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VIA Releases 16K-Line FOSS Framebuffer Driver
billybob2 writes "VIA has released 16,434 Lines Of Free & Open Source code that enables Linux natively to use the framebuffer on VIA's graphics chipsets. This comes a month after VIA announced that it will provide Open-Source drivers and documentation on its Web site so that its hardware will work out of the box with Linux distributions. This gives VIA-powered systems that come pre-installed with Linux — such as the gPC, 15.4" gBook, CloudBook, and Zonbu — the ability to output graphics through digital connections such as HDMI, and probably makes them the best-supported framebuffers Linux has ever had. Look forward to documentation and X.org drivers from VIA as well in the near future."
How does a summary that reads "VIA announced that it will provide Open-Source drivers and documentation on its Web site so that its hardware will work out of the box with Linux distributions" translate, in your mind, to "Via just don't want to develop their Linux drivers anymore"?
The story sounds more like they are opening development up to the FOSS community, not "giving up". This should be applauded.
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(1) I think you vastly underestimate the complexity of modern framebuffer management. I know our game engine has several thousand lines of code just to manage page flipping in all the various combinations (different hardware, SLI cards, etc), and that is even with DirectX drivers doing most of the heavy lifting.
(2) Why are the first few comments so negative? First you criticize all the graphics vendors becuase they won't open up their code, then when VIA goes and *does* open up their code, the first reactions are so critical? What the hell? Just take it for what it is: a gesture of openness and an opportunity for the community to pick up VIA's code and maybe make some interesting things out of it?
Hang on, you think more lines would be a boast? I would think *only* 16k lines would be the boast here.
In addition, Windows Vista 64-bit requires
Which has what, exactly, to do with a Linux framebuffer driver?
Sure, having the source, we could proably port it to the Windows world, but the Windows world has no shortage of drivers already. Granted, they don't always count as the most reliable option, but at the risk of sounding a tad snarky - You run Vista 64-bit, "reliable" doesn't really enter the picture.
Making a chip output the console to HDMI with 16k lines?
Pretty cool in my books.
The world benefits from docs not drivers.
BSD and Linux drivers for framebuffers will be rather different.
VIA will never ever support my OS of choice (Plan9) and I don't expect them to, thats what the documentation is for. And no, source code is not documentation when it comes to drivers, it's one person's interpretation of what they read/fiddled with to get it to work. Porting drivers is more work that you seem to think.
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I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to say there, but I read it as "BSD can just copy the source code from Linux". If that's the case, there's a technical reason why you're wrong, and a non-technical reason why you're wrong.
Most "Linux things" can run on BSD because they are both UNIX-like operating systems, meaning they both implement enough of POSIX to make porting back and forth easier than porting to a non-POSIX system. But that only works for user software. The underlying kernel architectures and code are massively different, and anything that has to interact directly with the kernel, such as device drivers, are significantly different between the two operating systems. It's nowhere near as trivial as you imply.
Secondly, even if it were technically possiblethe license for BSD and Linux aren't necessarily compatible. BSD kernels and (most) drivers are under the (shock) BSD license, which, for better or worse, is more lenient than the GPL. The result is that you can't copy Linux code into BSD kernels because BSD allows the source to be used in a closed source product, while the GPL doesn't.
I think it's easier to make working documentation out of working code than working code out of non-working documentation.
Sadly not. Most hardware documentation is wrong, and errata updates are the exception rather than the norm. However, understanding what the hardware was supposed to do from reading the documentation is often better than reading a magic number filled chunk of source code. Please note that this is not a criticism of the VIA code, which may be a model of well written and documented code ...
When did the FOSS community become this collection of curmudgeons? When a company releases code, it should be politely welcomed. After all, they didn't _have to_ but they still did, because there's this little light that open source software could benefit many instead of the few. And then a bunch of cranky and unpleasant douchebags find the nerve to complain? I can't believe this.
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Please can we stay even a bit on topic here? We're talking about a Linux Framebuffer Driver here. You can't use the Linux framebuffer device drivers on Windows because they're not Windows Drivers. That's ignoring the fact that Windows already has all the display drivers it needs to use this hardware, so claiming that VIA "won't support" their hardware on Windows is just ridiculous.
Taking some arbitrary good deed by a hardware vendor and tacking a cynical "I bet it doesn't work on Windows" doesn't make you smart or insightful -- it makes your just another slashdouche.
Right. It's good to know that I've been running my computer on docs all this time. No, docs just let you write more drivers.
Porting drivers is more work that you seem to think.And writing drivers is more work than you seem to think. Do you honestly believe that writing a driver from scratch, given the docs, is easier than porting a working driver given the docs?
Exactly what I was thinking. It's as if an acquaintance shows up to your birthday party and he gives you a nice card and $20 and you just ask him, "Is this it?"
VIA wasn't obligated to do this for you, you aren't paying them, how about you say "thank you, we appreciate your help" and support their product. They may just help out the FOSS community more in the future. If you spit in their face then they won't do this sort of thing again.
Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.
And even then, I still can't use the h.264 acceleration.
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