Slashdot Mirror

And as my grandpa used to say "Girls want ponies, people in hell want ice water, I want a million dollars...that don't mean any of us are gonna get it".

Unless they are gonna kickstarter the chips in the thing it'll be DAMN hard to make it FOSS, simply because the ones making the GPUs, wireless, etc, are about the most proprietary lot on the planet. Hell I don't even think you CAN make a FOSS GPU as everything from texture compression on up is patented up the ass, I know there was a project to make one using an FPGA but I never heard any more about it, probably ran into the legal minefield and ran aground.

Basically, it ran out of money; the main contributors didn't have as much time available any more and making an ASIC is expensive. Some prototype boards were manufactured, and the employer of the main developer (who allowed him to use their tools, and work on it some during office hours) made a commercial product based on the design. It never got to producing a consumer video card though. I see now that Kickstarter actually existed in 2010, but I don't think anyone of us had ever heard of it, and I don't think we could have got the couple million dollars needed to have the cards produced.

For those interested, there's still an active mailing list, the project isn't quite dead.

I don't understand why simply putting the closed source firmware on the card suddenly makes it ok for free software. Same code, just different home.

Back in the days of the Open Graphics Project (since defunct, although Timothy N. Miller is still working in this area and the mailing list is still active for those interested in the subject), we had several discussions about the borders between Free software, open firmware, and open hardware.

As I understood the FSF's position at that time, the point is that if the firmware is stored on the host, it can be changed, and frequently is (i.e. firmware updates). Typically, the manufacturer has some sort of assembler/compiler tool to convert firmware written in a slightly higher level language to a binary that is loaded into the hardware, which then contains some simplistic CPU to run it (that's how OGD1 worked anyway). So, the firmware is really just specialised software, and for the whole thing to be Free, you should have access to the complete corresponding source code, plus the tools to compile it, or at least a description of the bitstream format so you can create those. This last part is then an instance of the general rule that for hardware to be Free software-friendly, all its programming interfaces should be completely documented.

If the code is put into ROM, it cannot be changed without physically changing the hardware (e.g. desoldering the chip and putting in another one). At that point, the FSF considers it immutable, and therefore not having the firmware source code doesn't restrict the user's freedom to change the firmware, since they don't have any anyway. The consequences are a bit funny in practice, as you noted, but it is (as always with the FSF) a very consistent position.

We (of the OGP-related Open Hardware Foundation, now also defunct; the whole thing was just a bit too ambitious and too far ahead of its time) argued that since hardware can be changed (i.e. you can desolder and replace that ROM), keeping the design a secret restricts the users freedom just as well. So, we should have open hardware, which would be completely (not just programming interfaces, but the whole design) documented and can therefore be changed/extended/repaired/parts-reused by the user. The FSF wasn't hostile to that idea, but considered it beyond their scope. Of course, any open hardware would automatically also be Free software-friendly.

I tend to agree that in practice, especially if there are no firmware updates forthcoming but it's just a cost-savings measure, loading the code from the host rather than from a ROM is a marginal issue. Strictly speaking though, I do think that the FSF have a point.

What we need for our audio workstations is a fanless (silent) graphics card that will do OpenGL nicely, using Free/Libre/Open Source drivers. Affordable is helpful, but not essential.

I've been watching the gradual progress of the Open Graphics Project (and now Open Hardware Foundation) with interest and hope they can release something good before the major manufacturers get a clue - quite likely considering their years of promises (ATI) and proprietary drivers (nVidia). It seems that Intel are doing good things, although IIUC those cards aren't so powerful; I know: power, silence, freedom (choose TWO only)... but progress? Is the ATI Radeon 8500 still the best fanless card with open drivers?

Please wake me up when we get to the 21st Century. I'd happily read a whole page of adverts for news on such a product.

This is what the Open Graphics project was supposed to be doing:

http://wiki.duskglow.com/tiki-index.php?page=Open- Graphics ...but it looks like the idiots have gone in and spoiled it. It's now years overdue and way over-specced.

