New Linux look fuels old debate

By Stephen Shankland, CNET News.com
Tuesday, April 18, 2006 10:44 AM

Red Hat shuns proprietary drivers for business reasons, said Chief Technology Officer Brian Stevens. "Why wouldn't you want the army of users to resolve it and make the driver a better driver? There are a lot of smart people who work on open source," Stevens said.

The company is urging graphics chipmakers to help open-source programmers by sharing hardware details, Stevens added. "We have made a direct request to them to open their specs fully. That's something they're not able to do at this time, but that request came from me," Stevens said.

On the flip side, Intel believes it can use open-source drivers to gain against Nvidia and ATI. The strategy parallels the chipmaker's earlier move with wireless networking support, and it has won an ally in Red Hat. "Their partnering with the open-source community is a pretty strong advantage," Stevens said.

Intel has new plans for its open-source graphics driver work, though Hohndel wouldn't reveal details. "Our (graphics) drivers are open source. We are bringing out some interesting new stuff. It's not released yet," he said.

Warning shot across the bow
Users got a taste of an open-source-only world last month from Red Hat. The company inadvertently suppressed the ability to use proprietary kernel modules when it shipped the new version 5 of its popular Fedora Core Linux. The unplanned experiment wasn't pretty for newbies.

"I do not believe the intention was to promote open-source modules and to attack proprietary modules," Larabel said. "One of the reasons I personally believe this is the fact that beginning Linux users who tried Fedora Core 5 would experience problems with loading mainly ATI or Nvidia modules and ultimately tarnish Fedora's reputation due to a troubling experience--or so I have gathered from the countless e-mails I received from those beginning users."

Red Hat unblocked proprietary modules in an update. However, other snags persist. Fedora and Novell's equivalent, OpenSuse, don't ship with the proprietary drivers, requiring users to jump through extra hoops to obtain and install them. On top of that, updating the kernel sometimes requires a corresponding video driver update.

One change that could ease driver difficulties is a stable interface to the Linux kernel. A stable interface provides a fixed and documented way for a driver to communicate with the kernel. Even if the kernel interior changed, the method of communication would remain the same, and drivers wouldn't have to change with kernel updates, for example.

"I understand the reasons why kernel developers try to steer clear of that," Fear said, giving as an example the wish to preserve maximum freedom to innovate. But a stable interface "would make our lives and the lives of the end users easier," he added.

With the existing fluid interface in Linux, programmers must provide drivers for numerous kernel variations, and old drivers--open or proprietary--stop working, said Miguel de Icaza, vice president of development at Novell. "Contrast this with Windows, where there is a stable interface for drivers in the kernel. A driver developed against NT 4 works on XP," he said.

ATI is willing to accommodate Linux's fluid style. "ATI accepts that as part of our day-to-day responsibilities in Linux," Tippett said.

Some worry that a stable interface could lead to more proprietary drivers. Arjan van de Ven, a former Red Hat kernel programmer who now works for Intel, described a speculative "Linux doomsday scenario in which Linux kernel developers accept binary modules and a stable interface. In his scenario, posted on the Linux kernel mailing list in December, hardware companies reverse current open-source support and ultimately leave users unable to respond to a serious security vulnerability.

Only some steps of the scenario are unlikely, van de Ven said. Despite this, he remains hopeful. "I believe that the advantages of freedom in the end are strong enough to overcome the counter forces," he said.


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Talkback 6 comments

What a shame it would be to let the advantages given to us by open source be eroded by the incremental encumberances of closed-source drivers.

The OpenBSD guys are absolutely correct on this point. It's all got to be free. To allow anything else puts us back into the stone age in terms of stifling innovation.
Posted by mario on Tuesday, April 18 2006 10:03 PM

This is very good reason to support the Open Graphics project. Timothy Miller is attempting to make a 3D graphics Card for use in Open Source Software workstations. the project Wiki is here: opengraphics.org
Posted by Chris on Wednesday, April 19 2006 12:27 AM

I _NEED_ an opensource efficient nvidia driver!

it's a PAIN in our WORK to manage the proprietary nvidia drivers with kernel linux development and Xorg fast improvments

we really need nvidia to accept to let linux and distributions people integrate an efficient and gpl-licensed drivers in the kernel and xorg.

_I_ don't care about their problems with patents, licence, industries, competition and whatever ATI

I am a customer , and the actual situation is NOT GOOD.

why ?
because the closed nvidia drivers (and ati one) is slowing linux/xorg development

each time developpers can improve graphics or ease suspend, 3D acceleration, offscreen rendering, video accelerating, and whatever.. BAM ! you have to wait Nvidia to do their work.. sometimes it's MONTH

it's unacceptable.

networks and motherboards chipsets accept to play with the rules of linux world because it's _needed_ to the whole industry.

I have to remind some people _gains_ money with linux and free software. nvidia should be reminded of that.

ho, and yes "opensource nvidia drivers" is a long long loong need and demande of linux users

you can see that coming back every month on linuxtoday.com, linuxfr.org, kernel developpers ML, xorg developpers, Xgl forums, ubuntu ones, redhat ones, suse/novell one and mostly virtual on all forums dealing with the state of graphics and 3D rendering on linux and free/opensource software (freebsd, hello ?)


of course, sometimes we have to stop ranting and we do work with the nvidia closed drivers
but man... it's a pain for customers.


ATI and Nvidia : happy to be both the master of whole gaming/workstation/desktop computers graphics ?
Posted by michel on Wednesday, April 19 2006 05:34 AM

Open sourcing hardware drivers is very importent to me. I grew up in the microchip era and I want to know what's inside; Intel. Trade secrets are a bunch of crap. When someone trades something to me there should be NO secrets between us.
I do not trust something in my home that I don't know what's in it. No, I dont trust them to keep me 'safe.'
I don't want Lock In so repairmen can only replace the chips by giving money to the original company and not being able to repair the chips themselves. It's creating a dumbed down society. This creates much higher prices. How long have we had the same speed chips smaller and smaller at the same prices?
Posted by Sam on Wednesday, April 19 2006 04:34 PM

Ha! Nvidia said their customers did not requested OpenSource drivers. I'm their customer. I do request it! And there are many of us. There was a public mail to Nvidia with request, but they still don't see needs.
Posted by vvv on Thursday, April 20 2006 03:45 AM

It's a chicken or egg thing again.

FSF make proprietary drivers had to load or Nviia does not have properly updated drivers, beginner users gets frustrated with Linux and trash it, less people to buy Linux desktop, less people will need the drivers for the desktop. Withot economy of scale, Nvidia find it less incentivised to develop linux drivers.

So goes the vicious cycle.
Posted by Whaye on Friday, April 21 2006 05:24 PM


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