Re: OT: nVidia driver [was: Wish list]
by Bryan J. Smith <b.j.smith@ieee.org>
Sean wrote:
> If you're going to undermine the integrity of your system and the open
> source process at the same time, you're better off just going back and
> using Windows. Actually, do whatever you want personally, but don't
> spread this bad advice here.
Sean also wrote:
> It's pretty annoying listening to all the newcomers unthinkingly thumb
> their nose at what got us to where we are today. You simply can't move
> Linux forward by undermining exactly what makes it important and
> successful.
You know Sean, you're right.
About 5 years ago, I sure wish the entire, multi-_billion_ dollar
CAM and EDA markets would have just switched their codebases to
Win32/DX once-and-for-all, and gotten away from POSIX/GLX
because nVidia shouldn't have even offered a proprietary GLX
solution for Linux.
No offense Sean, but I think it's pretty annoying to listen to people
who don't realize that without a proprietary GLX driver on Linux,
a lot of CAM and EDA vendors wouldn't have ported to Linux from Irix,
Solaris, etc... and would have just taken the time and effort to port
to Win32/DX _never_ to return to POSIX/GLX.
That was 5+ years ago, and we have nVidia to thank for keeping
these critical applications in the POSIX/GLX space.
That's the difference between _choosing_ to work with a community
and having this overriding, overbearing "we the community know
better than you" attitude that is Step #1 in the communist manifesto.
Sometimes there are factors and considerations where a less-than-
commodity innovation requires you to understand why there is a
need for _temporary_ IP, copyright and other, proprietary concessions.
> Anyway, choosing a binary driver has real risks involved. If you value
> the data in your computer, you understand the open source process, and
> you're thankful for the great O/S that you find yourself using; the
> decisions become rather easy.
No, this is _very_different_.
We are talking a proprietary driver for an _open_standard_, GLX.
We're not talking about 3dfx Glide (before 3dfx/nVidia they opened it),
or any other proprietary APIs (although there are OpenGL ARB and
OpenGL vendor extensions -- which I won't get into, although I agree
with 3DLab's viewpoints, but at least it's not as bad as in the DirectX
world, God help us ;-).
That's what I think people forget. They get on this "open" v. "proprietary"
religious war and they don't think about the fact that there are lots and
lots of _good_ projects and companies in between GNU/Linux and Microsoft.
It's like watching a Democrat and a Republican argue here in the US like
they are the _only_2_ viewpoints, forgetting everything from Communist
to Libertarians, etc... who just roll their eyes sometimes.
Which is why I call the nVidia drivers as "Standardware" in my 2-axis,
4-extreme model:
- Freedomware** (Open Source, Open Standard)
- Standardware (Proprietary Source, Open Standard)
- Sourceware (Open Source, Proprietary Standard -- e.g., IP requirements)
- Commerceware (Proprietary Source, Proprietary Standard)
[ **NOTE: I must prefer the term "Freedomware" to "Free Software,"
"Open Source Software" or the latest FOSS acronym. Why? Because you
say "FOSS" and people give you a dumb stare. And if you say "Free
Software" or "Freeware" or whatever, people get the wrong idea, possibly
even "Shareware." But when you say "Freedomware," people instantly
think that they are responsible for their part in ensuring it, and that
ain't always "free as in cost." ;-]
And even in that model, Microsoft doesn't fit. Because Microsoft
adovcates what I call "intentional Hostageware":
- Hostageware (Unmaintainable Source, Unmaintainable Standard)
Hostageware can result from _any_ of the 4 above software. Using
eccentric, underdocumented, etc... formats can result in Hostageware
from Freedomware as much as any other.
But our case, we are talking about a proprietary driver that provides
interfaces for _open_standard_ GLX! Sorry, the whole "data hostage"
junk doesn't hold. And you need to be a little more "open minded."
Otherwise people like yourself just make me thing of what I also
break down Freedomware into:
- Freedomware: choosing to work together on Open Source/Standard
- Commuware: forcing everyone to work on Open Source/Standard
Freedom only works when people have the right to choose.