Read up the the The Open Graphics Project.
http://wiki.duskglow.com//tiki-index.php?page=Abou tOpenGraphics&PHPSESSID=8931c53691f903ace7137362ce 5b1df7
The FAQ
http://wiki.duskglow.com//tiki-index.php?page=Freq uentlyAskedQuestions&PHPSESSID=8931c53691f903ace71 37362ce5b1df7
Join the mailing list.
http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-gr aphics
And
http://www.traversaltech.com/

Read up the the The Open Graphics Project.
http://wiki.duskglow.com//tiki-index.php?page=Abou tOpenGraphics&PHPSESSID=8931c53691f903ace7137362ce 5b1df7
The FAQ
http://wiki.duskglow.com//tiki-index.php?page=Freq uentlyAskedQuestions&PHPSESSID=8931c53691f903ace71 37362ce5b1df7
Join the mailing list.
http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-gr aphics
And
http://www.traversaltech.com/

Read up the the The Open Graphics Project.
http://wiki.duskglow.com//tiki-index.php?page=Abou tOpenGraphics&PHPSESSID=8931c53691f903ace7137362ce 5b1df7
The FAQ
http://wiki.duskglow.com//tiki-index.php?page=Freq uentlyAskedQuestions&PHPSESSID=8931c53691f903ace71 37362ce5b1df7
Join the mailing list.
http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-gr aphics
And
http://www.traversaltech.com/

Yes, it's cool that some companies sell computers sans-OS... but seriously, the subject line is ridiculous. These are not "Open Source Computers" for crying out loud.

This is just as viable an option as if I had an old computer that lost a mobo to a power surge, and instead of fixing it, I decided to get a new computer. I'm allowed to move my XP license to the new computer, so why pay for a new one through Dell.

"Open Source Computer" would better imply that the computer came with a mobo that supported and had installed OpenBIOS, came pre-installed with Linux and OO.org, had a video card from the Open-Graphics project, etc.

This is not an "Open Source Computer". This is a standard PC with an "unformatted hard drive."

The Open Graphics Project http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-gr aphics is an attempt to make an open-source-hardware graphics card, so that we don't have to wrestle with companies like nVidia (ok, Intel) or ATI (ok, AMD) to get decent open-source drivers.

The OGP cards use FPGAs, which is the technology that HP's work (hopefully) innovates. I wonder if this advance will make OGP's cards much more competitive with nVidia/ATI cards? Heck, maybe HP would even consider showcasing its technology using the OGP project.

RTL for the ASIC will be released under a dual license (GPL and proprietary) There will be a time-delay on some parts (to deal with investor concerns over the $millions necessary to invest in fabrication), but once the investment is recouped, the code will be released. (We need a law firm to escrow the RTL for us, pro bono.)

If you check out http://wiki.duskglow.com/tiki-index.php?page=Open- Graphics, you will find that they work on an open hardware design, at the moment based on a FGPA. That card will not be as fast as a current high end cards, so you are (for now) right about the performance.

But at least, it will be an alternative for when the age-old cards that have open drivers NOW are no longer available.

I don't know what operating system they do their development on, but here some people working toward an open source graphics card. http://wiki.duskglow.com/tiki-index.php?page=Open- Graphics

Just to bring this back into view...

http://wiki.duskglow.com/tiki-index.php?page=OGPN1 7&PHPSESSID=629ef486f166fab6ef8951de2a5ae96c

The Open Graphics Project is making steady progress.

I predict 2007 will be big for open source hardware.

Ok, you've been modded Funny and there is some obvious humo(u)r in what you said, but here's to hope that you are not too far from the truth.

There is at least one open source hardware project out there which I would really like to see succeed: the Open Graphics Project, aimed at developing a fully open source (from the hardware to the driver) 3D-capable graphics card. So long, nVidia, ATI, and your idiotic 'protected secret intellectual property' excuses to be uncooperative to FLOS.

Some guys actually try to create open source hardware.
A graphics card:
http://wiki.duskglow.com/tiki-index.php?page=Open- Graphics
Various Open Source processors:
http://www.opencores.org/

Of course their efforts are somewhat hampered by the fact that chip manufacturing equipment is awfully expensive. If you could buy a Star Trek style replicator for the price of a PC, I guess we would see a lot more free hardware.

...the fact is that developers use DirectX because it's easy to make a game with...

