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[Savannah-hackers] Re: submission of Waves, Clouds, and Sand - savannah


From: Mathieu Roy
Subject: [Savannah-hackers] Re: submission of Waves, Clouds, and Sand - savannah.nongnu.org
Date: 26 Feb 2003 18:32:58 +0100
User-agent: Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.2

address@hidden said:

[...]


> Also, I'd guess that your estimate of only playing games 2% of the time is
> quite a low estimate for most people (if you use the computer 8 hours a
> day, playing games for 2 percent of that is less than 10 minutes).
> 
> For most people who play games, 2 or 3 hours a day is pretty common.

Yes, it's possible. It was an example, not a law.


[...]


> 
> Unfortunately, that's not accurate.  You enlarge the audience for
> proprietary software, which doesn't help advance the cause of free
> software.  Your actions demonstrate that free software is not viable for a
> large part of what many people like to do with computers -- play games
> with nice graphics.

What help advancing the cause of the free software is building free
software, promoting free software in public areas.

What we can do in our very private home, in the way I told, have
absolutely no consequences.


 

[...]

> 
> You're missing 3a) Lots of people start playing GNU GPLed games,
> understand the philosophy behind free software, and lobby for 3D vendors
> to release free drivers.

I do not understand what makes you think that making a software
dependant on non-free drivers would incitate ATI or Nvidia to free
their software. Their goal is to sell cards. More software depends on
it, more money.

A contrario, if you make software that do not depend on their drivers
explicitely because of their licenses, if your software grow in
popularity, ATI or Nvidia may  think that freeing their drivers would
permit them to get a better support from your software... and so would
permit them to make more money by selling more cards.

 
> > Why would they free their drivers if everybody is satisfied with
> > them as non free?
> 
> Why would anyone use Debian if everyone is satisfied with Windows?

You missed the distinction between using software and selling cards.
 


[...]

> 
> As more and more projects use 3D, the FSF/Savannah realize 3D should be a
> priority and throw their weight into the ring; this also helps convince 3D
> vendors to release free drivers/specifications.
> 
> Right now they exert pressure on developers to stay away from 3D; I would
> like to see them instead help modern 3D hardware become usable on GNU
> systems.
> 
> I think part of the problem here is that many GNU folks are too busy to
> play games, so for them it's a niche and a minor concern.

Who "exert pressure [...] to stay away from 3D"?

 
> > You we're saying that features lacks in free drivers but if you're
> > are not willing to use existing features, you do not help me free
> > drivers.
> 
> I'm not optimistic that reverse-engineered drivers, or part-time
> partially-funded specs-only drivers are going to be able to take advantage
> of new hardware.
> 
> I'm coming at this from a different direction; I think we need to get
> hardware manufacturers on our side.  To do that I think we need more free
> 3D projects that use advanced features to expand the "free 3D" audience
> and resulting sphere of influence.

I think that we need hardware manufacturers on our side. Having
proprietary drivers is clearly not having them on our side.



-- 
Mathieu Roy
 
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