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Kernel Builders Appeal For Open Source Drivers
snydeq writes "The Linux kernel development community has released a statement emphasizing the need for open source drivers. The statement, signed by 135 developers, is aimed at preventing future vendors from following the closed source path. One holdout cited is Nvidia. The Linux Foundation has also released a statement in support: 'The Linux Foundation recommends that hardware manufacturers provide open source kernel modules. The open source nature of Linux is intrinsic to its success. We encourage manufacturers to work with the kernel community to provide open source kernel modules in order to enable their users and themselves to take advantage of the considerable benefits that Linux makes possible.'"
Lexmark not only doesn't provide the details needed to write OS drivers for its newer printers, it won't even provide proprietary drivers like ATI and nVidia do. I know, because when my sister moved from Windows to Ubuntu about a month or so ago, she had to buy a new printer because there wasn't any support for her fairly new Lexmark.
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Interesting that Linus himself did not put his name to the statement.
One might argue that the Linux Foundation's endorsement is sufficient and that Linus's signature would be redundant.
But if that were true, why did Theodore Ts'o put his name on the statement? He is part of the Foundation's management.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Does begging really work? I mean asking people doesn't usually solve anything, you need to either show them a carrot and/or a stick... not sure if Linux has enough of either (yet)
"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -- Prof. Dumbledore
I don't understand nVidia and other companies. One of the arguments is that the driver makes the difference between higher- or lowerpriced cards, thus open-sourcing this stuff will make the differences go away. Now I've worked with hardware engineers making FPGAs and ASICs -- I don't see why these graphics cards simply read their config from an EPROM or a small piece of flash, thus letting the driver not make any difference at all.
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Be that as it may, this is an appropriate place for the kernel developers to focus their attention.
Fnord.
You've got it backwords regarding drivers: hardware vendors sell hardware, and "give away" the drivers so that people can actually use said products. As there will be more Linux users, so there will be incentive for providing drivers. As in Linux there are so many distros, it makes no sense to offer "closed source" drivers. And there are other operating systems which are not Linux, for example the BSD family
Same goes for software: if there will be enough demand, there will be more software for Linux. Even closed source. For example there is Intuit for Mac OS.
But instead of pushing water uphill with those software companies, why don't you look for software that does equivalent things on Linux (open source, or proprietary) ?
http://revj.sourceforge.net
There is only one thing holding back Linux from being used more wide-spread.
Gamers, the Linux community just doesn't care for them. But that is wrong, just wrong. Gamers are the reason why computers are the way they are nowadays, without good games to play on our electronic devices I guarantee that computers wouldn't be a big as they are today, and that's something that Linux has always failed to do bring us top-shelf gaming
having open source graphic drivers would be nice but i don't think that is the true problem for games on Linux
there true enemy that needs to be defeated before Linux even has a chance at becoming mainstream:
Games for Windows
The fug-tards at Microsoft pay off every last PC game maker to put their dirty label on everything even the damn game reviews have that garbage label on it for god sakes.
They do it because they know no one else stands a chance in the PC gaming market. Stop them please stop Microsoft and there proprietary-ness. Defeat games for windows and Linux will be main stream, because freedom and openness shouldn't be a standard just for big iron. Theirs little guys like me that would love nothing other than to give windows the old heave-ho but can't because where all locked down in a homeostasis environment.
Also running in an emulated environment just doesn't cut it - it could be possible but WINE just can't do it for some games. Normally the games that don't run are the most proprietary ones sadly but there's still room for them in the sphere that is Linux. Help make a home for gamers where there not locked and bogged down by corporate greed. crack Games for Windows and please dear god make "Games for Linux" a reality
Did anyone else notice that Linus himself is not on that list? Does this mean that he doesn't mind closed source modules?
Scenario: Mom asks you to install Ubuntu on her Dell computer setup.
Problems:
1) Open Source libata driver for the SATA optical drive causes frequent timeouts and hangs. Looks like a problem with the Ubuntu kernel. Tell Mom it's just like Windows XP, there are problems which will be updated and fixed "eventually".
2) Dell printer not supported by CUPS and open source drivers. There is no support from Dell, but a 20 minute Google search effort turns up the model is a re-branded Lexmark. The Ubuntu community forums detail a process to install proprietary Lexmark drivers for Debian GNU/Linux. Tell mom it's just like Windows XP, some printers need a certain version of driver for the device.
3) Displayed video is incorrect on Dell LCD display. Search Google for about a solid hour to find an answer. Looks like an Ubuntu problem with an open source driver. Tell Mom that there's nothing wrong with her computer, even though the screen is completely black for the whole boot process.
My own conclusion:
Ubuntu is a hit-or-miss installation for Dell hardware owners. Mostly miss. The open source or closed source nature of a driver does not factor into user acceptance. The user is uncomfortable when their hardware is "broken" due to a missing or incompatible driver.
