I like quantum physics because it makes it so obvious that the universe is a simulation running on god's computer. I don't like this article because it would seem to suggest otherwise.:)
::looks at GAIM::
::looks at Slashdot article::
::looks at GAIM::
::signs off::
::signs on::
::looks at Slashdot article::
::looks at GAIM::
::receives message through AIM::
Err... is anyone here actually having problems? Anyone? Please speak up if so. (I am not having any trouble at all.)
I am currently on AOL through GAIM using TOC and it works fine.
The reason why many clients are trying to support OSCAR (GAIM included) is because TOC cannot do everything that OSCAR can. For example, I can't send files to people (although I can receive them). Also, I can't seem to check away messages without actually sending the person a message and getting a reply (though maybe I'm just stupid there). There is a huge list of features that just don't work over TOC.
Well, there is no good place to draw the line, really. All I'm saying is that most people here are drawing the line way to soon and without knowing all of the facts.
I don't think the fact that NVidia sued 3dfx proves that they'd sue anyone. They may just have a grudge after 3dfx sued them. Also, 3dfx is their biggest competitor. The fact that they sued 3dfx proves nothing.
You are taking my post into a wider context then I indended it to be. I was primarily talking about 3D hardware companies. My point was that people should not be so quick to judge on so little info. Many people here on Slashdot are extremely biased against NVidia and jump on any chance they get to call them evil, while completely ignoring everything 3dfx and others have done wrong. Basically, I'm talking small-time stuff here. I should have been clearer about that. Sorry.
Microsoft is a completely different matter. So is the MPAA, and the RIAA, and DIVX, etc. These entities have done hundreds of times more evil than NVidia has done, and they deserve to be punished. We can feel the problems that these companies have caused. They are hurting us rather than each other. Last I checked, Microsoft, the MPAA, and the RIAA were at the top of my evil list. There is almost no question that these groups have done wrong morally, even though the legal issues are still in dispute. I agree with you there.
But in cases where things are not obvious, attempting to apply principles to the situation is futile. In order to judge cases like 3dfx vs NVidia, you have to know all of the facts, and the people posting to Slashdot attacking NVidia clearly do not know all of the facts. Many people (myself included) are just not responsible enough to make such judgements. Therefore, I have decided to stop judging companies based on small stuff like this. I do not know the complete history of either 3dfx or NVidia, and I don't care to. Thus I will not make a moral judgement on those companies. I will, however, buy the hardware that best suits my purposes, and that is NVidia.
If the driver quality is so good, why did nVidia have to steal GPL code to get their drivers to work?
Do you code? Here's the situation: You are an NVidia engineer and you are writing Linux drivers. You are working on the kernel abstraction layer (for which the source code is included with the drivers). To figure out how to do it, you take a look at some GPL'd code. It's a small amount of code, and it does just what you want. What do you do? 99% of programmers would just copy the code. Save an hour or two. It does the exact same thing, and you are just going to have to re-write it anyway, so why on Earth would anyone care if you just copied it? Hey, it's going into the open source layer of the driver anyway, so it couldn't possibly piss anyone off.
If you knew the open source community better, of course you would know that it would indeed piss many people off. Clearly, the NVidia engineer did not know this. Fortunately, most of the extreme zealots have never typed a line of C in their life. In NVidia's case, the code they used was written by a nice, though rigid person who forgave NVidia for the error but asked that they remove the code anyway. So, they did, within a couple of days.
The fact is, both Matrox and 3dfx have realeased open source drivers for Linux - there's no reason to support nVidia until they do as well.
I'll give you a few good reasons:
Performance. A G400 does not cut it for me. Furthermore, I personally am writing a 3D game engine (open source - LGPL) and I need to have the latest and greatest hardware for that reason.
The open source drivers are far lower quality than the NVidia drivers. The Voodoo 5 driver, for instance, does not support multiple chips and does not support FSAA, among other things, at this time. The NVidia driver supports every single feature that the card has. Furthermore, the NVidia driver matches its Windows counterpart in speed, whereas the 3dfx driver is way behind (75% of the speed last I checked). I don't mean to put down the developers of those drivers, though. NVidia has over 100 software developers working on their drivers full time (for Windows and Linux, since they use the same codebase). It is hard for a handful of random coders outside of the company working in their spare time to match such a team.
