Slashdot Mirror
Trident Micro Changes Policy Toward XFree86
Alex writes: "According to Egbert on the Xpert Xfree86 mailing list, Trident Microsystems, who makes video chipsets for low end PC's and notebooks, has changed its policy towards open source developers. Get the details here."
If you want to email Trident Micro Public Relations, please be polite! Flaming will only hurt the chances that Trident will reverse this decision.
Don't ATI and NVidia make better portable video chips anyway? Just don't buy a laptop with a Trident chip...
i'll just stick with what i have.. it works fine for me
For future cards, can't some talented hackers figure out a solution? I mean, isn't that what open-source is (partially) about? Before hardware vendors started to 'supply' drivers, coders in the community wrote their own.
------
Random, useless fact: I type in startx entirely with my left hand.
I hear Ford no longer supports the Model T, either.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
As soon as vendors announce that they will be CyberBladeXP or later Trident chipsets simply send an email to the vendors sales department notifying them that you will not be buying their laptop because the video subsystem does not work with your chosen security-based operating system.
Trident won't respond to a few users, but they will respond to vendors who are fielding complaints.
I don't think Dilbert agrees with this decision either..
Looks like it is time to sell what Trident stock I have.
Limiting the ability for developers to create drivers in the open source market is like shooting oneself in the foot these days.
hrm... "XP"
i wonder if MS is in the backrooms twisting some arms...
... hi bingo
Trident hasn't been a player in graphics technology for years.
Probably as a result of poor business decisions like this, too.
If they make something worth buying, I'll worry about it. Until then...
This is a serious question:
Why do companies do this sort of thing with their products? It would seem to me that having the interface to a particular chip would not be particularly helpful to designing a competitor, ("Well, if I tell it to draw a blue square, it draws a blue square! I know how to copy that!") so what good does this do?
I've always been under the (possibly mistaken) impression that it made more sense to distribute specifications to everyone, so that others could use your hardware. If you have to write the drivers yourself for every operating system that you are going to allow to use your hardware then that would add quickly up to a rather large expense, wouldn't it?
Are drivers really that much of a proprietary, critical secret for hardware companies? Does having the source code for your drivers help anyone else create drivers for their products? What benefit is there in preventing others from having the drivers?
Sorry if these questions seem silly or unimportant, but I've never understood the other side of the secrecy of our drivers argument.
I have not read the article, but your wording implies that Trident is not supporting x86. Actually, isn't that tantamount to not supporting Linux?
And why did you not say Trident was not suppporting x86? And why did you not say Trident was not supporting Linux (de facto)?
I am behind Linux, and have it installed on computers in my house. I think it is important that I have a second choice, even though I USE Windows.
But I find you weasel-wording disingenuous here, especially since the Linux cadre come off as being straight shooters, and frankly, pride themselves on their bluntness.
Sig:
Navy nuke sub lifestyle?
Hey,
Posted by HeUnique on Thu August 30, 08:26 PM
I've never seen HeUnique before. Is he new, or have I just never noticed him before?
Michael
"Goodness me, how unlike the FBI to abuse the trust of the American public." -- The Onion
Man, the last trident video card I saw was PCI... With all the major brands going under, I wouldn't have expected Trident to last.
What do they expect to get from keeping their specs private?? It's not like they are the leading chipset maker, and other companies are attempting to steal some secrets.
Looking for any old 8-bit Heathkit/Zenith software/hardware - http://heathkit.garlanger.com
Does this mean soon I'll bave a decent X configuration for my Thinkpad 560? Currently The best way to view X is at 800X600 which sucks because half the applications run off the screen. The other option is something like 640x480. I know this chip can do better because I've seen windows do it. (A lot of early Thinkpads use the Trident Chip)
Aww poor baby...eat my taint!
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
(from the last post off xfree86.org on this issue):
/., they
will get 10 times as much flamage as reasoned argument, and be even more
convinced that Open Source is not where they care to invest their
efforts.
... woot!)
Significant amounts of well-reasoned arguments in emails from end users might possibly have an impact. Of course, as soon as this hits
sad, but true. there are a lot of good arguments to be made for keeping this information open to the public. but when an issue like this gets pushed into everyone's view it tends to generate comments that might push the company further away from open source instead of closer to it.
granted, the "cat's out of the bag" at this point, let's just hope trident sees the light and reverses their decision (before 3d acceleration took off, all i used was a trident, 2MBs of video RAM
_f
Looks like some of the replies on the mailing list are also worried about the response Trident may get from Slashdot....
answer your question?
