On Thu, 27 Sep 2001, Peter Surda wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 27, 2001 at 08:19:46PM +0000, David Johnson wrote:
> > Sure, that is a valid point but we need to remember that in the past
> > ATI has not been adverse to supporting open source drivers or to
> > releasing specs to qualified people.
> They are very friendly actually. They provided me mach64 and r128 docs (under
> NDA) within 24 hours after I registered with them (last week). Although I must
> confess I've been recommended, it still shows that they are completely OK. I
> don't see any problems on the communication level, perhaps now that less
> people get paid for developing the drivers the pace will slow down, but not
> stop.
>
> What developers can do is to recommend ATI cards to end-users, so there is
> larger need for the drivers and larger chance someone would be willing to pay
> for them.
It seems to me that Linux drivers are an area where ati can claim some
advantage over nvidia. If ati developed a really hot linux driver package
for the 8500, and released the source code, they would probably claim a
very large share of the Linux 3d and game market, such as it is.
Today, there is absolutely no reason to buy the radeon 8500 if you use
linux. 2d is barely there, 3d is definitely not there. If your choice
was limited to geforce3 and the radeon 8500 for 3d, you would definitely
go with the geforce, because it is the only one that currently works.
Problem: I don't think the linux game and 3d market can support the driver
development. Let's pretend that 1 full-time employee could produce the
radeon 8500 driver in 6 months. Let us also pretend that it costs, in
total, US$250,000 to employ this genius. Finally, let's assume that an
open driver buys ati 100% of the linux market. Is that market big enough
to offset the $250,000? Depends on ati's margins but my instinct says no,
or maybe barely.
-jwb
_______________________________________________
Dri-devel mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dri-devel
