-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Tue, Jul 18, 2017 at 11:33:14PM -0500, Doug wrote:
[...] > I thought I put this to bed, but apparently not. That's because the way you write suggests that you didn't "get" a couple of things which are very dear to many folks around here (note I say "suggest". I can't know for sure. A communication problem can be at any end or... in the middle :) > The complaint was about NVidia software. Well, there has > been for some time a "FREE" program. How come it's not > satisfactory for so many users of Nvidia cards? That's because there are two "free". An old saw puts it like "free as in beer" vs "free as in speech". To adapt it to more modern terminology, I'd say "free as in Facebook" vs -uh- "free as in Debian" ;-) > All the wonderful Linux programmers have had YEARS to > modify it and make it better than what Nvidia provides, > but it seems that they haven't succeeded. But how? Nvidia *refuses* to publish documentation on its hardware. Only painstaking reverse engineering is possible (which the shrinkwrap EULA forbids: thanks heavens, this can be ignored in most civilised jurisdictions). Given that, the results of the Nouveau project can only be called impressive. > I am very happy with my Nvidia cards and Nvidia drivers. > What the devil is everybody bitching about? That's nice for you. Note that I'm by no means implying you should (have the moral obligation of, or whatever) change that. I'm just trying to offer you an insight into how some of us tick. Mutual understanding can only help, no? > And, of course, doesn't it make sense that the company that > invented and produces and sells a product ought to know more > about how to operate it than a bunch of "de-engineers?" Sometimes. Sometimes not. Case in point: at my $DAYJOB, I am (among others) responsible for the care and feeding of a small program I wrote a couple of years ago. Since this program's users are in a department on its financial way down, bug fixing for this program doesn't get allocated too much resources. I'm not *allowed* to fix bugs (which I know annoy its users!). I try to do some minimum under the radar out of respect for the users. In a nutshell: whenever the customers (those who pay) and the users (those who suffer) are not the same, you'll get conflicts of interest, and the company's aim won't be to deliver the best program possible. The wonderful engineers in the company can't put "all their art" at your service. Your vision of Nvidia is too idealized. The engineer in there is just human, pressed between constraints, and most probably overworked. Or outsourced. Cheers - -- tomás -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.12 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAllvGNgACgkQBcgs9XrR2kao6gCfZJ5+SJStVzp7/JODUO3q1vub cjkAmgKxw15yQMQMlbERf9ZJG6eZvveu =XI9y -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