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
I wouldn't quite call them crap, but they definitely seem to be far from the high end. I guess that, for someone used to a 32M graphics board, something like the trident style chipsets are gonna seem like crap.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Perhaps by some carefully worded email, we could get them to release a binary driver for Linux (AKA NVidia). At least we would not have to remove them from the hardware compatability lists.
Liberty is an inherently offensive lifestyle. Living in a free society guarantees that each one of us will see our most
Some dweeb from AOL; wasn't under the impression that they built buildings. Sig follows:
David Wexelblat, Chief Architect mailto:DavidWexelblat@aol.com
America Online, Inc http://www.aol.com
44900 Prentice Drive - 24B:P06 (703) 265-1158 (voice)
Dulles, VA 20166 (703) 265-1301 (fax)
Coulda been a Netscape refugee in which case he was too stupid to flee the sinking ship.
AC
We don't use Laptops with Trident video at my company, but they don't need to know that. As an administrator or approx 75+ laptops, maybe my voice will be heard... Probably not, and I'm not a huge fan of Trident cards either, but this is a blow to open source.
My company is about to buy 2 Linux workstations, and I'm concerned with which video card to go with.
Which vendors support open source developers (xfree86) the best? I would normally buy Nvidia-based systems for Windows, but from what I understand, their binary-only drivers are a disadvantage.
Any help would be greatly appreciated...
Back when I ran Linux (the 1.2.17 kernel days) I liked my Trident Video card. An 8900CL if I remember. It was well supported by DOSemu, so I could get stuff to work right with the video BIOS.
I remember most of the 'better' cards at the time were totally bad news with DOSemu.
It doesn't matter much anymore. Why would I want to emulate DOS? For that matter why would I want to run Linux or XFree? I have numerous machines running NetBSD, but Exceed on Windows 2000 is my Window Manager of choice these days.
My hypotheses are:
"Their chipsets have been quite popular in portable systems like notebooks and have been widely used as on-board chipsets in low cost desktop computers."
It was a small email that was linked in the story. Consider reading it.
If these companies really believe that their competitors can't do the same thing a 12 year old kid did to get the info, then they deserve whatever they get. I wish they could just see how stupid they are being and save the rest of us some time!
Hey there you go! Write them! Let them know how you feel! And when all 8 or 9 of you write, they'll be sure to release their documentation to Linux folks then! Reality check folks: They could frankly give a DAMN about Linux users! Drop in the bucket! Write them? HAH! MAN is that funny! Quit deluding yourselves. Linux has no market share in the desktop. Hence, HW manufacturers DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU! Suggestion: Get a Mac / OS X. Then you can have your Unix apps AND hardware support. Not to mention a desktop GUI that isn't a piece of crap.
wow... i didnt even know they were still around. i remember hacking through an old flamoots intro to figure out hwo to tweak the register to get 512x384 or something like that on my old TVGA8900, when it was still a recent card :)
So THATS where the Rambus Lawyers went!
because sometimes it's nice to pretend that we're intelligent people, not hysterical zealots. for every "YUO SUCK BEACASUE LUNIX SI GOD!!!!!11" email they get, they'll lose that much more confidence in "us" as a viable market.
while i think one of the earlier posts was right --that trident probably won't listen to a few emails-- it doesn't hurt to try. maybe i won't have a hard time living without trident cards (or at least acceleration on them), but i don't want to stand around while another company helps make closed documentation the norm. i'd rather companies be more friendly to the people who want to do free work for them (open source developers), and sending them email will probably let them know that better than me bitching about it on slashdot.
"Mister Potato-head --MISTER POTATO-HEAD! Backdoors are not secrets!" (War Games, 1983)
As a purchasing officer at the government office where I work I have final authority over what is purchased in terms of computer equipment. It is now a requirement for our organisation that all computer equipment (x86)be capable of running both Linux and Windows. This is because we can then provide a single hardware platform and support all of our end users.
If your company does not provide the information to the xfree86 developers then you will in all liklehood lose more than just the 5% of linux desktops, but also a significant number of windows desktop sales as well.
Cheers
It turns out that I am not just making this up. I do have final purchase authority and I _do_ require linux compatible hardware.
Push the purchasers for your company and/or school to notify suppliers that you won't be accepting Trident chipsets because of this decision. Inform them that you need to be able to use your machines interchangably, and if Trident chipsets are not being supported by Linux, you won't be able to use them in your Linux boxes...
It's easier if you know that, in a crunch, you're not going to have interchangability problems with a machine because of Trident's unwillingness to support Linux. This leverages a possible 5-20% linux market share into a 100% purchase decision, on firm financial/operations grounds.