I feel sorry for you, that you have no perspective of your one personal future well-being. What should matter to you is having access to the information and the source code of the products you buy. That is the only way to insure you don't get stuck with a legacy product that will not work in the future, or that the disaster that Microsoft has inflicted on the PC world is not replicated in the hardware realm should a closed-source graphics card maker take control of the market.
If I were the type to keep graphics cards that long, I would consider buying from another company. As it is, I am not. Besides that, NVidia's driver architecture is such that the drivers they write for cards five years from now will work with the cards they are making today.
If NVidia ever gets to Microsoft's level, where they actually slow down innovation due to lack of competition, or if they ever appear to be heading in that direction, I will stop supporting them. As it is right now, NVidia is improving their hardware far faster than any of the competition, and I like that. That is why I support them. I want a company that advances their hardware with new features and faster processors, not one that "supports today's games".
They then patent the idea, another company comes up with an idea to improve upon this but can't do anything as it violates the patent.
Err... they could always license the patent from the other company.
IMHO, hardware patents are OK as long as they are sufficiently inovative. Software patents are bad because not all software authors have the money to license them (i.e. open source programmers).
This message is addressed to the Slashdot collective. That is, the large group of vocal Slashdotters who all think alike and act alike, and all carry the same extreme and often incorrect biases and predjudices. If the reader is not one of these people, then please do not take this personally.
Yep, yep, yep. There they go again. The Slashdot collective. You guys are just too damned focused on politics. Why? Politics are stupid and futile, as I have discovered. (Case and point, the coming US election...)
Look, my point is, you all see "NVidia sues 3dfx" and instantly most of the people on Slashdot assume NVidia is evil. Most of you have considered NVidia to be evil for quite some time (since they decided not to give their extremely-high-quality drivers to their competitors for free (GL drivers have a lot of hardware-independent code it them!)) and more evidence is just what you want. Woohoo, rally behind 3dfx, they're saints!
Well, what if I told you that two years ago 3dfx sued NVidia over a patent the held on multitexturing? That's right: The act of applying more than one texture to a surface. 3dfx patented it. Then they sued NVidia. I would have a link to a news article about it, but my internet connection is on the fritz. Please see Linuxgames for a link to such an article.
So, now who is the evil one? Answer: They BOTH are! Almost every large corporation on this planet has done something evil. Those that don't go out of business.
If you try to judge a corporation on any sort of principles, you are likely to judge incorrectly. Personally, I have given up on judging such things. It is futile. All that matters to me now is who makes the best hardware. And for me, a 3D game engine writer, that is NVidia. If you want to buy 3dfx, fine. I don't care anymore. But buy for the hardware, or buy for the software. Don't buy on principle. It doesn't work.
Obviously, I expect this to be moderated down as flaimbait. Do your worst. My karma has been maxed out for quite some time.
Perhaps the card is overheating.:) Did you try putting an extra fan on it? I had to do this with my TNT2. Kinda makes sense that when the adjacent slot was empty, the card would stay cooler, as the fan sucks in air from below IIRC. (Or did the TNT2 have a fan? I can't remember...)
That is a very strange problem, though. I can see why the NVidia people had trouble with it... though I agree that they should at least reply to e-mails. They used to reply. I e-mailed once and got an immediate reply from Nick Triantos (head programmer), and it even fixed my problem, but apparently they don't do that anymore.:(
Well that was a fun Holy War. I defend NVidia because I really like the stuff I can do with their cards (programming-wise), and because I have never had a problem with their hardware. I'd like to see their drivers open source, but I don't think it is right to hate them for not doing so. There's a whole lot of good stuff in their drivers that other companies would love to use (seeing as how NVidia has the only complete OpenGL implementation).
You say that be-fan shouldn't have been modded up because, in your humble opinion, what he said was wrong. Well, there are quite a few people that disagree with you, and the point of moderation is to bring up the post that are interesing, insightful, or informitive, not the ones which the moderators think are "correct". Just because you disagree does not mean that be-fan's post was not insightful.