Ha. HA. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

I can easily see you have never actually USED DirectX in any serious capacity (or possibly at all). It is a royal PAIN. True, it is better than what it was, but that's not saying much. And SDL + OpenGL is still, far and away, far, far easier to use than any version of the DirectX suite. The only thing DirectX buys you is (as you mentioned) portability to XBox. Which can definitely be killer if the business folks decide they want to have the game run there.

As for development tools, Linux has by far, much better tools than any Windows version.

There are basically three things that are truly hurdles for Linux gaming:

• No critical mass
• Lack of good graphics drivers
• Lack of an easy, hassle-free way to install 3rd party apps.

The OpenGraphics.org project will release a 3D OpenGL enabled graphics card with full specifications and schematics so that FOSS developers can write open source drivers for Linux and BSDs. The consumer graphics card (code-named OGA) will be release after a development board (code-named OGD1) is produced. The key step is to make enough revenue (around $2 million) from selling the multi-function development board to fund the mass production of the consumer card.

Unless there is a wealthy individual / corporation out there who is willing to invest in order to manufacture this card earlier. The FOSS-friendly card will surely have a big appeal in Linux circles.

The OpenGraphics.org project will release a 3D OpenGL enabled graphics card with full specifications and schematics so that FOSS developers can write open source drivers for Linux and BSDs. The consumer graphics card (code-named OGA) will be release after a development board (code-named OGD1) is produced. The key step is to make enough revenue (around $2 million) from selling the multi-function development board to fund the mass production of the consumer card.

Unless there is a wealthy individual / corporation out there who is willing to invest in order to manufacture this card earlier. The FOSS-friendly card will surely have a big appeal in Linux circles.

The OpenGraphics.org project will release a 3D OpenGL enabled graphics card with full specifications and schematics so that FOSS developers can write open source drivers for Linux and BSDs. The consumer graphics card (code-named OGA) will be release after a development board (code-named OGD1) is produced. The key step is to make enough revenue (around $2 million) from selling the multi-function development board to fund the mass production of the consumer card.

Unless there is a wealthy individual / corporation out there who is willing to invest in order to manufacture this card earlier. The FOSS-friendly card will surely have a big appeal in Linux circles.

Maybe if/when the OpenGraphics (now OpenHardware) plan comes off the ground finally: http://wiki.duskglow.com/tiki-index.php?page=Open- Graphics
They'll need a lot of money to start production though, and who is going to pay substantial money for a video card that they know will not be top of the commercial range? (OK, I probably would)

Am I the only one who can't get worked up about this exploit? I mean, I should be thinking, "this is happening because of X, we should do Y to fix it!" And yet, I just can't develop an opinion either way. It's not that I'm wrestling with myself, it's just that I don't care.

Analyzing this, I think the reason is because the NVidia and ATI drivers are a PITA everywhere. By installing the drivers, you agree to destablize your system in exchange for the most incredible 3D (and 2D to a certain degree) performance. When Something Bad Happens(TM), you just sort of take it as coming with the territory.

It's sort of like hooking Nitro up to your car. Sure, your engine is more powerful than ever. But are you really all that surprised when you bust a valve, crack a ring, or do some other form of damage to your hotrod?

It would be nice if OSS drivers could be created. But it's probably not going to happen. NVidia won't open their drivers (ATI, doubly so) and the OSS community doesn't have enough info to recreate them. Thus I think the best bet is the Open Graphics Project. If they produce a viable 3D card alternative, you'll finally be able to chose between a stable (but slower) 3D card, or a high-performance, hotrod 3D Card. Take your pick to meet your needs.

Oh, and keep a firewall in front of your machine and the internet. Pipe all your X communications over SSH. Just good safety sense. ;)

It's amazing to me how many people think bullying and mass-emailing is going to get a krufty old-school company like Intel to do ANYTHING. Even IBM isn't much of an exception, because they keep their proprietary and open source stuff carefully separated, and Sun's OpenSparc was already an open standard before they release the source code. These companies have markets much larger than open source users that don't care at all about open source!

In my opinion, the only way we're ever going to have truly open hardware is for us to develop it ourselves. In case you weren't paying attention, the Open Graphics Project already has hardware!!!

Yes, it's an early step in the process, but when volunteer open source development meets up with expensive hardware production, things tend to go a bit slowly. But engineering samples are currently undergoing tests, and the project members are working on test benches for it.