Something to note is that, even where Linux may not be a high percentage of a groups machine count, Linux boxes are often in a high profile or critical area. Being unable to deploy a machine into such a location could be a real impact to the company. If nothing else, it's just an unwelcome annoyance.
An OEM faced with a choice between losing a medium-large customer or switching to a 'widely supported chipset', is more likely to walk away from Trident. that sort of pressure is something that is likely to be 'heard' by the company.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
there has always been a bit of confusion over trident drivers
e.g. the CYBER9385 this had at one stage 3 drivers distributed in a major release this is because they named chips the same
Trident supplies low cost chips because they are small (as in die size) and thus makes them less power hungry which is essential in laptops
the problem is that lately they have done into the onboard chipset market with Mother Board manufactures garbing them as a cheap way to stick video on board
then trident accelerated parts of their chips for these vendors
they have always been tight but allowed NDA people to help out writing drivers
the people you should complain to are the MB manufacturers who properly paid for the work to be done
so this begs the question who uses trident that you know ?
me I know SIS do so
write to
China
Ms. Ellie Yin
Tel:886+2+29161619 ext.346
E-mail: ellie@sis.com.tw.
Europe, Taiwan, Japan, Korea:
Ms. Jessie Lee
Tel:886+2+29161619 ext.341
E-mail: jessie@sis.com.tw
America(Canada,U.S., and Latin America), Oceania:
Miss Michele Huang
Tel:886+2+29161619 ext.345
E-mail: michele@sis.com.tw.
for your appropriate dealer
regards
john jones
Why even write the bastards? They've already shot themselves in the head. If they don't die off from lack of sales, they'll figure it out eventually and come crawling back.
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
To: public_relations@tridentmicro.com
I'm writing to register my displeasure for trident's new policy towards open source. Making your documentation available is not a whole lot to ask, and in the process of not working with us, you are alienating a large group of people and technologies.
Thanks for lissening.
Toby
The opinions expressed in this email are mine, and are not necessarily those of my employer.
I thought to check the Yahoo stock message boards and hit them in the wallet (the only place a big company really listens), and it looks like someone beat me to the punch. You may want to mention the economic side of things if you write to Investor Relations as well as the PR people. The addresses are there in the referenced post:
Yahoo TRID stock message board
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo! http://goo.gl/J9bkO
Simple... buy off enough Video card manufacturers to not open their drivers. I bet this is a trial balloon!
:-(
Think of it! How far can Linux get on the desktop without decent Xfree86 drivers in the future... not far at all... NO GAMES, NO 3D EXCEL... Linux is dead
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No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come.
- Victor Hugo
/me power down
/me pulls the trident 2 meg out of the firewall.... throws behind me.
/me then installs a nvidia based tnt2 ($40.00)
/shout firewalls up!
"Their chipsets have been quite popular in portable systems like notebooks and have been widely used as on-board chipsets in low cost desktop computers."
The problem with the phrase "quite popular" is that it can mean a lot of things. Unfortunately, in this case, it means "quite popular" behind Nvidia's new mobile chips, ATI's more than 50% market share, and NeoMagic.
The war between ATI and Nvidia in particular is likely going to squeeze out smaller companies like Trident, just like what happened in the desktop world.
I may be a Bear on Trident, but that doesn't make me a Troll.
We just bought a new LED signboard at work, the kind you see at banks in the US flashing APRs and the temperature. It's controlled by connecting the sign to a box, and the box to your computer's serial port.
The coolest thing about it was the appendix in the back of the user manual that contained complete schematics to the sign and the box. It also had some instructions on how to create neat graphic effects.
The client software that comes with it is for Windows, but with the appendix info I could create a client for whatever system I wanted.
My question is why don't more companies do this? I mean all of this schematic info should be copyrighted/patented anyway, so you don't have to worry about someone ripping you off. Are they just lazy or what?
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
...it may be safe to assume that the 'Tier 1' vendors such as IBM, Compaq, and others that are embracing the open source community won't use a Trident chipset.
Those that don't, such as Dell, can use Tridents and guarantee that folks won't purchase those laptops.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
Seems to me like a braindead marketroid decision.
its good Idea beacuse the banks often watch these for rumors
Guys. I used this chipset before. CyberBladeXP...with performance level on par with Rage 128...enuf talk.
Let's see who else gets that reference. Mod this up to funny!!