So, your definition of being "behind Linux" is to give the users the info and make them do the work? I'll take NVidia's team of over 100 developers that work full time on NVidia hardware, thanks.
Just because Nvidia routinely fucks over the open source community...
Question: How did NVidia damage the open source community by releasing Linux drivers? If they had done nothing at all, would that have been better? As I'm sure you already know (as it has been stated thousands of times), NVidia would like to have released open source drivers, but they have NDA's with other companies that prevent them from doing so.
...and tries to strongarm the market...
Every company has "tried to strongarm the market" at some point. 3dfx was one of the worst, with GLIDE and their patent on multi-texturing (which NVidia realized was crap, and ignored).
...doesn't mean their product isn't cheaper than the other ones!
Their product is better than the other ones. In all my extensive research of the subject, I have continuously come to the same conclusion. Furthermore, their closed source drivers for Linux are currently better than any open source driver for a 3D card on Linux. Not to put down open source (I spend most of my time writing open source code), but it's just a fact.
NVidia may have good D3D support, but they also have better OpenGL support than any other consumer graphics card company. Most companies just support whatever Quake3 needs, but NVidia supports everything and more (through extensions). As a matter of fact, NVidia's OpenGL support is better then their D3D support -- more of the GeForce 2's features are available through OpenGL than through Direct3D. Specifically, I am thinking of register combiners (god I love those), which have been available in the GL drivers for some time, but won't be available in the D3D drivers for... err... some time.
Speaking of which, D3D has been basically tracking NVidia's hardware in version 7 and will again in version 8. I read that DX 8's register combiner functionality is biased towards NVidia's hardware. This looks to me like Microsoft sucking up to NVidia. NVidia doesn't really care as all the register combiner stuff is already available in their GL drivers.
The Indrema. It's a Linux-based game console, and it uses NVidia hardware! Think about it. If NVidia wanted to please Microsoft, what worse way to do it than provide hardware to a Linux-based competitor? I'm sure Microsoft asked NVidia to do the X-Box, not vice-versa.
Hell, even the fact that NVidia has better Linux support than any other 3D hardware vendor probably pissed Microsoft off, big time. (If you don't believe me on their support being better, well... NVidia's Linux drivers are equivalent in speed and exatly equal in features to their Windows drivers. Sometimes, their Linux drivers are even faster (the recent speed boosts in the detonator3 drivers have been in the Linux drivers for some time now). Heh, and come to think of it, NVidia's Linux drivers have more features than their Windows D3D drivers. Not one other 3D chipset manufacturer can say that.)
Combine that with all the stuff be-fan said (which I agree with 100%), and you have one really cool company. Sorry, they aren't open source, but you'll notice that none of the open source drivers available compare anywhere near as favorably to their Windows counterparts as NVidia's drivers do. Where I come from, we judge our software on quality.
I would like to predict right now that this article will mysteriously disappear within a few minutes. Such happens to every pitiful mistake of a Slashdot article.:) Come on, guys! All three of your links are wrong! As if that wasn't enough, it's also a repeat subject!
Slashdot Mirror
I like quantum physics because it makes it so obvious that the universe is a simulation running on god's computer. I don't like this article because it would seem to suggest otherwise. :)
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I think the point was that this sort of thing ("Hole in the GPL!?!") happens practically every week.
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::looks at GAIM::
::looks at Slashdot article::
::looks at GAIM::
::signs off::
::signs on::
::looks at Slashdot article::
::looks at GAIM::
::receives message through AIM::
Err... is anyone here actually having problems? Anyone? Please speak up if so. (I am not having any trouble at all.)
For the record, I am connecting through TOC.
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GAIM has used TOC since it started.
I am currently on AOL through GAIM using TOC and it works fine.
The reason why many clients are trying to support OSCAR (GAIM included) is because TOC cannot do everything that OSCAR can. For example, I can't send files to people (although I can receive them). Also, I can't seem to check away messages without actually sending the person a message and getting a reply (though maybe I'm just stupid there). There is a huge list of features that just don't work over TOC.
