--- Frank Worsley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > As usual I have to give my 2 cents on this. :) > > First off all, it is very sad to hear that the whole team has been let go > from VA Linux. I wish all of you the best luck in the future. Thanks a lot > for all the work you have put into this! > > Now, I have a question ... why are the graphics companies so reluctant to > give out specs even for the old and "obsolete" hardware such as the Mach64? > I > am not talking about ATI specifically here ...although they are a very good > example. I can fully understand why professionals such as Gareth do not want > to spend their time maintaining old drivers. However, writing a driver for > the Mach64 (or improving other old drivers) is the perfect job for > volunteers, newbies and students who want to get some hands on experience > writing > drivers that will be used in the real world. Is there really so much > proprietary and secret information in the specs of old hardware that the > companies can not make it publicly available? Just from what I have read on > this list it seems that a lot of promising new volunteer developers come and > go because they get frustrated that they can not easily obtain > documentation. If ATI and other companies made the documentation for their > older hardware public (or maybe even released the source code for the > Windows drivers) I could see the DRI project really living up again! > > Now, a lot of people also say that this doesn't really matter since the > hardware is so old that no one needs 3D acceleration for it anyway. I don't > think that is true at all. A lot of people still use older notebooks with > Mach64 chips and pretty much all of our Dell servers/workstations at work > have Mach64's in them. While these older notebooks may not be able to play > the latest and greatest games I would still greatly appreciate the ability > to fire up an OpenGL sidescroller or shoot'em up while I'm on the road. And > even those "simple" games will not run at satisfactory speeds using software > rendering. It would also be sweet if I could use my workstation at work to > play some Unreal or Q3 over the LAN ... I am pretty sure that the Rage Pro's > could support these games at decent speeds ... right? And using a PowerEdge > 4400 for a LAN party would be pretty damn cool too. :) > > Not to mention the "not-so-old" hardware like Rage128s. I have a 32mb Rage > Fury Pro in my home machine and I am not planning on upgrading anytime soon. > Mostly because I don't play that many games and also because this card > performs well enough for me ... but if someone continued to improve the > driver I could probably keep using it for even longer with some newer games. > > If the companies could get volunteers to maintain the old drivers for them > that could even save them some money ... and it would be almost like free > advertising. I certainly would buy my next graphics card from a company that > supports volunteer development instead of going to a competitor that keeps > all their information secret! > > So, can somebody answer my question ... what is so secret about the specs > for old hardware??? And why would companies _not_ want volunteers to work on > old drivers? Frank, I don't have all the answers for you but I do have a few hypotheses of my own. First, when it comes to drivers I think most IHVs have MS Windows in their sights and little else. Unfortunately, I think non-Windows users are just a blip on their radar that doesn't really get their attention. Second, releasing technical specs requires approval from a company's management and legal departments (at least). As anyone who's delt with lawyers knows, this can be a slow process. Specs may also need to be sanitized or otherwise cleaned up before they're suitable for others. That takes time and manpower away from other projects underway. Third, companies are quite paranoid of their competitors and probably worry that releasing specs will open themselve up to trouble. Suppose you release your specs and your competitor then finds evidence of a possible patent infringment. That would be bad. It's also possible that old-generation hardware specs can give clues to future product plans. Also bad. Anyway, those are my hunches. I could probably play devil's advocate and come up with more issues but those are the first that come to mind. I would hope though that the progress we've made with the DRI drivers over the past 2+ years hasn't gone unnoticed by the IHVs. Open-source and volunteer development is more widely understood now than it used to be. Hopefully the IHVs will see the value in cooperating with us and recognize that they stand to profit from supporting open-source development of non-Windows drivers. -Brian __________________________________________________ Terrorist Attacks on U.S. - How can you help? Donate cash, emergency relief information http://dailynews.yahoo.com/fc/US/Emergency_Information/ _______________________________________________ Dri-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dri-devel
