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From: evan@telly.telly.org (Evan Leibovitch)
Subject: Re: Freeware community needs 3d library NOW
Message-ID: <Dtnuy5.7pt@telly.telly.org>
Date: Thu, 27 Jun 1996 13:32:29 GMT
References: <4qlf04$7pj@guysmiley.blarg.net> <4qnkur$sr1@thor.xon.cuug.ab.ca> <4qt6im$ne9@guysmiley.blarg.net>
Organization: Sound Software Ltd., Brampton, Ontario
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In article <4qt6im$ne9@guysmiley.blarg.net>,
Brandon J. Van Every <vanevery@blarg.net> wrote:
>: Great, this will undoubtably place 3d accelerators in the commodity market
>: and cause the price to plummet to the point that Linux users will be able
>: to afford them.
>True, but what's the point of affording them, if you can't get the
>specs for them, and therefore nobody can write drivers for them, and
>therefore they do not work under Linux?
You left out an important point. It's not that "you can't get the specs
for them", just that you'll need an NDA to get the specs. Linux now has
a significant amount of commercial interest, and one of the first place
that showed was in the area of video support.
You can't get the specs to, say, the Matrox VGA without an NDA, but that
hasn't prevented Matrox from being supportable under Linux. It just means
that the standard freeware X servers won't support it, but commercial ones
do. Some Linux users boycott Matrox for this reason, but those who
really want it just look at the cost of the commercial X server as part
of the cost of the card, and make their buying decisions accordingly.
Say, for the moment, that the exact same situation holds true for the 3d
world. A company like X Inside could start supporting these accelerators,
making them available for Linux. While such drivers would be non-free,
they'd still be a helluva lot less expensive than their SPARC or SGI
equivalents.
Then again, nothing is stopping you (or anyone else) from signing an NDA
with an accelerator maker, then writing and shipping your own freeware
driver in binary-only form.
All the while, perhaps some of the more-aggressive (or Unix-friendly)
accelerator vendors can be persuaded to offer suppport to freeware
authors, and other vendors will follow. Look at the situation between
XFree86 and Diamond for an example of that.
>Also, in terms of infrastructure, giving Microsoft an additional 1
>year advantage over the freeware community is not a pretty sight.
>Especially considering how much farther they're already ahead. I
>won't argue this point in *.advocacy style with people, I've already
>done enough of that. Suffice it to say that people who are really
>interested in 3d, aren't going to wait very long for the freeware
>universe to get its act together.
Free software has its ups and downs. One big down is that people who
want to keep their technology private are not going to (be able to)
support you. Either you talk them into releasing their specs, or you
look to commercial solutions that support Linux.
Not available in freeware != not available for Linux.
--
Evan Leibovitch, Sound Software Ltd., located in beautiful Brampton, Ontario
Caldera Business Partner / SCO Authorized VAR / evan@telly.org / (905) 452-0504
Economists have successfully predicted 14 of the last 2 recessions