This is almost entirely true. I "specify", but we have others who input into the process (who will all feel the same way about non-supported hardware). This is a "we don't want customers who run Linux, *BSD or other XFree-based platforms" decision.
there are a lot of good arguments to be made for keeping this information open to the public.
Very true. And since the contact address given was public_relations@tridentmicro.com, I chose a PR-related arguement: first of all, all open source users (growing in number!) will have to avoid this new chipset, since it won't be supported. But more importantly, we'll remember Trident's decision and be less likely to support them in the future. Here's the letter I sent to that address; feel free use it as an inspiration for a note (not flame) of your own:
Hi -
I recently learned that Trident has decided not to provide chipset
documentation for the CyberBladeXP chipset to open source developers.
The effect of this decision is that Trident customers who choose to use
open source operating systems such as Linux or BSD with their computers
will not enjoy the full functionality of their CyberBladeXP video
systems. In fact, the systems may not work at all.
Besides being rude and alienating to your own customers, this news of
these non-functioning systems will spread by word of mouth, and people
will avoid Trident chipsets intentionally. At first, it will only be
certain chipsets that they try to avoid. But, as I'm sure you know, once
a company's name has been associated with a poor product, it becomes
difficult to trust that company for other products, as well.
In short, I'm not sure if I would even have bought a CyberBladeXP chip
from any vendor. But now that I know it won't work on my system, I will
be sure to avoid it. And now that I know Trident is upsupportive of my
software, I will probably have to avoid your products altogether in the
future.
Please reconsider your decision about the chipset documentation.
Sincerely,
[my name was here, put in yours]
A wide range of comments:
.8W of power. It has an integrated T&L Engine, and it's windows performance is decent. It is not an SMA chipset either. It has it's own framebuffer.
The trident BladeXP is a low end chip, but offers several nice things. For starters, it uses up a total of
HP is the major vendor that ships with Trident in thier laptops. Complain to HP as well, and tell them they're losing business. THEY will put pressure on trident.
I baught my HP N5430 (Duron 850) BECAUSE it has a trident chip and not an ATI one. (Compaq ships their duron notebooks with ATI). I figured that trident has always supported Linux, so this would be no different.. Now HP got my money, Trident got my money, and I got shafted.
I've been in touch with trident to get the docs, and they gave me the Blade3D (same line as CyberBlade series in Vaio's, etc..) specs easily enough, but the BladeXP requires a restrictive NDA.
Alan Houraine (sp?) is the XFree developer who's been workingon this, and is having the same problem I did.
The 2D support is unaccelerated, but quite tolerable with shadowFB enabled for this chipset. I'm writing this from my laptop now and in general, I'm quite happy about how 2D is working. Makes me wonder just how good accelerated 2D would be. Go here for info on how to configure this chip under Linux.
pm.
- --
"I Hate Quotes" -- Samuel L. Clemens
You know, this is just the sort of response we DON'T need to see. A simple "I can't put my support behind a company that closes all aspects of its technology and does not support Open Source," would be a much better way of convincing them to change their minds.
Even Slashdot wants to hide some things
Embedded kiosk, set-top, etc. applications are where they're really trying to sell to- if they've not shot themselves in the head, it's definitely in the foot with an Mach-10 machine pistol on full auto...
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
touche' - excellent point. I wonder if this little tidbit has dawned on them yet....:)
... and I run Linux on them.
What I really want is a web site that rates vendors based on how much information they provide to Open Source developers and on what terms. Something like the documentation that comes with gphoto, which says exactly which vendors provided specs to the developers.
I don't care about seeing which video card has the highest performance and then hoping someone can reverse-engineer a driver for that card. That's bass-ackwards. First I want to know whether the vendor provides free specs, and then I will choose between those vendors who do.
Now the trick will be to spin this in a way that Microsoft takes responsibility for this anti competitive move.
Like I stated before, they'll eventually figure it out and come crawling back in the end... ;-)
So, I guess this will probably turn out to be a GOOD thing for open source developers. hehe.
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
Looks like it is time to sell what Trident stock I have.
OK, how much do you own? Just kidding, we know you don't own any.
Limiting the ability for developers to create drivers in the open source market is like shooting oneself in the foot these days.
How so? Who has been harmed by this? How is this shooting yourself in the foot? Because Wells2K will sell the billions in stock he owns in your company? Oh wait, is that what this big tech downturn is all about? Nobody's releasing open source driver info, so they're all tanking? Or is it just your massive profit-taking spree from formerly wise investments like Trident? Hey, they went down over 7% today, CLEARLY a backlash from the open source community and its collective investments of TENS of dollars, primarily in used hardware, and a very good time to sell.