-- Bryan
P.S. I am a _huge_ fan of Red Hat's dedication to the GPL, and
constantly defend Red Hat against unfair, uneven comments
when companies like IBM get praise for spending $1B on maturing
their product line, $100M for porting a 100% Commerceware
application suite to Linux, and donations of GPL _in_compatible
CPL/IPL software.
But damn, sometimes people forget that we don't get all huffy
on Red Hat about trademarks (which is a bigger story than most
people care about), cut throat business tactics, etc... Why?
Because Red Hat is dedicated to the GPL and community where
it _legally_ can. nVidia is pretty much in the same boat too.
Or do I have to remind people that nVidia _did_ release GLX
source code back in the XFree 3.3.x days? This issue is very
long and drawn out.
--
Bryan J. Smith mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org
8 years, 10 months
Re: Java and Mono Licensing -- WAS: Fedora Goals
by Bryan J. Smith <b.j.smith@ieee.org>
From: Richard Li <richardl(a)redhat.com>
> Classpath and gcj are GPL. They have also made enormous strides in
> stability, performance, and completeness as of late (cf OpenOffice, Jonas).
Yes, I've been tracking that as well. It was a pleasant surprise to see.
While a lot of people have been complaining about it, Red Hat and
other developers are actually solving the issues.
I sincerely hope that it will reach the point where you can take
just about any, major Java code, and target both the Java byte
code and native byte with gcj, as well as AWT/Swing with Classpath.
I'll have to bring myself up-to-speed on those developments.
Otherwise, I had been going down the Mono route because I very
much like the GPL/LPGL/BSD Compiler/Library/Class Library combo.
It allows you to license under whatever you want, GPL, MIT, etc...
And I'm somewhat of a GTK+/GTK# fan for cross-platform development.
Swing is good, but has left much to be desired IMHO.
--
Bryan J. Smith mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org
8 years, 10 months
Re: Fedora Goals -- LSB-compliant/ideal init for FC5+
by Bryan J. Smith <b.j.smith@ieee.org>
From: Bill Nottingham <notting(a)redhat.com>
> Here ya go.
Much appreciated! Looks like I've been a little more than ignorant on
newer developments. I thought just a little start-time dependency
checking here, and a little LSB compliance there was all that was
being address.
And I think I'll spend the next few days learning the D-BUS interfaces
before commenting any more. Definitely agree that this is going to
be a framework that has to be written in C. I'm fine there, love
system-level stuff (although the same statement by Linus, "I wrote
it in C, but some people might not call what I write C" probably
applies even more so to me).
<soapbox>
Too bad about launchd being APSL. It's stuff like that, along with
IBM CPL, IPL as well as Sun (insert our acronym today) that makes
me wonder how people can demonize Red Hat, and praise Apple
or IBM (at least we got StarOffice as LGPL from Sun).
</soapbox>
So, I take it Seth's SystemServices is probably going to get the nod
at this point, since it looks like initng is one of those "are we
there yet?" Correct me if I'm wrong.
> Luke Macken (lmacken(a)redhat.com) may be looking at some of this
> in the near future.
As I said, I've got up to 10 hours/week to give assistance. I would be
nice to see Red Hat leapfrog a lot of distros on the init, and set the
standard for the next generation of Linux distros.
> At first, I expect there to be very little UI code here; what's
> needed is the framework.
Yep, I got that from your forward. That is more in the future when
the back-end is actually working.
--
Bryan J. Smith mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org
8 years, 10 months
Self-introduction: Andy Henson
by Andy Henson
Self-introduction: Andy Henson
1. Full legal name
Andrew Robert Henson
2. Country, City
UK, Oxford
3. Profession
Software Engineer
4. Company
Zexia Access Ltd
5. Your goals in the Fedora Project
(a) Ensuring a distribution with which I am familiar still exists (ie, not
needing to switch to Debian or Suse).
