Ubuntu is not free.

[Gilles Gravier]

Good point. Not everybody can afford to do like Sun and open-source the 
specs of their latest processor : 
http://opensparc.sunsource.net/nonav/index.html

I doubt nVidia or ATI feel comfortable in publishing the full specs or 
APIs of their latest GPU except under very strict licensing conditions. 
They are probably too afraid that the other one will steal some of that 
and use it to gain competitive advantage.

Not that this is completely illegitimate either. We, at Sun, do think 
that publishing specs, but competing on implementation is the way to 
go... but not everybody feels that way.

As Ouattara says, we should already be happy for those who DO provide 
some support for Linux, even if it is proprietary. At least, thanks to 
those, we can play some fancy OpenGL games with good performance without 
having to run MS Windows on our PCs.

Gilles (also Gilles.Gravier at Sun.com)

Ouattara Oumar Aziz wrote:
>
>> Once again: there is nothing wrong with having decent hardware and
>> software support for Linux, we do not have to accept a world where we
>> can't have these things. But to have them we do not need to violate the
>> principles that made Linux what it is today and turn it into yet another
>> proprietary infested OS. All we have to do is tell the owners of
>> proprietary stuff to free it up and GET THEM TO DO IT.
>
> Alan, sometimes proprietary stuff providers can't do it another way 
> (They have to run their business too !) . Why do you think they bother 
> putting some resources developing linux stuff their own? They could 
> just let it be and just support windows AND it would be very easy and 
> free of charge to release their spec and let linux developers do the 
> job .
> The point is that they want to provide somethings for the linux 
> community and to prevent some sort of piracy, the only solution they 
> sometimes got is just to develop it by themselves.
>
> On this thread, people propose to make some pressure on manufacturers 
> so that they can support Linux. I totally agree . But provide support  
> on Linux for their hardware doesn't mean opening their code.
> We should thanks the ones that provide proprietary stuff for putting 
> some effort helping Linux instead of blaming them for not opening 
> their code.
>

-- 
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