I think the parent post was intended to be sarcastic.
public_relations@tridentmicro.com
To whom it may concern,
I'd just like to express my disappointment at your recent decision of no documentation to open source projects.
As a proponent of open source, specifically linux, I've always purchased hardware that was linux compatible. It is likely that forthcoming hardware from Trident Microsystems will not be be supported by the open source community, due to a lack of vendor documentation.
If this is the case, I, and many others I'm sure, will be forced to choose hardware that does not make use of the Trident chipsets.
I'd like to urge you to reconsider your decision.
Thank you for your time.
there are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots
Well I just read the news on slashdot, that you people have has changed
your policy of providing chipset documentation to open source
projects.
I find this very sad!
I myself have a Toshiba Tecra 8200 with a Trident Cyberblade XP.
Unfortuanatly im not able to run it on linux, like my server and
workstation does, because I need HW acc. in X and TV-OUT support. Im
very dissapointed about your decision. Please support open source. Major
companies like matrox and nvidia have great linux support. If you don't
want to be left out, support Open Source!
Let's see if they sell more chips this way. Somehow I doubt it.
I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet -Stanislaw Lem
I just sent them this:
Dear Sirs:
How can it possibly benefit your company to require an NDA for the documentation on how to use your graphics chipsets?
Several years ago, when I was consulting for Hewlett-Packard, I was informed that HP considered the data on instruction latencies in the PA/RISC architecture to be highly proprietary, and access to it was strictly controlled by their in-house compiler development group. Indeed, even other parts of H-P were unable to get it.
The upshot was that GCC was unable to include a decent optimizer for PA/RISC, and consequently designers chose PPC, SPARC, MIPS, and the products of other, more cooperative vendors for their designs. Heard anything about PA/RISC lately?
Frankly, I'm as astounded by your stupidity as I was at theirs.
-jcr
"These kids today don't know the simple joy of saving four bytes of page-0 memory on a 6502" - unknown
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Why do PC hardware manufacturers now think they are so special? Manufacturers of electronics *always* publish specs! Would you go out and buy some chip to integrate into a design that you didn't know specs for?
Trident is heavily used in embededd and low power situations. A lot of times, people are writing code that will directly drive the hardware! By these people deciding not to publish specs on the hardware, they are really screwing up.
I certainly am not buying a load of Trident chips and just nodding my head about the catch of "Oh, by the way, you aren't allowed to know how these work. Just use Windows." My ass I will! Windows doesn't exactly run too sharp on a device that has a few MB of RAM, and no writeable local storage otherwise. Especially a device based on something of equivalent power to a 486.
Trident: Wake up. People use you because it's easy to integrate your chips into designs, and because the chips are low power and don't include frivolous functionality. It certainly isn't because of your lack of features and low graphics power.
Matrox has always had the best cross-platform support. This attitude/policy is probably directly responsible for the majority of their sales, so you can be confident that they will remain open (i.e. if they pulled what Trident just did, the sidden drop in income).
Get G450 if you're going to be doing fancy stuff (dual head, 3D, etc) on your new workstations, or the older G200 if you just need excellent quality/speed, but vanilla features.
Competitive advantages w/ hardware often turn on clever use of data flow within chip designs, and it is often possible to obtain patents on such designs. At the same time, aspects of these designs are often exposed in driver API's.
It is a common beleif (I've had lawyers give conflicting advice in this area) that protecting API's under NDA's helps defend against a competitor figuring out what you're doing from "public domain" information and thereby having a legal basis to circumvent a patent.
The technical and legal merit of this position are certainly arguable.
You could also add that "opening" an API requires spending some effort (and $) spent on creating publicly readable documentation (although I've had to work with documentation from many non-English companies that apparently hired elementary school students to translate...)
Closed source drivers for such cards seem like a great solution for this problem, but many people in the open source community have 'religious' problems with this.
Part of this information is retrieved from a person I know and part of it is fiction. The relevance to the XFree thing is the last two paragraphs.
So here is the thing.
Trident has filed a patent for a technology that they want to use in their new line of chips. We can all agree on how evil patents are, but they are allowed to file patents. In order to use a patent pending status, you can't disclose source code or specs. That being freely available invites others to implement the technology. So to be awarded a patent one must take reasonable steps to prevent others from copying the design. If that isn't being done, the patent can be considered void in a patent lawsuit. After that, the technology is considered Public Domain.
If Trident wishes that this patent goes through, they need to take this action. Otherwise somebody can simply retrieve a spec from them and/or work out the source code and reimplement in another chip.
