So why are they trying to control what software the end user wants to use? If the user wants to use a proprietary driver who are the kernel developers to exert control over them and disallow them that choice?
It eventually leads to code that everybody needs to use and nobody has access to. It leads inevitably to proprietary software.
Rubbish, it absolutely does not, nobody can close BSD-licensed code. It allows the ability to create a closed source derivative of a BSD-licensed work but your extrapolation of that to a scenario where suddenly everyone is dependent on a proprietary version is completely erroneous and without merit. True altruism comes from people choosing to be altruistic, not being forced to be.
GPL licensors demand that others don't redistribute GPL code as their own.
What's that got to do with this situation? nVidia are not distributing GPL code, they are distributing a module that would link with GPL code on a user's machine if it weren't for the EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL declaration, if the user changes this to EXPORT_SYMBOL it will link fine and they can use the proprietary driver, so what's the point of preventing users who don't recompile their kernel with that change from using proprietary drivers if they want to?
Freedom is often a matter of give-and-take, unfortunately.
But this isn't freedom, the user now does not have the freedom to choose a proprietary driver.
There's something to it, as well... closed graphics drivers have been one reason "why graphics on Linux sucks," which has prevented linux devs from fixing the problem in the first place.
So allowing the user to choose a proprietary nvidia driver shouldn't matter anyway because they could choose an open source amd driver which - if what you say is true - should be vastly superior. Don't take the user's freedom, allow the user to make the choice.
They just can't put it in one of their proprietary blobs when they give it out to other people.
Put what in their proprietary blobs? As far as i can tell this is about linking with exported kernel symbols, not putting kernel code in the proprietary driver and distributing it.
Your are looking at it from the perspective of the company that did NOT write the code and is NOT interested in contributing.
So? Preventing interoperability on the basis of them not sharing your ideology is only bad for the user.
It is "good" for the whole world because it is NOT good for moochers.
No, it's bad because you shut out everyone who doesn't share your world view, it's an 'our way or the highway' approach. Who cares if the nVidia driver is a binary blob? If that concerns you then use AMD or Intel or an open source driver instead, that is your choice, but to eliminate the freedom of the user to choose the binary driver most certainly is bad.
If this were BSD, Alan Cox would have had his hard work stolen from him against his will, and he wouldn't have been able to do anything about it.
Yeah just like 'piracy is stealing' and 'copyright theft'! You clearly don't understand the meaning of the word 'stolen' as it does not apply in the context in which you use it.
Not because it's viral, because it's become much worse. A religion, and alas religions have their fanatics.
I wouldn't necessarily say the GPL is a bad thing, it's a choice that developers have the right to make, though in this case it is harmful to the user. In this case the GPL attempts to force the ideology of one party upon another, if that other party doesn't accept it who gets hurt? The user.
If this were BSD-style then both parties would be able to co-exist and not have to abandon their ideology in order to work together.
Say this again when NVIDIA GPUs stop being picked for android mobile devices...
You are aware this features is about copying data between framebuffers of multiple GPUs? This isn't going to stop nVidia being chosen for android mobile devices.
How would an electronic device, that is completely voluntary to own, infringe upon my freedom?
It depends upon the language you use, it's not going to be taking away any freedoms (or "infringe" upon them) that you already had but it may not grant you particular freedoms. Moreover you may be willing to accept not being granted certain freedoms when using certain products - we all do this - for example when posting on this site you don't have the freedom to examine the source code of all software running on all servers through which you transmit data, this could be misconstrued as an infringement of your freedom.
Having products that 'infringe upon your freedom' is much like the 'stealing of copyrighted material' in that nothing has been taken away. These 'freedoms' are just an arbitrarily defined list of things set out in the license and they vary between licenses, some offer more freedoms, some less, some create restrictions on the developer, some create restrictions on the user, ultimately it is - as you say - the choice of the user. Most often the user will choose the most integrated, user-friendly and polished solution over something that offers more freedoms unless those freedoms mitigate a case where measurable harm is being caused.
Putting a case on an iPhone also reverses any gains Apple has made in keeping the phone thin. If you're willing to pay a premium for a phone that is 1.7mm thinner, it doesn't seem to make sense to toss a 3mm thick cover on it.
If an iPhone WITHOUT a case gets thinner, an iphone WITH a case gets thinner too (unless they make the new case thicker).
The difference is the back of the iphone5 is far more scratch prone than that of the iphone 4/4S therefore much more likely to need a case to prevent damage from general wear and tear. I used to throw keys in the same pocket as my iphone4 and sure it got some minor scratches on the back (front had a screen protector) over time but nothing major, you certainly wouldn't do the same with the 5 with its aluminium back.
