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Open Source Graphic Card Project Seeks Experts
An anonymous reader writes "Could this dream of many open source developers and users finally happen? A 100% open sourced graphic card with 3D support? Proper 3D card support for OpenBSD, NetBSD and other minority operating systems? A company named Tech Source will try to make it happen. You can download the preliminary specs for the card here (pdf). The project, though a commercial one, wants to become a true community project and encourages experts and everyone who have good ideas to add to the development process to join the mailing list. You can also sign a petition and tell how much you would be willing to pay for the final product."
I've kind of waited for this for years.
In theory other companies might steal the design and build and sell the card on their own, but if the design is community-owned, then that actually works to lower prices...
Anonymous Cow
This is a really great idea, but it will probably never work, a mailing list will bring way to many points of view.
Really what a project like this needs is the developer to shut out the open source community, until the project is done. If linus had made a large project out of the original kernel, I seriously doubt if it would have ever been completed. This should be kept simple, and then open sourced, only once there is a good code base to build from.
Hardly a dupe, since the project has risen from speculation to preliminary specs and a petition.
Do you see what I did there?
If you'd read-up on this subject, you'd have seen that these folk *do* know their hardware.
They are also not being overly ambitious. While they expect to be able to develop a card which has 3D accelleration for desktop applications, they make no bold claims about gaming.
Indeed, this card is being designed as the ideal desktop-card for open-source systems with open-source drivers and firmware. Any gaming performance, while unlikely, should be treated as a bonus.
I have already pledged my intention to buy one of these cards just out of curiosity.
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
It seems to me that 2D quality and clarity is much more important than 3D performance in their target market.
A harder problem is getting enough of the target audience to accept that they're in the target audience, because people (or at least americans; i can't speak for other cultures) like to have the possibility of doing something, even if they'll never do it (hence the ubiquity of SUVs on our roads, but i digress). This should be easier with people that use open-source software though; 3D-intensive software for those isn't nearly as common as on windows.
That said, if they can convince someone to slap it on a PCB, i'll keep an eye out for these things next time i need a video card.
Y'know, you blow up one sun and suddenly everyone expects you to walk on water.
It's like saying:
"No, it's impossible to build a replacement for Microsoft Office. Do you realize how much time, how many thousands of man hours went into this software?"
But there you go, Open Office is doing pretty well.
If anything, development of a good "open-source" 3D card could be hampered by patents.
tech source makes graphics cards for sun microsystems computers, i've got a raptor in one of my ultrasparc10's. I'm sure they have some fabrication experience, just visit their website, they've got quite a few products.
If you read the mailing list archive, you'll see that what they are proposing is a card with simple, OpenGL compatible 3D. The interface will be PCI at first. My impression is that they have mini-ITX boards in mind. The last paragraph of your post is correct: they will probably target commodity Linux (and significantly, BSD) boxes.
I think that this is a great idea. Right now, if you want open source 3D, the only good hardware available is the Matrox G400/450/550 line, and that's over 5 years old. I bought my G450 in 1999 and am still using it quite happily, but I would certainly buy an open hardware card from Tech Source if this project comes to fruition.
As someone on OSNews posted, this project could be profitable for a small company even if it would be considered a flop by ATI or Nvidia.
if the card can target elementary 3D and stellar 2D, it could (in a few years) be THE card to own for a commodity Linux box.
Commodity Linux boxes already have elementary 3D and stellar 2D. It's called Intel Extreme Graphics, has open source drivers, and it costs like $10.
Just want to repeat that $10 figure again. You are a going to have to do better than Fanboyism to beat that.
For 99% of users, this could be a great card. If it does great 2D, and can do good 3D (especially features like those used in Apple's Quartz, or Project Looking Glass) it would work more than well enough. Lets face it, for a large number of applications, a GeForce (origional) quality 3D would be MORE than enough for most anything many people would do. And if the graphics are localized into a small area (say a little 200x200 area of a window), then even such a card would be able to render very nice looking graphics (just like a "slow" card could run Doom 3 looking great at such a low resolution).
I'm with you. For a quality, commodity card this could be great. Plus, with the FPGA, not only could be hack the DRIVERS, you could hack the FIRMWARE! Think! You could buy the card, and write software to take the burden off the CPU for decoding MPEG2 or 4. You could even (with a little kernel help) swap firmware on the fly so you could have that video decoding, and then enter a command (or press a button on your desktop) to have the 3D firmware put in. When you're done, go back to video decoding acceleration.
Hell, make it run SETI in the background at super fast speed when just using 2D (like using nVidia cards to do scientific calculations on the GPU).
These things could be a LOT of fun to mess around with. I think I just sold myself on one ;)
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
It's better to have a finished product that meets a limited set of goals than an over-engineered design that never gets properly implemented...
The problem is, 2D compositing is in the process of shifting to being 3D accelerated right now. OS X has been for a couple of years now, Longhorn will be, and X.org is in the process of doing so.
You end up with much smoother window rendering, and it allows you to add in things like desktop transparency and shadowing without much of a performance hit. A 2D only card may be "good enough" for some, but the desktop environments are quickly moving in a direction where that may no longer be the case by time this card would come to market. Going for at least rudimentary OpenGL support from the start would be a good idea.