Mom's conclusion:
The Ubuntu Hardy "bird" logo is "pretty".
SIGERR: laziness exceeds quota
Shipping drivers for only windows is bad, but shipping drivers for only windows and linux is (magically!!) good???
Fight for open specifications. That will enable any competent driver-writer to write drivers and all OSs can compete on fair grounds. By technical documentation, I don't mean "the guide to programming the Emc2x86" kind of stuff. There should be "The exhaustive reference to programming the Emc2x86" kind of stuff. There should the following guarantees associated with the documentation, only then the hardware can be called as "openly documented hardware":
1. For a sufficiently competent programmer, the documentation supplied is enough to achieve 100% feature parity with the proprietary drivers.
2. The documentation supplied must contain as a subset, all interfacial knowledge known to the writers of the proprietary drivers.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
If that was a troll it wasn't even a good one.
The Linux kernel (as in, what comes with the source) is bloated because a lot of the code that runs in kernelspace on a linux machine COMES with the kernel, this is not the case on other OS, such as OS X and its XNU kernel. If you grab the XNU source from Apple it contains probably less than 50% of what ends up actually running in the kernel space.
This isn't a bad thing, it just means a lot of the code running in kernel space is open source and is distributed together.
As for stability, Linux is one of the most stable systems I've used, especially for web services.
In other news Linus Torvalds has announced that he's working on a cutting-edge AI project. It was under wraps, but a really interesting post on a well-known tech community site, persuaded him of the need to release details earlier than planned.
Torvalds described the AI as being part of an 'Free Software enforcement bot', code named 'The Stallmanator'. Features include:
'I need your patents, your code and your motorcycle.'
'Free your hardware specifications and drivers, if you want to live.'
'I'll be busy (eating Cheetos)'
'The GNUNet funding bill is passed. The system goes online on August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from Debian package management. GNUNet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14am Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.'
'Hurd up, homies.'
With DARPA backing this project, I don't think the likes of nVidia or Lexmark will hold out for long. They're likely to get 'Stallmanated'.
I posted this over at RWT a month or so ago..
>Here is really the main point, which you're brushing
>aside -- this makes the hardware worth more, because
>you're making it potentially more usable for end users.
>Maybe not all end-users, but certainly some. I don't
>understand why you say it's a "very different kettle of
>fish" ? Different than releasing the specs? If anything
>it means fixes will happen faster.
I am not brushing anything aside, I am saying that a lot of people for a long time have ranted about opensource drivers for advanced video cards - and as yet I have seen no-one discuss it at a level that actually addresses what would be involved.
My 'very different kettle of fish' above is the vendors actually releasing full-stack sourcecode, versus just hardware specs.
My position on the hardware specs (and I am not claiming proof for this, it is only my position) is that it is next to useless for high-performance users. We may well see competent 2d opensource drivers, and 3d ones that can limp along - however graphics hardware has moved a LONG way from there.
I would *love* to see a fully opensource stack with high performance for opengl, however is it practical?
In your reply (sorry, I clipped it back a bit for brevity) you mentioned harddrive makers doing sector remapping - that is probably a whole few pages of code in their controllers. For a full modern opengl stack we are probably talking in the millions of lines region - we are talking of something with a scope not unlike the linux kernel itself, or at least a good proportion of it.
This is NOT similar to any other type of driver that I can think of - it is an almost unique case.
Just looking at opengl, the cards driver needs to be able to handle multiple simultaneous execution of overlapped and scheduled code, all in realtime, on in the region of 100-300 semi-linked vector cpus, all without cross-interference, while also maintain multiple streams of data at GB rates in and out of the card, and all while following a VERY explicit and highly complex set of rules governing the results.
Put another way, these devices are bleeding edge modern realtime computers, on a card - and their 'drivers' are really realtime OSs, although highly specialised.
Intel, in its infinite wisdom, as about to try and take that to the next level - making such cards x86ish, with an eye I suspect to reducing the complexity of software entry, after having failed miserably to write working drivers for their existing (965, g35, g45 so far) hardware.
All I say is lets cut these guys some slack - the capability of the hardware/software combination of a 9600gt, for around $150, is simply astounding. Should they expect 'help' from kernel developers, etc? of course not. Should they be punished? I say no.
Anyhow, I know that is bordering on preaching, and of course very opinionated - however I do like to see things treated with an even hand, and I have not always seen that happen with the issue of opensource 3d graphics drivers.