You already get analog audio out of the headphone jack, or there's bluetooth or airplay. How many ways do you need to get audio out of the damned thing?
If this was the reason then Apple should have proposed an alternate USB connecter instead of an entirely incompatible signalling scheme.
But then they wouldn't be able to charge $29 for the adapter so all your existing accessories work and accessory manufacturers wouldn't have to pay them royalties to license the connector design.
It worked for nano-SIM didn't it?
Absolutely, but there's no money in SIM adapters, that's the difference.
That can still be ambiguous. Sure, after using it for a bit, users would learn by feel which way is the right way. But how do you know which way connector should go into the device without trial and error?
If you're struggling with that then plugging in a connector is the absolute least of your worries.
I am no Apple fan, but there UNIX core OS make that a much more stable base for games.
How exactly? If you're familiar with modern PC gaming hardware you'd know that the primary cause of instability is the graphics driver, can you explain how you expect that would change just because you're running a UNIX system?
It still amazes me the group think that gave us the MS-PC for business. Why do people use a gaming platform for work.
You just suggested using a UNIX system (the basis for most mainframes and servers) as a gaming platform but you find the use of a 'gaming platform' (not sure why you typecast a Windows PC as a gaming platform) for work confusing?
Many smart corporations have left the PC all ready. the two examples I know off the top of my head are Google and the German Government.
No they haven't, what are you talking about? Google employees use Mac and Linux PCs, the German government most certainly uses PCs or perhaps you're referring to the failed attempt to move to Linux?
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So why are they trying to control what software the end user wants to use? If the user wants to use a proprietary driver who are the kernel developers to exert control over them and disallow them that choice?
It eventually leads to code that everybody needs to use and nobody has access to. It leads inevitably to proprietary software.
Rubbish, it absolutely does not, nobody can close BSD-licensed code. It allows the ability to create a closed source derivative of a BSD-licensed work but your extrapolation of that to a scenario where suddenly everyone is dependent on a proprietary version is completely erroneous and without merit. True altruism comes from people choosing to be altruistic, not being forced to be.
GPL licensors demand that others don't redistribute GPL code as their own.
What's that got to do with this situation? nVidia are not distributing GPL code, they are distributing a module that would link with GPL code on a user's machine if it weren't for the EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL declaration, if the user changes this to EXPORT_SYMBOL it will link fine and they can use the proprietary driver, so what's the point of preventing users who don't recompile their kernel with that change from using proprietary drivers if they want to?
Freedom is often a matter of give-and-take, unfortunately.
But this isn't freedom, the user now does not have the freedom to choose a proprietary driver.
There's something to it, as well ... closed graphics drivers have been one reason "why graphics on Linux sucks," which has prevented linux devs from fixing the problem in the first place.
So allowing the user to choose a proprietary nvidia driver shouldn't matter anyway because they could choose an open source amd driver which - if what you say is true - should be vastly superior. Don't take the user's freedom, allow the user to make the choice.
They just can't put it in one of their proprietary blobs when they give it out to other people.
Put what in their proprietary blobs? As far as i can tell this is about linking with exported kernel symbols, not putting kernel code in the proprietary driver and distributing it.
Your are looking at it from the perspective of the company that did NOT write the code and is NOT interested in contributing.
So? Preventing interoperability on the basis of them not sharing your ideology is only bad for the user.
It is "good" for the whole world because it is NOT good for moochers.
No, it's bad because you shut out everyone who doesn't share your world view, it's an 'our way or the highway' approach. Who cares if the nVidia driver is a binary blob? If that concerns you then use AMD or Intel or an open source driver instead, that is your choice, but to eliminate the freedom of the user to choose the binary driver most certainly is bad.
I consider the BSD license less free because it allows others to infringe on people's freedom.
What freedom does BSD licensed code infringe upon?
NVIDIA is an unimportant hardware vendor for Linux, their problems can be avoided by giving money to their competitor.
Yeah nobody uses Tegra with Linux.
You must have missed those millions of android devices that are out there.
You must have missed that those millions of android devices aren't desktops.
If this were BSD, Alan Cox would have had his hard work stolen from him against his will, and he wouldn't have been able to do anything about it.
Yeah just like 'piracy is stealing' and 'copyright theft'! You clearly don't understand the meaning of the word 'stolen' as it does not apply in the context in which you use it.