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Actually, I probably will vote for Nader if anyone. :)
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Well, there is no good place to draw the line, really. All I'm saying is that most people here are drawing the line way to soon and without knowing all of the facts.
I don't think the fact that NVidia sued 3dfx proves that they'd sue anyone. They may just have a grudge after 3dfx sued them. Also, 3dfx is their biggest competitor. The fact that they sued 3dfx proves nothing.
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I am aware of that. Yes, I would prefer open source drivers, but I understand why they don't want to give them to us.
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You are taking my post into a wider context then I indended it to be. I was primarily talking about 3D hardware companies. My point was that people should not be so quick to judge on so little info. Many people here on Slashdot are extremely biased against NVidia and jump on any chance they get to call them evil, while completely ignoring everything 3dfx and others have done wrong. Basically, I'm talking small-time stuff here. I should have been clearer about that. Sorry.
Microsoft is a completely different matter. So is the MPAA, and the RIAA, and DIVX, etc. These entities have done hundreds of times more evil than NVidia has done, and they deserve to be punished. We can feel the problems that these companies have caused. They are hurting us rather than each other. Last I checked, Microsoft, the MPAA, and the RIAA were at the top of my evil list. There is almost no question that these groups have done wrong morally, even though the legal issues are still in dispute. I agree with you there.
But in cases where things are not obvious, attempting to apply principles to the situation is futile. In order to judge cases like 3dfx vs NVidia, you have to know all of the facts, and the people posting to Slashdot attacking NVidia clearly do not know all of the facts. Many people (myself included) are just not responsible enough to make such judgements. Therefore, I have decided to stop judging companies based on small stuff like this. I do not know the complete history of either 3dfx or NVidia, and I don't care to. Thus I will not make a moral judgement on those companies. I will, however, buy the hardware that best suits my purposes, and that is NVidia.
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Do you code? Here's the situation: You are an NVidia engineer and you are writing Linux drivers. You are working on the kernel abstraction layer (for which the source code is included with the drivers). To figure out how to do it, you take a look at some GPL'd code. It's a small amount of code, and it does just what you want. What do you do? 99% of programmers would just copy the code. Save an hour or two. It does the exact same thing, and you are just going to have to re-write it anyway, so why on Earth would anyone care if you just copied it? Hey, it's going into the open source layer of the driver anyway, so it couldn't possibly piss anyone off.
If you knew the open source community better, of course you would know that it would indeed piss many people off. Clearly, the NVidia engineer did not know this. Fortunately, most of the extreme zealots have never typed a line of C in their life. In NVidia's case, the code they used was written by a nice, though rigid person who forgave NVidia for the error but asked that they remove the code anyway. So, they did, within a couple of days.
I'll give you a few good reasons:
If I were the type to keep graphics cards that long, I would consider buying from another company. As it is, I am not. Besides that, NVidia's driver architecture is such that the drivers they write for cards five years from now will work with the cards they are making today.
If NVidia ever gets to Microsoft's level, where they actually slow down innovation due to lack of competition, or if they ever appear to be heading in that direction, I will stop supporting them. As it is right now, NVidia is improving their hardware far faster than any of the competition, and I like that. That is why I support them. I want a company that advances their hardware with new features and faster processors, not one that "supports today's games".
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I believe you've said it better than I did. Thanks. I'd mod you up if I hadn't already posted. :)
Heh... I wish I knew half the people at NVidia. :)
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Err... they could always license the patent from the other company.
IMHO, hardware patents are OK as long as they are sufficiently inovative. Software patents are bad because not all software authors have the money to license them (i.e. open source programmers).
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This message is addressed to the Slashdot collective. That is, the large group of vocal Slashdotters who all think alike and act alike, and all carry the same extreme and often incorrect biases and predjudices. If the reader is not one of these people, then please do not take this personally.
Yep, yep, yep. There they go again. The Slashdot collective. You guys are just too damned focused on politics. Why? Politics are stupid and futile, as I have discovered. (Case and point, the coming US election...)
Look, my point is, you all see "NVidia sues 3dfx" and instantly most of the people on Slashdot assume NVidia is evil. Most of you have considered NVidia to be evil for quite some time (since they decided not to give their extremely-high-quality drivers to their competitors for free (GL drivers have a lot of hardware-independent code it them!)) and more evidence is just what you want. Woohoo, rally behind 3dfx, they're saints!