I want to slap anyone who even bothers to call Intel. It's a total waste of energy that they could be spending on a real organization that is really producing open source hardware, with schematics and source code online. Oh, and we're not talking about just releasing documentation on how their hardware works. Their entire hardware development process is out in the open and open source. Not only can you read about how this stuff works, but you can look at every level of detail, down to how the hardware is wired.

The only way we're ever going to get good graphics hardware for open source is to make it ourselves!

You mean like this ?

The fact they have to use non-free, closed-source hardware to run this free software is irrelevant.

...and that's what projects like LinuxBIOS and The Open Graphics Project are for!

What would end the argument, Bruce is open-source hardware.

We're working on it. The OpenGraphics project is working on an open-architecture GPU which will have BSD-licensed drivers, and GPL'd board schematics and artwork.

There's nothing stopping another group of hackers setting up similar projects: OpenWireless, OpenSATARaid, ...

Especially since the OpenGraphics project will be bringing out an PCI card with a big FPGA on it soon (OGD1). Although it'll be primarily aimed at development of the OGA graphics pipeline, it's got a big header on it, so there's no reason it couldn't be used for something else. Accelerating POVRay, perhaps?

On one side that's something that we'll be seing in the near future thanks to the HyperTransport format. Slashdot recently announced programmable chips (FPGA) that could be plugged into dual opteron motherboard and that could use the HT bus.
Also recently announced on slashdot, the developpement of a standart hypertransport connector (as part of the HT 3.0 revision).

So maybe in a near future you'll see motherboards featuring HyperTransport connectors, in which you could directly plug CPU/DDR board, GPU/GDDR board, or specialist copreocessor boards (Phys-X, FPGAs, ultra-high speed raid & networks board for severs, etc...)

On the other hand : supporting different size of memory for a GPU is something that is going to bring more complexity and costs. (this was something discussed in forums about building open-source GFX card) so diffrent GPU/GDDR board speaking among them thru HT bus is more likely than a GPU board with upgradeable GDDR.

All you Linux folks still think we are all stuck in the 1980s, when hardware companies were small, and most hardware was simple bit twiddling with a minimalistic software layer.

Specs back in the day were free (for the most part) because there was nothing exceptional about any one computing platform. You had many different processor platforms, many different busses, all competing for your money with very little diffeence in performance and capability. It is no surprise that developers released full specs, both to make customers happy, and to encourage other developers to improve on the platform.

But today, we have a specialized computer industry. Gone are the myriad of user-level busses...what's left is PCI, AGP and PCIe, all thoroughly-documented standards. Gone are the simple expansion cards adding new features - all the features %90 of users need can be found integrated on a small low-cost motherboard.

And what about those users who actually USE expansion cards? They get them for VERY specialized purposes - a high-speed wired or wireless interconnect. Hardware sound co-processing, or extra sound channels. High-bandwidth TV tuners or video capture cards. High-performance 3D acceleration.

Unfortunately, these specialized and powerful cards come at a price: good performance requires trade secrets, copyrighted functionality licensed from other conglomerates, and optimized drivers. Why build your own PCIe interface from scratch when CompanyX will sell you one for 3 cents per port? Why design your own lossless texture compression routine when CompanyY SPECIALIZES in it? Why reinvent the wheel interfacing to your GDDR3 memory when dozens of companies have already designed high-performance crossbar memory switches? All these features are suddenly worth good money, both in the hardware your company sells, and in the licenses.

Also, all you Linux Open-Source zealots forget one additional thing: the DRIVER is the MOST IMPORTANT part of the modern expansion card, ESPECIALLY with video cards. If the driver is not in PEAK performance, the user is more likely to notice than, say, a USB2 driver, or a network driver. For ATI and Nvidia, the driver IS the company. What if the open-source community can't meet the performance levels of closed source drivers? Then ATI and Nvidia look bad. What if the open-source community starts to think it can build a better graphics card, instead of making drivers for Nvidia and ATI, since they already know how it works?

You want to insist ATI and Nvidia share their specifications, just to please a tiny market? That's like Coke giving away their secret formula so tribes of the Amazon rainforest can make their own. You tell me how long it takes for %100 perfect knockoffs to hit the street and kill Coke's marketshare. By my last look, it takes an awful lot of time and effort just to design a RELATIVLEY SIMPLE graphics processor. Why give your potential competitors an INCREDIBLE edge?