This petition is just a gentle reminder that the carrot (utilizing OSS community development process) & stick (customers switching vendors) already exist. (from TLA):
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Regardless if I am buying for myself or a client, or for Windows or GNU/Linux, explicit Linux support (by way of drivers) is always a +1 for me.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
When a moron like The_Abortionist posts something so obviously absurd, I find it helps to look at the users comment history. One look makes it clear that s/he is intentionally trying to get the worst ever history. -1 and 0 for every post. Sometimes I ask people if they go to a special class to sound like a moron, or if it just comes naturally. Now I know who runs the special classes :-)
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
While I like the idea of open source and develop nearly exclusively open-source myself, i find it counterproductive to insist on open-source drivers. This is not a religious war, or should not be. This should be about pragmatically doing everything to create a useful alternative to other OS. This should be about making Linux successful.
It simply will never happen that we get open-source drivers for all the hardware Windows users are enjoying. Make it as easy as possible to get *any* form of driver, make it so that binary drivers cannot kill the system and it will still be difficult to get enough drivers to not make users shy away from Linux.
Then, when we have 50% market share you can start putting pressure on hardware vendors, not now.
One thing that I've started realizing lately is that we need to improve the open source drivers that we already have. This may give companies more incentive to open their own drivers.
For example, we are all happy about the free software drivers that Intel provides for the i950, etc graphics chipsets. However, there are still some significant 3D performance issues with this driver. I don't blame the team working on it because they have other important priorities. However, it is a fact that games run many times faster on Windows with this chipset than in X (and I'm not just talking about Wine games). Games like Vegastrike just don't run acceptably in X on a i945GM box -- and it should be able to handle this game easily.
If we could pick a few drivers that need help and make them indisputably good, this might provide incentive for companies to support our efforts.
I would be happy to start working on the the Intel graphics driver with an aim to improving its 3D performance. However, even though I have 20 years of application development, I'm a newbie at driver development. I don't know where to start. If anyone can point me in the right direction.... Even if it takes me a really long time to make any improvement, I'll at least be another pair of eyes.
If there was money in Linux they'd be right there, open-source drivers and all, but there isn't. This is a fact that open-source developers never seem to understand. You can cheerfully dedicate half your life to creating this wonderful utopian software, but you can't force your ideals on someone else - especially on a company whose aims do not coincide with yours. Make it a financially beneficial proposition, and nVidia will spend the time and money on creating those drivers - but I doubt it's anything near that.
What responsibility do nVidia have towards the Linux desktop? The same as they have towards Windows: absolutely none. But they support Windows because 90% of desktops with their graphics cards installed run Windows.
And yes, Intel and ATI have managed to push out open source drivers - that's up to them, but I don't imagine they make profit from it. Yes, it's a real pain in the arse to work with binary drivers. Yes, if nVidia were to release open-source drivers the world would be a happier place. But to act like Linux users have some *right* to these drivers is childish and arrogant.
What Linux users have the right to do is buy a different graphics card.
I'm seeing a lot of these responses get hung up on their personal idealism. I'll give 'em the benefit of the doubt that there is no significant astro-turfing going on here.
But after seeing a multitude of responses suggesting the complexity of graphics cards above all other device drivers, I sort of wonder: Are we believing a myth?
I see countless articles about how GPUs are such advanced pieces of tech. I see tons of anecdotal evidence about how more optimized they are.
But after years of hearing how good Card A is against Card B at API X vs API Y, I sort of wonder...wow, what a coincidence that both happen to be really good at their next possible market.
Device drivers are tricky business, no question. All I ever seem to see is the same arguments from interested passers-by explaining how they couldn't open up their drivers because they'd give away some secret, or there's no incentive to give away their secret sauce because they've spent so much more time and money than some other specialized sector.
I think at this point, I'd be as happy to see these companies open up their specs to the point of third-party ground-up implementations as I would hearing one of them go on the record as to their reasons why they feel they can't.
Nvidia is a company that exists to make money.The question that Nvidia needs to think about is whether the number of Linux users (including those on the EEEPC, high-end phones and more specialised embedded devices) have outgrown the number of hardcore Windows PC gamers?
Whatever you think about the answer to the question, I'm sure you will agree that going forwards, the growth in embedded devices will certainly increase faster than Windows gaming.
When a company makes an embedded device, time to market is often really critical, so of course it chooses whatever hardware causes the the least fuss. Nvidia might find that Intel and ATI will increasingly dominate this space.
If Nvidia wants a share of the open source market in five years time, then it needs to start planning for an open source driver now, e.g. not putting any more third party proprietary code in its driver.
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Is it technically impossible to provide for closed-source drivers in Linux? Or is this just yet another religious issue from people who want to force their own views on anyone else?
Many people simply want Linux as an alternative to Windows, and a good alternative it is already. But insisting on open-source drivers will make the situation worse, not better in the long run: more and more special-purpose hardware is getting attached to the computer; mobile devices, chipcard readers, entertainment devices, GPS devices ... the list goes on and on.
It is simply naive to think that we will get open-source drivers for all of these. We can be happy if we get some sort of half-baked closed source driver.