Well, what if I told you that two years ago 3dfx sued NVidia over a patent the held on multitexturing? That's right: The act of applying more than one texture to a surface. 3dfx patented it. Then they sued NVidia. I would have a link to a news article about it, but my internet connection is on the fritz. Please see Linuxgames for a link to such an article.
So, now who is the evil one? Answer: They BOTH are! Almost every large corporation on this planet has done something evil. Those that don't go out of business.
If you try to judge a corporation on any sort of principles, you are likely to judge incorrectly. Personally, I have given up on judging such things. It is futile. All that matters to me now is who makes the best hardware. And for me, a 3D game engine writer, that is NVidia. If you want to buy 3dfx, fine. I don't care anymore. But buy for the hardware, or buy for the software. Don't buy on principle. It doesn't work.
Obviously, I expect this to be moderated down as flaimbait. Do your worst. My karma has been maxed out for quite some time.
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Does this mean that the Batmobile will run BeOS?
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Perhaps the card is overheating. :) Did you try putting an extra fan on it? I had to do this with my TNT2. Kinda makes sense that when the adjacent slot was empty, the card would stay cooler, as the fan sucks in air from below IIRC. (Or did the TNT2 have a fan? I can't remember...)
That is a very strange problem, though. I can see why the NVidia people had trouble with it... though I agree that they should at least reply to e-mails. They used to reply. I e-mailed once and got an immediate reply from Nick Triantos (head programmer), and it even fixed my problem, but apparently they don't do that anymore. :(
Well that was a fun Holy War. I defend NVidia because I really like the stuff I can do with their cards (programming-wise), and because I have never had a problem with their hardware. I'd like to see their drivers open source, but I don't think it is right to hate them for not doing so. There's a whole lot of good stuff in their drivers that other companies would love to use (seeing as how NVidia has the only complete OpenGL implementation).
No hard feelings. :)
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I guess you're right. I'd much rather be able to switch between SMP and UP on-the-fly than have drivers that are fast and featurful.
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I'm going to hang that on my wall.
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You say that be-fan shouldn't have been modded up because, in your humble opinion, what he said was wrong. Well, there are quite a few people that disagree with you, and the point of moderation is to bring up the post that are interesing, insightful, or informitive, not the ones which the moderators think are "correct". Just because you disagree does not mean that be-fan's post was not insightful.
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What problems are you having? I've debugged alot of NVidia Linux installations and I'd be happy to help you.
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So, your definition of being "behind Linux" is to give the users the info and make them do the work? I'll take NVidia's team of over 100 developers that work full time on NVidia hardware, thanks.
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be-fan - keep up the good work. :)
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Once again, you can find the developers at #nvidia on irc.openprojects.net.
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And just as good Linux drivers.
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Question: How did NVidia damage the open source community by releasing Linux drivers? If they had done nothing at all, would that have been better? As I'm sure you already know (as it has been stated thousands of times), NVidia would like to have released open source drivers, but they have NDA's with other companies that prevent them from doing so.
Every company has "tried to strongarm the market" at some point. 3dfx was one of the worst, with GLIDE and their patent on multi-texturing (which NVidia realized was crap, and ignored).
Their product is better than the other ones. In all my extensive research of the subject, I have continuously come to the same conclusion. Furthermore, their closed source drivers for Linux are currently better than any open source driver for a 3D card on Linux. Not to put down open source (I spend most of my time writing open source code), but it's just a fact.
See the .sig.
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Think about it:
Combine that with all the stuff be-fan said (which I agree with 100%), and you have one really cool company. Sorry, they aren't open source, but you'll notice that none of the open source drivers available compare anywhere near as favorably to their Windows counterparts as NVidia's drivers do. Where I come from, we judge our software on quality.
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I would like to predict right now that this article will mysteriously disappear within a few minutes. Such happens to every pitiful mistake of a Slashdot article. :) Come on, guys! All three of your links are wrong! As if that wasn't enough, it's also a repeat subject!
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