The SLI Godfather

CaptCanuk writes "Phoronix has an insightful article about the motivation behind Nvidia's alternative operating system support. From the article: 'When it comes time for a user to upgrade their computer hardware, and decide to go with a choice from a leading manufacturer of graphics solutions, software support is a given, correct? Wrong.' Read on to find out what truly funds their development and why some think they treat Linux as a second hand citizen."

Comments

This should be on the front page

[BadAnalogyGuy]

This sort of thing should be common knowledge to every single person interested in computers. This is how everything works in the "real world" or software development. It boils down to following the money and who needs something the most.

If Microsoft didn't have such a significant segment of the PC market, they would also have to make deals with hardware manufacturers to get drivers written. NVIDIA needs to support Microsoft, so NVIDIA foots the bill with tons of help from MS. HP needed NVIDIA support, so HP was the one who ended up paying for the development.

It's not about conspiracies, it's about money and the need to have a hand in a market segment. If Linux owned a significant percentage of PCs, you'd see NVIDIA tripping over themselves to get a driver written (if it weren't a trade secret risk).

Re:Driver support

[ubersonic]

> You are a statistical outlier. Most people you know may have Linux ambitions, but most of everyone else doesn't.

Maybe where you live, but here in germany Linux is a lot more mainstream.