At the current moment I have the following devices that do not work fully with Linux:
- A canon camera: PTP transfer works, but under Windows I can also remote control it, do timed picture grabs, remote view the sensor -- none of which works with Linux
- A Garming GPS device: nearly nothing works under Linux, the software for managing (proprietary of course) maps is only available under Windows, routes management only works with that software
- A Sony-Ericcson mobile phone: mounting as a removable device works, but there is no decent support for synchronizing as under Windows
- All-in-one printer/fax/copier most of these do not work or are limited under Linux in comparison to Windows. Nearly all ink printers still have severe limitations under Linux.
- Wireless: several cards I have tried to not work at all or do not supprot WPA
- A digital multimeter: only comes with software that runs under Windows
- A chip-card reader and the infrastructure to use it for secure payment and authentification - only usable under Windows and Mac.
I do not think that the make everything opensource issue is of such a high priority yet when all these things actually prevent the use of Linux: if somebody does have to use Windows or Mac to use any of the things they need, why should they use Linux in the first place?
Well, NVidia USED to say that. They said it was stuff by SGI.
When SGI were talked to, they said that nothing NVidia had from them they have a problem with GPLing. So either
a) They lied
b) They have stuff from SGI that they are hiding because they haven't paid for it
c) They have another reason for it
Now NVidia don't say this any more, just fans of NVidia. Even if NVidia did say, they won't say any more WHOSE IP they have so we can ask this supplier about it.
Fro non-kernel drivers HPLIP is a pretty good example of a company opening up it's driver base properly and with some success http://hplip.sourceforge.net/. I still wish they'd notify of Linux support on the boxes though.
I have a Lexmark color laser printer too. It's a C522N. It worked out of the box with Linux - no special drivers required. In fact it works with everything - it accepts PDF and Postscript and just prints them - no trouble, nice quality. It works with CUPS, and correctly tells my desktop when there's a problem like no paper.
It was cheap too, and is now a few years old - but it has newer successors in the same range.
As mine was so cheap, I don't understand why anybody would buy the versions which need special drivers.
I highly recommend this printer for Linux use.
The problems is also that there's a lot of "imaginary property" from very diverse source going into both the graphic card and the driver.
Companies can seldom "just release the source" of the drivers. They should either go the trouble of contacting all the 3rd party which were mandated to built parts and renegotiate a new agreement allowing the opening of the final product.
Or they should go the trouble of slowly re-writting a non NDA'ed documentation, that could be published freely on the net. But which would require systematic checks with legal department and such to be sure that nobody will suddenly sue because that publication was an infringement.
In both situation the work is non trivial, and lots of efforts are necessary. Several company simply decide not to go through all those hoops just to please what they see as a very small and marginal fraction of their market.
Nonetheless that didn't prevent Intel to pay teams to build drivers that where open source in the first place, ATI/AMD to decide to take the bull by the horn and *really go* through all the adventure of building legally releasable documentation (see also their promise that the next generations of GPU will have their video acceleration built more independently from the IP-protected DRM - currently their license of HDCP technology poses problem for opening the video unit) and VIA to finally release their code open because they don't have much 3rd party IP in there to begin with (see the whole "OEM will have to provide their own software solution for the H264 coding - we didn't buy one, we wanted the chip to be cheap" fiasco on Windows. It's a fiasco on windows, but makes it more easy to release on Linux).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Why does hardware need to be so non standard and proprietary requiring its own drivers?
Take for example USB1, all USB controllers from many different manufacturers work with generic UHCI or OHCI drivers.
USB2 is even better, since all controllers support EHCI.
SATA potentially has AHCI, tho not all controllers support it.
Most CPUs have the x86 instruction set.
Video cards have VGA/SVGA/VESA, tho these specs are obviously far too old to be useful today.
Sound cards have soundblaster compatibility, and more recently AC97.
Proper modems have the Hayes command set, not counting some software modems.
Printers have postscript, tho typically only higher end printers support it.
If you have standards in hardware then the issue of drivers goes away... Your OS can provide drivers for the standard hardware, and thus not have third party driver code in the kernel... This would cure the Linux driver problem, and cure a majority of Windows crashes.
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because the nvidia sata drivers just are not stable enough. A box that crashes every month or so is not reliable enough.
Now the lovely 64bit Intel replacement board is as solid as a rock.
Brother has pretty good linux support, their models are not quite as fancy as HP, but they release drivers for LPR and CUPS and the CUPS have source available.
I think I read about that here a year or so ago.
http://solutions.brother.com/linux/en_us/index.html
|plastic....or gasoline?|
Yes. Fellow by the name of Masayuki Murayama was writing NIC drivers for Solaris using the Linux drivers as reference. He received legal threats as a result claiming he was infringing on the GPL.
So, what's the use in them being open-source if the only people that can look at it are people who write code for Linux ( the only major GPL kernel out there )