I could care less if Microsoft subsidised this or not. Trident is allowed to publish specs if they want to and withold them if they so desire. This is their right.
All I know is that I will not be purchasing any Trident products in the future. This is my right. Until the day that legislators tell me that I MUST buy a Trident product I am not going to complain about this. There are plenty of other chip makers out there and they make good stuff. In my opinion, Trident chips have always been flaky and low budget.
Alex
Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. -Ayn Rand
Note engineer/programmer positions requiring driver level skill sets specific to Microsoft operating systems.
Well, one might hope they already have staff inhouse up to speed on X Free86.
Any volunteers willing to apply and cause change from within?
I'm taking this time to ask your company to reconsider your decision to not
release chip-level specifications for your graphics chips line. Many people
rely on the open-source xfree86 team to provide us with good 2d acceleration
on the desktop for various operating system platforms.
If the decision stands, my company will be forced to reconsider the purchase
of future systems containing a trident chipset.I will also write correspondence to the OEM's that have your chipsets in their systems.
Thank you for your consideration.
I think if enough people send mail like this there's a chance Trident will reverse their decision.
Hello,
My name is Travis Whitton, and I am an avid user of open source technology including the Linux operating system and XFree86 server architecture. I have recently learned that you have made a decision to desist in releasing chipset documentation to open source developers under an NDA that allows them to publicly distribute their source code. I find this change in policy upsetting due to the fact that it means that hardware containing your future chipsets will be incompatible with my operating of choice. As a consumer, I have to make decisions about what purchases make the most sense to me, so why would I buy a product that I can't utilize to the same degree as I can other alternatives? I currently own a laptop that does contain a Trident chipset, and I've found it to work very nicely under Linux with XFree86; however, if you decide to continue down the path which you have recently decided to embark upon(proprietary hardware with closed specifications), then there will be little chance of me investing in a machine containing your chipset in the future because I won't be able to use it. In lieu of this fact, I implore you to reconsider your decision and please continue to release your hardware specifications to the open source community. We are an important niche that's growing all the time, and we invite you to grow with us.
Sincerely,
Travis Whitton
I have a 560 P133 with an 11.3" DS display. It can only do 800x600. Or were you talking about external displays?
FWIW, I'm running Debian on it and it has worked great for years.
- What you like on their hardware that you'd want in the future. A cool way to seal the case closed, lack of noise, the choice of the components.
- What you dislike.
- Your concerns about the future (e.g.: this box has a trident video board and the specs were available for free software developers, future trident board won't, and that would prevent me from buying your hardware again in the future)
- Remember to mention that being compatible with non-MS systems (or at least having reasonable hardware, which specs are available) is a major must-have on computers you buy
Good manufacturers will like to hear from you. And it's much more important writing such a feedback about portables, where changing the video board is not simple, many times not possible.This is also valid for the computer(s) you use at your work place. If you can gather some co-workers to agree about the matter, write a memo to whoever is responsible for buying hardware in your company, have him/her write the computer supplier about what the company's concerns are. A big annual sale can make the manufacturer worry more about driver availability.
How many goddamned accounts do you have, anyway?
Way to go, Trident. Found yourself squeezed out of the market, and now what do you do? Shoot yourself in the foot! Way to go. Couldn't have happened to a nicer company.
Trident chips suck anyway? The people who buy notebooks with the CyberBlade chip probably won't even notice that its unaccelerated!
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Dear Sir,
I am a happy owner of an Acer TravelMate 340T with a Trident chipset in it. The first thing after bringing the laptop home was to install Linux Mandrake 8.0. I even tried running the initial part of the Mandrake installation program in the shop to see if the hardware in the notebook was supported by linux, before deciding on bying the laptop!
I am very sad to hear that you have decided not to support open source drivers for your upcoming chipsets and I am sure it will affect your sales negatively in the long run.
Best regards,
Peter Favrholdt
For the chips Trident has already provided support to us the support will continue it just won't look so good PR wise when the comments come from hackers saying nasty things in the source code.
The fact is once support is provided it never gose away. Drivers will live on..
I have two scanners that only work on Linux becouse the Windows drivers are obsolete.. Both support only Windows 3.11... with a patch to 95 they work on 95.. but not 98..
On the other hand drivers for new Trident products won't be available. So we'll just won't buy new Trident products.
It seems to happen every so often some company gains notice for providing support for Microsoft compeditors (Mac or Linux) and then for some mistereous reason the company with larg amounts of positive PR for supporting Linux and Mac and a "must have" product on those platforms suddenly pulls the plug... There is never a reason given and the company always suffers for it.