All you Linux folks still think we are all stuck in the 1980s, when hardware companies were small, and most hardware was simple bit twiddling with a minimalistic software layer.

Specs back in the day were free (for the most part) because there was nothing exceptional about any one computing platform. You had many different processor platforms, many different busses, all competing for your money with very little diffeence in performance and capability. It is no surprise that developers released full specs, both to make customers happy, and to encourage other developers to improve on the platform.

But today, we have a specialized computer industry. Gone are the myriad of user-level busses...what's left is PCI, AGP and PCIe, all thoroughly-documented standards. Gone are the simple expansion cards adding new features - all the features %90 of users need can be found integrated on a small low-cost motherboard.

And what about those users who actually USE expansion cards? They get them for VERY specialized purposes - a high-speed wired or wireless interconnect. Hardware sound co-processing, or extra sound channels. High-bandwidth TV tuners or video capture cards. High-performance 3D acceleration.

Unfortunately, these specialized and powerful cards come at a price: good performance requires trade secrets, copyrighted functionality licensed from other conglomerates, and optimized drivers. Why build your own PCIe interface from scratch when CompanyX will sell you one for 3 cents per port? Why design your own lossless texture compression routine when CompanyY SPECIALIZES in it? Why reinvent the wheel interfacing to your GDDR3 memory when dozens of companies have already designed high-performance crossbar memory switches? All these features are suddenly worth good money, both in the hardware your company sells, and in the licenses.

Also, all you Linux Open-Source zealots forget one additional thing: the DRIVER is the MOST IMPORTANT part of the modern expansion card, ESPECIALLY with video cards. If the driver is not in PEAK performance, the user is more likely to notice than, say, a USB2 driver, or a network driver. For ATI and Nvidia, the driver IS the company. What if the open-source community can't meet the performance levels of closed source drivers? Then ATI and Nvidia look bad. What if the open-source community starts to think it can build a better graphics card, instead of making drivers for Nvidia and ATI, since they already know how it works?

You want to insist ATI and Nvidia share their specifications, just to please a tiny market? That's like Coke giving away their secret formula so tribes of the Amazon rainforest can make their own. You tell me how long it takes for %100 perfect knockoffs to hit the street and kill Coke's marketshare. By my last look, it takes an awful lot of time and effort just to design a RELATIVLEY SIMPLE graphics processor. Why give your potential competitors an INCREDIBLE edge?

All you Linux folks still think we are all stuck in the 1980s, when hardware companies were small, and most hardware was simple bit twiddling with a minimalistic software layer.

Specs back in the day were free (for the most part) because there was nothing exceptional about any one computing platform. You had many different processor platforms, many different busses, all competing for your money with very little diffeence in performance and capability. It is no surprise that developers released full specs, both to make customers happy, and to encourage other developers to improve on the platform.

But today, we have a specialized computer industry. Gone are the myriad of user-level busses...what's left is PCI, AGP and PCIe, all thoroughly-documented standards. Gone are the simple expansion cards adding new features - all the features %90 of users need can be found integrated on a small low-cost motherboard.

And what about those users who actually USE expansion cards? They get them for VERY specialized purposes - a high-speed wired or wireless interconnect. Hardware sound co-processing, or extra sound channels. High-bandwidth TV tuners or video capture cards. High-performance 3D acceleration.

Unfortunately, these specialized and powerful cards come at a price: good performance requires trade secrets, copyrighted functionality licensed from other conglomerates, and optimized drivers. Why build your own PCIe interface from scratch when CompanyX will sell you one for 3 cents per port? Why design your own lossless texture compression routine when CompanyY SPECIALIZES in it? Why reinvent the wheel interfacing to your GDDR3 memory when dozens of companies have already designed high-performance crossbar memory switches? All these features are suddenly worth good money, both in the hardware your company sells, and in the licenses.

Also, all you Linux Open-Source zealots forget one additional thing: the DRIVER is the MOST IMPORTANT part of the modern expansion card, ESPECIALLY with video cards. If the driver is not in PEAK performance, the user is more likely to notice than, say, a USB2 driver, or a network driver. For ATI and Nvidia, the driver IS the company. What if the open-source community can't meet the performance levels of closed source drivers? Then ATI and Nvidia look bad. What if the open-source community starts to think it can build a better graphics card, instead of making drivers for Nvidia and ATI, since they already know how it works?