(b) Working with Anaconda. I've already fiddled with it quite a bit to
make it suitable for my vertical market distros.
(c) Contributing to the open source community since I make heavy use of it.
6. Historical qualifications
I have 23 years professional programming experience mostly in C, and C++
and assembler.
Much of my current work is with Linux. Red Hat based versions for
preference. I help to maintain a Linux distribution used in a particular
vertical market which integrates commercial software for use in an embedded
environment. Other than the commercial software, this distro is mostly
RedHat 7.3 with non-GPL items (eg, logos) removed.
I also have an interest in two servers which are currently on RH 7.3; one
will probably switch to Fedora while the other will go the paid RH way.
7. GPG KEYID and fingerprint
pub 1024R/E1EE2C59 1998-12-04 Andrew Robert Henson <arh(a)zexia.co.uk>
Key fingerprint = EE 02 E8 82 BE FF D9 7D 20 7C A2 47 F8 C8 31 73
uid Andy Henson <andy.henson(a)zexia.co.uk>
Andy Henson
Zexia Access Ltd - Registered in England 3574343 - http://www.zexia.co.uk
Magdalen Centre, Oxford Science Park, OXFORD OX4 4GA - Tel: 01865 776865
8 years, 10 months
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 404 Not Found
by Antonio Trande
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256
Hi all,
is there something wrong with my commit or with koji?
https://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/getfile?taskID=9943933&name=root.log&...
DEBUG util.py:452: Executing command: ['fedpkg', 'sources'] with env
{'LANG': 'en_US.UTF-8', 'TERM': 'vt100', 'SHELL': '/bin/bash',
'PROMPT_COMMAND': 'printf "\x1b]0;<mock-chroot>\x07<mock-chroot>"',
'PATH': '/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin', 'HOME': '/builddir',
'HOSTNAME': 'mock'} and shell False
DEBUG util.py:388: --2015-06-04 10:23:44--
http://pkgs.fedoraproject.org/repo/pkgs/sundials/sundials-2.6.1.tar.gz/9b...
DEBUG util.py:388: Resolving pkgs.fedoraproject.org
(pkgs.fedoraproject.org)... 10.5.125.44
DEBUG util.py:388: Connecting to pkgs.fedoraproject.org
(pkgs.fedoraproject.org)|10.5.125.44|:80... connected.
DEBUG util.py:388: HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 404 Not Found
DEBUG util.py:388: 2015-06-04 10:23:44 ERROR 404: Not Found.
DEBUG util.py:388: --2015-06-04 10:23:44--
http://pkgs.fedoraproject.org/repo/pkgs/sundials/sundials-pkgconfig_files...
DEBUG util.py:388: Resolving pkgs.fedoraproject.org
(pkgs.fedoraproject.org)... 10.5.125.44
DEBUG util.py:388: Connecting to pkgs.fedoraproject.org
(pkgs.fedoraproject.org)|10.5.125.44|:80... connected.
DEBUG util.py:388: HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 404 Not Found
DEBUG util.py:388: 2015-06-04 10:23:44 ERROR 404: Not Found.
- --
Antonio Trande
mailto: sagitter 'at' fedoraproject 'dot' org
http://fedoraos.wordpress.com/
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Sagitter
GPG Key: 0x565E653C
Check on https://keys.fedoraproject.org/
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8 years, 10 months
Fedora 22 and missing applications
by Richard Hughes
Quite a few people are going to be installing Fedora 22 in the coming
days, searching for things in the software center and not finding
their esoteric GUI tool. This is because some applications still don’t
ship AppData files, which have become compulsory in the workstation
spin for this release. Luckily, the vast majority of applications that
don't include AppData are not popular and most have little-to-no
upstream activity.
If you want to check an application without installing F22 you can use
this link http://alt.fedoraproject.org/pub/alt/screenshots/f22/matrix.html
-- if you fix an application I'll be regenerating that status page
every 48 hours and shipping new a metadata release in a couple of
weeks.
Richard
8 years, 10 months