Excuse me for sounding paranoid for a moment but I smell Microsofts hand...
The company that falls apart almost always seems to do so for unrelated reasons.
So here are my conspericy type theroys..
Microsofts people have walked through offering jobs to employees of existing company..
Those that accept are asked to pull strings in certen areas for Microsoft..
Stop support for compeating platforms and damage company in a number of ways.
Leave dying hulk of company to Microsoft..
Posability number two..
Company is dying...
Microsoft people say "Hay all this open source support your giving isn't helping you.. just dump it" healthy companys don't pay attention to this.. dying companys look for anything...
But Microsofts suggestions don't help dying companys and dying companys should know better than to turn to Microsoft for advice.
In the face of this I don't beleave anyone will be hearing our complaints.
But if you feel you must respond please please like all the threads say.. be polite.. be clear.. don't for the love of Cmdr Taco mention Microsoft, 31337 or saying anything bad to them.
Be a statesperson.. be nice.. polite.. and kind. Piriod...
I don't actually exist.
This is just speculation, but the Netpliance device had a Trident Cyberblade chip in it. Partially because the Netpliance was hacked to run linux, that meant that the company was not making the money of the ISP usage of it. Therefore Netpliance stopped making them. And trident lost a customer. Just food for thought.
BWHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!
If thats all that MS can do , we are in great shape!
3D EXCEL would be cool though. I have never liked 2d spreadsheets
Please tell me that this is just slashdotting, and not some fanatic opensource lunatic hacking their website in response to this... Because the latter would be a real pathetic response.
A couple of (preview) minutes later: hey, it's back. However it's not the same Trident corporation. This seems the link to the 'right' Trident. Hmm.. two choices: cancel this post, or post it in the hope that it may keep some poor misguided fanatic from doing something stupid....
karma capped
Lick mine gently.
An idiotic company that just happens to make the extremely popular Prism 802.11 chip line. Check out their driver authorship support: $20K and up for reference source.
They imagine they're a software company, or what?
Only possible defence is that somebody else grabs the API and fabs a chipset for less that's Prism compatible.
perhaps they are about to implement a cool new graphics acceleration gizmo AKA sw drivers (a la winmodem and on the same line as shared system memory that so many clueless laptop users think it's cool 'cause they never heard about it before) ;)
Who knows, on a friggin' GHz machine the avg mail/word/exel drone won't see the difference unless
an open interface spec gives trident away
Mi domando chi à il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan
Received an reponse from Trident:
Anyone know if this is the case?
I'm pretty disappointed. Trident cards have always been very cheap, and their 2D performance has always been great. Their cards are GREAT for rolling out lots of low-cost workstations, especially systems running XFree86.
:(
I wrote them a nice letter. I hope someone reads it
-- I'll cut you up so bad, you'll wish I'd never cut you up so bad!
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
It occurs to me that this could be a start in a war in the embedded market. Afterall, MS has fallen seriously short in this market where Linux based products such as Lineo are really starting to shine.
MS has really been blowing their horn over the recent CE release including giving a lot of it away to encourage developers and manufactures.
Trident plays into this market as low power, mobile and embedded systems is their main market segment.
The embedded market is really screaming. It is possible that Trident's chipset warrants some IP protection. And if patent issues are truely behind this issue, then has it occured to anyone that maybe it's time for the community to support a company that has supported us? I could survive with a binary only dist. for this chipset for awhile, as long is it worked.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
On behalf of Trident Microsystems, I would like to state on the record that Trident has not changed our policy of providing chipset documentation to open source projects. Trident however continues to require an NDA to be signed in order to gain access to such confidential technical information.
He posted it at 10PM.
didn't fool anyone, but cute
sure..services and all that..but linux has many problems and exploits weekly in MANY areas, not just running services. Mouse daemons, consoles, and many of the mp3/icq/cdburner/xapps and blah balh...you just don't have any idea, do you? OpenBSD's big complaint from many Lye-nux users is that "it doesn't run (insert fav kiddie app here)" and they leave...it doesn't run them BECAUSE of that very reason! Sure, some apps/ports are gonna break or be found insecure, but Linux distributions (not necessarily the kernel itself, which is BEAUTIFUL) are insecure shit that is not-ready-for-prime-time....deal with it. It's a step above the OTHER desktop Operating Systems people are using (win32) but it's NOT as secure as OpenBSD...sorry..you must acccept it. I know it's more fun, functional, and runs everything that you need, and that OBSD has some catching up to do in the apps dept, but I've already provided you with a BIG reason why they should be considered different tools for different jobs...damn kids.
