OT: nVidia driver [was: Wish list]

[Denis Leroy]

Jeff Spaleta wrote:
>  do you know exactly how responsible nvidia is for
> the state of nv driver development that is available as part of X?   
> Perhaps, more than perhaps.. nv could also be claimed as their driver
> too.  Maybe the disparity in functionality between the nv driver and
> the closed nvidia driver is delibrate. Maybe the developers provided
> as much functionality in the open nv driver as the feel they can do
> and its not so much a decision that the engineers are actively making
> as it is a set of legal opinions and or business decisions
> constraining their actions.  Or maybe they are just twisted evil
> dwarves who like watching the drivers break as the kernel development
> churns forward.

That's an interesting point to consider, but you have to understand that 
NVidia is a company, and therefore is only interested in two things: profits 
and market share. All NVidia wants is to own the Linux market share (and they 
pretty much do), because even if it's only half a percent or so of the desktop 
market, it's half a percent they would rather own over ATI in the 
ultra-competitive graphics market. With that perspective in mind, it makes no 
sense from a business point of view for NVidia to somehow deliberately 
sabotage or slow down the progress of the nv GPL driver: after all their 
closed-source driver is free, all they want is for linux people to buy their 
cards... It's also in their best interest to have a solid GPL unaccelerated nv 
driver in Xorg, so that things like graphics installer will work...

-denis