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


From: planet10
Subject: [Savannah-hackers] Re: submission of Waves, Clouds, and Sand - savannah.nongnu.org
Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2003 09:06:49 -0800 (PST)

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

Everything we do has consequences.

Some proprietary games have EULAs that forbid certain other software to be
on your computer, and scan for it.  This compromises your privacy.
These games also prohibit giving a copy to your friend.  You know all
about those consequences, see gnu.org.
Depending on where you live, you might get the BSA knocking on your door,
demanding to see receipts for everything.  That's kind of a bummer.
Offering financial support to the makers of Windows and proprietary games,
in addition to the makers of proprietary drivers, has consequences.  Not
paying for it also could subject you to certain other consequences...


> 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.

I don't know how many times I have to explain it: What will convince
NVidia to release free drivers is _demand_ from a large number of users
who play free 3D games.  No free 3D games, no users, no demand, no
drivers.

> 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.

Right now, this is nonsense, given the state of free 3D drivers.

Making your game use only the features present in free drivers will not
make it run any worse on the full-featured, faster proprietary drivers.


> > > 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.

The point is the same in both cases: the users aren't satisfied.
Right now, the users play proprietary games on Windows.
They aren't aware of the GNU GPL, and if they installed GNU/Linux, they
couldn't play their games.  So they go back to Windows, and never learn
about the FSF, get to know free software, or request non-obfuscated free
source for their hardware.

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

Yeah, Savannah is exerting pressure to stay away from modern 3D, due to
the lack of free drivers that we've just been discussing.

Pressuring one developer is easier than trying to convince a large company
of anything.

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

Right, so I'd like to hear suggestions for getting them on our side.

I think the suggestion will have to involve more than "use only features
that were current with cards that are no longer on the market".





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