some dinosaurs still walk eh? I accept that MS will be a HUGE factor, forever most likely, but saying that free unices are going dodo is just plain ..well..obtuse. YOU need to wake the FUCK up! Look outside of America, it isn't always about licensing or super-huge-conglomerate-pre-shrinkwrapped-digestab le-CORPORATE $...some developing (developing netizens, not 3rd world-hunger types) countries can't afford nor would want to be tied to a US-centric and well...DUBIOUS if not damn untrustworthy Co. like M$ ...forget $. forget ideology....they will use the right tool for the job. I know that win32 isn't going anywhere, but that linux/*bsd will DEFINITELY increase, so why can't you accept it...oh yeah...You're a fucking troll.
but do any of these stupid marketroids realize that they will eventually NOT be the most badass chip on the market, after all...everybody eventually falls (ati, 3dfx, and soon nvidia, which has had quite a run from ati...I'm impressed with ati's resilience) from market dominance. If nVidia is pretentious enough to think they will never be 2nd place, and Trident to be foolish enough to think that they may actually gain significant market share by witholding specs for a (predictably) second rate (at best) card, then I say good riddance to ALL or em.
up above, in a previous post...blah blah..2 users..we get it already...you should know better...and how could you be modded up already...fawking trolls are in charge tonight...sigh enjoy.
dumbass...what do you think that we do here?
so besides trolling slashdot, now we are sending our trolls to write nasty, immature letters to companies, signing them "a Linux advocate/user" or whatever the hell...the M$ trolls need more resources then, if they want to troll /. AND impersonate linux users (badly) on petitions and such...I'm telling ya taco...it's time for REGISTRATION and CENSORSHIP...I mean it..protect the legitimate interests for all of our sakes, don't let the mstrolls ruin it by attacking businesses while disguised as some crazed /. linux fan
the same thing here all night...all 2 of you...all eight of you..blah blah blah
aren't you cute? keep em coming fucker
and I'm tired of a bunch of (other) AC's telling me I'm full of shit...let em ramble on...we can continue to go about our busines.
After installing XFree 4.0 XF86Config began to give segfaults everytime I ran it with a long list of errors pertaining to Trident cards. I was told that the XFree project temporarily stopped updating XF86Config with the newer versions 4.x, perhaps this is what was causing the problem? If so, I'm not too happy w/ whoever made the decision at the Trident company as XF86Config was by far the quickest way to update X configuration and all though I'm pleased in general with XFree 4.0, I really wish I had my XF86Config back.
Not secure as OpenBSD, not matter file permisions, setting UIDs, SUIDs, firewal conf, temp dir, SVGA ? Darn UNIX newbies.
I wouldn't use a PC with a Trident chipset anyway. They just lost one more customer that they didn't have anyway. On a more general point, companies who underestimate the future market importance of Linux are shooting themselves in the head. Once lost, custom is hard to regain. They may also be closing themselves off from a large part of the mobile internet revolution which will be happening in the next two to five years where Linux has a possibility of being a big player. Not a good move Trident.
return 0; }
Two reasons for this, 1, I don't like companies that don't support my choice of OS, it limits my choice as a consumer and possibly my companies future IT stratergy. 2, I perfer Dells anyway but as most of the company is on Toshiba laptops it made sense to stay with tosh until a good reason to change came alone.
I really wonder why they have done this, maybe it's Xig making deals again (no good Xfree86 support means people stuck Tridents have to buy the Xig sever)?? Thanks again Trident, my new Dell laptop will have a Geforce2go.
A journey of a thousand miles starts with a brutal anal raping at airport security
More info from Egbert. It appears this might be miscommunication. I suggest we stop petitioning for a little while to see what happens next.
Stop the brainwash
IBM or some other big company to talk some sense into them?
Yes this might be able to brush off some independant developers, but a multibillion dollar corporation is much harder to say no to.
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
XFree86 has received word by Trident Microsystems, Inc.
that there was never a change in policy.
My wording in this posting may have been a little inaccurate.
I've tried to put together some more facts in a further posting.
Egbert.
The link:u st /011023.html
http://www.xfree86.org/pipermail/xpert/2001-Aug
Soooooo, lets see what slashdot does now.
There is a "clearification" by the original email author. Check it out by clicking "Next Message" in the original article or
t /011023.html
http://www.xfree86.org/pipermail/xpert/2001-Augus
I think that this narritive and background were needed before the public relation email address was paraded around.