You want to insist ATI and Nvidia share their specifications, just to please a tiny market? That's like Coke giving away their secret formula so tribes of the Amazon rainforest can make their own. You tell me how long it takes for %100 perfect knockoffs to hit the street and kill Coke's marketshare. By my last look, it takes an awful lot of time and effort just to design a RELATIVLEY SIMPLE graphics processor. Why give your potential competitors an INCREDIBLE edge?

Redhat (or any other distro) could solve that by a one time unlimited fee payment, I think it is 60 thousand dollars, then they could legally do the MP3 playback thing, although you don't get the source.

Yes, check this page out

http://www.mp3licensing.com/royalty/software.html

Yes, it isn't pure, I would also bet that 99% of folks who run linux have a few bits and bytes of impure code on their systems already.

Now I have no idea on the video drivers from the big two, other than you need the binary blobs to run the latest and even then they sorta sucketh. There are a few open source driver projects, but they get little support or notice, including the complete video card project here

http://wiki.duskglow.com/tiki-index.php?page=About OpenGraphics&PHPSESSID=f1b5ef6703ea1d97e80ffec79dd f088e

http://wiki.duskglow.com/tiki-index.php?page=Open- Graphics

IIRC they are shipping FPGA PCI cards and you can download the chipset image. The plan of course is to sell PCI ASIC's for $150 or so. They have a pledge page where you can give them an idea of how many cards they can sell for a first run.

could open graphics run on it?

And there are parties SO interested that they are making their own graphics card.

http://wiki.duskglow.com/tiki-index.php?page=Open- Graphics
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=13844

If you are talking about XGI, ATI just bought them and closed the code.

http://www.linuxgames.com/news/feedback.php?identi ferID=8255&action=flatview

Actually, this *is* a bug. It was not intentional on the part of the Fedora folks.

Of course, I don't *like* binary drivers very much, but ATI and NVidia have agreed to stick with 'em if you want 3d support on their modern cards. I have a Radeon 9250 (with the 128-bit datapath), which is about as peppy a card as you can get and still have open source drivers.

If the Open Graphics Project ever releases any hardware, unless it's $400 or something like that, I'll buy it -- it'll be fully open source.

If one vendor would release even a half-decent card and support it fully with open-source drivers, I'd buy it in a moment (binary microcode is okay, but I want everything running host-side to be OSS).

I know that few people feel this way, and most gamers are happy just using binary drivers and the current NVidia or ATI cards, but there are a group of people who feel the same way I do.

It is a project to produce a PCI graphics card with fully specified programming interfaces. This card will be optimised to be fast for current and next generation GUI environments. This means it is mostly designed for 3D operations, specifically those that are used to render GUIs (Graphical User Interfaces). It will accelerate games to varying degrees, but that is not its primary purpose. It is intended to be a well-documented card that can be easily _and reliably_ supported by open source operating systems.

Buy ATI Radeon cards. open source drivers for up to 9800 are available. Then let ATI know that you made the decision to buy their card because of this project.

then.. buy one of the experimental cards from The Open Graphics Project.. when it's available.

I can't express enough how important open 3D drivers are for linux on the desktop.

Have patience young man. Help is coming.

Sunscribe to the list, or just look at the archives. They have done alot of work. I'm very excited.

Since many of the posts are talking about if the latest and greatest card from ATI or nVidia will work with their respective binary-only driver; I feel compelled to mention that there is a project with the intention of getting open spec'd, hardware accellerated video cards out: OpenGraphics. The specs may not be the bleeding edge of current tech, but I personally will appreciate having hardware that can be fully utilized by the OS of my choosing.

Noone is saying that they should fire their developers. :)

And don't tell me about the contractual obligations they have to third parties. If they really wanted to open source, they'd get a deal with them.

I hate it when my X crashes, I hate it that I cannot suspend my notebook using ACPI. I won't buy nvidia until I get open source drivers.

