VIA Announces Open Source Driver Initiative

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday April 8, 2008 @09:37AM from the itching-for-source dept.

Aron Schatz writes "VIA has announced that they will start a new site (http://linux.via.com.tw — doesn't exist yet) specifically for the development of open source drivers. From their press release: 'Over the following months, VIA will work with the community to enable 2D, 3D and video playback acceleration to ensure the best possible Open Source experience on VIA Processor Platforms. 'To further improve cooperation with the community, VIA will also adhere to a regular quarterly release schedule that is aligned with kernel changes and release of major Linux distributions. In addition, beta releases will be issued on the site as needed, and a bug report and tracking feature will also be integrated.' Nvidia should be next."

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What about releasing documentation on their chips? by Anonymous Coward · 2008-04-08 11:58 · Score: -1, Redundant

Instead of just releasing source code, why can't they also release documentation for developers to write the drivers for other non-linux OS'?

Having linux-specific source code drivers does not benefit the open-source community as a whole, it means that we are reliant on one vendor to maintain and fix bugs in the driver, rather than giving the power to the community, which is what open-source is about...