[MPlayer-users] NVidia will be bannished

[Felix von Leitner]

Thus spake Alan Wilter Sousa da Silva (alan at biof.ufrj.br):
> 	I really regret the day when I buy my GeForce.  Since I only found
> out later, there's no open source drivers for such graphic-card (by now I
> don't know).  And since Nvidia seems not be interest about Linux since
> they don't give graphic-card parameters so Linux developers can make an
> appropriate driver, I really recommend to not buy Nvidia products if you
> intend to run Linux box at full power.
>         Such Nvidia proprietary solution can make the card rock but it's
> worse than using Winblows.

> 	Free Software and Open Source code is the *only* way for Linux.

>         Hail GNU!

> 	Now I agree with mplayer developer guys.  Nvidia is *REALLY BAD*.

Actually, nvidia is good hardware.  From the programming model it's
_great_ hardware.  Unfortunately, they won't release the source code.
And the reason is that other vendors would swamp them with lawsuits
about patent infringements, which are now very hard to prove, but with
the source code open, anyone can claim anything and it would take years
to settle this crap.  Nvidia owns a lot of patents, but especially in
the graphics field there are several metric tons of paper filled with
bullshit patents like using XOR to draw a mouse pointer.  As long as
nobody is making money with the source code, patent litigation is not
such a big threat (Mesa 3d), but nvidia is a very tempting target
because they make a lot of money.  I heard that it is nearly impossible
to write a high performance 3d graphics driver without violating several
hundred patents.

Before talking down on them, think about their position.

Felix