"Please comply with the very permissive licence that we chose to licence our code under" does not amount to a religious argument.
No, the GPL is a restrictive license. Unlike the GPL a permissive license does not push it's own ideology on others.
The GPL is a bad thing.
Not because it's viral, because it's become much worse. A religion, and alas religions have their fanatics.
I wouldn't necessarily say the GPL is a bad thing, it's a choice that developers have the right to make, though in this case it is harmful to the user. In this case the GPL attempts to force the ideology of one party upon another, if that other party doesn't accept it who gets hurt? The user.
If this were BSD-style then both parties would be able to co-exist and not have to abandon their ideology in order to work together.
Say this again when NVIDIA GPUs stop being picked for android mobile devices...
You are aware this features is about copying data between framebuffers of multiple GPUs? This isn't going to stop nVidia being chosen for android mobile devices.
Paying $700 for an operating system that does essentially nothing out of the box is the height of ridiculousness. It's monopoly power at its worst.
No different to a CPU or graphics card, out of the box they do nothing.
How would an electronic device, that is completely voluntary to own, infringe upon my freedom?
It depends upon the language you use, it's not going to be taking away any freedoms (or "infringe" upon them) that you already had but it may not grant you particular freedoms. Moreover you may be willing to accept not being granted certain freedoms when using certain products - we all do this - for example when posting on this site you don't have the freedom to examine the source code of all software running on all servers through which you transmit data, this could be misconstrued as an infringement of your freedom.
Having products that 'infringe upon your freedom' is much like the 'stealing of copyrighted material' in that nothing has been taken away. These 'freedoms' are just an arbitrarily defined list of things set out in the license and they vary between licenses, some offer more freedoms, some less, some create restrictions on the developer, some create restrictions on the user, ultimately it is - as you say - the choice of the user. Most often the user will choose the most integrated, user-friendly and polished solution over something that offers more freedoms unless those freedoms mitigate a case where measurable harm is being caused.
Putting a case on an iPhone also reverses any gains Apple has made in keeping the phone thin. If you're willing to pay a premium for a phone that is 1.7mm thinner, it doesn't seem to make sense to toss a 3mm thick cover on it.
If an iPhone WITHOUT a case gets thinner, an iphone WITH a case gets thinner too (unless they make the new case thicker).
The difference is the back of the iphone5 is far more scratch prone than that of the iphone 4/4S therefore much more likely to need a case to prevent damage from general wear and tear. I used to throw keys in the same pocket as my iphone4 and sure it got some minor scratches on the back (front had a screen protector) over time but nothing major, you certainly wouldn't do the same with the 5 with its aluminium back.
It's because it houses an authentication chip, not only can the user now not get cheap unofficial cables but the genuine ones go up in price too.
if you want high quality you're going to use digital anyway.
You already get analog audio out of the headphone jack, or there's bluetooth or airplay. How many ways do you need to get audio out of the damned thing?
If this was the reason then Apple should have proposed an alternate USB connecter instead of an entirely incompatible signalling scheme.
But then they wouldn't be able to charge $29 for the adapter so all your existing accessories work and accessory manufacturers wouldn't have to pay them royalties to license the connector design.
It worked for nano-SIM didn't it?
Absolutely, but there's no money in SIM adapters, that's the difference.
You can't use it while it's charging.
That can still be ambiguous. Sure, after using it for a bit, users would learn by feel which way is the right way. But how do you know which way connector should go into the device without trial and error?
If you're struggling with that then plugging in a connector is the absolute least of your worries.
So why not release the spec so it can be adopted as a standard? If they don't like the current standard then make a contribution.
I am no Apple fan, but there UNIX core OS make that a much more stable base for games.
How exactly? If you're familiar with modern PC gaming hardware you'd know that the primary cause of instability is the graphics driver, can you explain how you expect that would change just because you're running a UNIX system?
It still amazes me the group think that gave us the MS-PC for business. Why do people use a gaming platform for work.
You just suggested using a UNIX system (the basis for most mainframes and servers) as a gaming platform but you find the use of a 'gaming platform' (not sure why you typecast a Windows PC as a gaming platform) for work confusing?
Many smart corporations have left the PC all ready. the two examples I know off the top of my head are Google and the German Government.
No they haven't, what are you talking about? Google employees use Mac and Linux PCs, the German government most certainly uses PCs or perhaps you're referring to the failed attempt to move to Linux?
The back of their phones is made out of glass, I repeat, the back of their phones is made out of glass.
You can repeat it all you like, the fact is the back of their flagship phone is made predominantly of aluminium.