won't achieve what you want ! Mechanical
devices, in general, can easily be cloned or modified to get around
copyright issues.

You should put this question to someone like "Groklaw" who may deal with
or advise on similar issues. They would, I'm sure, point you in the
right direction.

--
Best Regards:
Baron.

user writes:
> Can I release a low-tech mechanical invention under GPL?

No. The GPL is a copyright license and applies only to copyrights. An
invention cannot be protected by copyright. That is what patents are for.

> I want to release it into public domain in a way that will also prevent
> anyone else from ever getting a patent on it.

Publishing an invention does prevent anyone from ever getting a patent on
it. That can be tricky, though, because in practice you must publish it
where an oridinary but diligent inventor would be expected by the courts to
have seen it and (the hard part) where the patent examiners will be sure to
see it. The best way to do that is to get it into the USPTO Patent
Gazette. Apply for a US provisional patent ($100, informal format, good
for one year) and then let the patent lapse.

> I don't want to apply for a patent just to be able to release it...

Then you have to figure out how to publish it as I described above. Find
out what technical journals people working in the relevant field read and
publish it there.

> ...especially since GPL is supposedly entirely autonomous.

I have no idea what you mean by that.
--
John Hasler
john@dhh.gt.org
Dancing Horse Hill
Elmwood, WI USA