Now I am hoping for the open graphics project to succeed. http://wiki.duskglow.com/index.php/Open-Graphics

They fail to deliver useful drivers for *nix. X.Org developers should be able to implement all what they want, and for that they need better-documented hardware. Only then will we have a real eyecandy, hardware-accelerated desktop à la Quartz Extreme.

This is why the Open Graphics Project is so important.

The project has already been mentionned twice on Slashdot, but since then it has made a lot of progress. Skimming through their mailing list archives shows that they're even creating their own company to produce the graphics card. The company's name is "Traversal Technology". A website is coming soon.

Also worth mentioning is the open graphics project.

Mission

Availability of a graphics card with fully published specs and open source drivers.

Note that the mission is not to actually design or make it. And:

In order to get manufacturers to make such hardware, we have to show that it will be economically viable to do so.

No mention of making it themselves. The rest of the page makes it appear that their main work is coming up with a feature list.

If you dig through the rest of the site, it appears some guy wrote some sort of emulator and they intend to convince someone else to translate it to FPGA code and put it on an FPGA, but the FPGA code probably won't be available. That's not an open source graphics card.

I believe this project is an offshoot of what was originally this guy's ideas. In fact I am pretty sure of it because the name of the guy on OpenGraphics is also Timothy Miller. I wrote those guys when that original article first hit slashdot that I was willing to pre-commit to paying $200 each for up to 5 cards, and I stand by that. But I won't pay for someone's simulation code, or for an FPGA sold by the same bullshit company as before and with a closed FPGA.

I wish someone would try to do an Open Source graphics card, I'd like to buy it. I think it it likely that people would find other uses for it -- reprogramming it to be a software radio, for example. Perhaps after the Open Graphics Card project screws around with the big companies enough, someone else will take their simulation and design and make an open graphics card.

But in the end, the Open Graphics Card project is simply producing a very detailed spec and begging one of the usual asshole companies to make a closed source version to match it. This is doomed to failure. They won't do it, and if they do there will be small undocumented differences from the spec and you won't be able to correct the spec easily or change the FPGA.

This is not a situation that can be solved by lobbying companies. I believe it can be solved by making hardware, even if you have to make your own company in the process.

So in order to make the "bling ding" cards attractive, they quietly drop support for "obsolete" hardware, that is, you don't see any bug fixes or software features being added in ATI's catylyst set for the 9x00 series anymore.

That's not new. ATI did this with their Mach64 cards around 1998, which is why I'll no longer use proprietary video card drivers. Unfortunately I still use ATI cards (9250 and below), since nVidia doesn't release any specs for 3D support and Matrox no longer releases any specs. Hopefully the Open Graphics project will change this.

Could these moves signal the beginning of a period of rapid improvement in Free drivers for video cards?

There's even open source hardware from the Open Source Project (OGP) coming out (info here and here, and the /. story here). for those who don't read the Developers section.

The PCI version is due soon, and reported to have resolutions up to 2048x2048, dual-link DVI and TV-out (but won't be capable of playing HalfLife2 or anything like that).

Could these moves signal the beginning of a period of rapid improvement in Free drivers for video cards?

There's even open source hardware from the Open Source Project (OGP) coming out (info here and here, and the /. story here). for those who don't read the Developers section.

The PCI version is due soon, and reported to have resolutions up to 2048x2048, dual-link DVI and TV-out (but won't be capable of playing HalfLife2 or anything like that).

Don't buy from the manufacturer again :-).

And give stuff like this a change :
http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-gr aphics

Have you looked at the Open Graphics Project?
Here's an interview with the lead developer of the programmable cards.

Mail list and more info: http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-gr aphics/

excuses, excuses!
If they really wanted to make a free driver I'm quite certain they could pull it off by eighter relicensing, reimplementing or renegotiating.
Bottom line, they are scared that the big bad ATI will steal their precioussssssshh special techniques (never seen before!).

Thankfully there is a new graphics card in the works which will make it possible to use completly free drivers and also play relatively modern games. Please don't automatically respond by saying stuff like "but I can play my games fine on my radeon 9500, and those drivers are free". Yea, well ati didn't write those drivers did they.

Neighter ATI or Nvidia have been very forthcoming with info on any new cards, so having a company make graphic card that is completly supported, along with having the development of it out in the open (as in scrutiny) is a huge step in the right direction.
If enough of those are sold, chances are they will make more (and put more money into developing them).