[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
[Savannah-hackers] Re: submission of Waves, Clouds, and Sand - savannah
From: |
Mathieu Roy |
Subject: |
[Savannah-hackers] Re: submission of Waves, Clouds, and Sand - savannah.nongnu.org |
Date: |
26 Feb 2003 19:01:17 +0100 |
User-agent: |
Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.2 |
> I might be reassured if you could tell me what positive steps are being
> taken to get modern, free 3D working on GNU systems.
>
> Of course I understand the ethical concern, but usually it's more
> effective to have a 2-part plan: avoid proprietary component while
> lobbying for/creating free replacement.
In your case, you do not avoid proprietary components. You simply
propose to create a free software that will require anyone that way to
use it to install proprietary driver.
Can you explain why ATI or Nvidia would release a free driver if using
their proprietary drivers become a norm?
> I don't know what's going on behind the scenes, but at the moment it looks
> to me like 3D isn't a big concern for the FSF. Maybe I can help motivate
> others to make it a priority.
Do you remember the origin of the GNOME project?
At this time, using Qt, non-free at this time, was easier, faster.
The position of the FSF about this kind of matters is pretty clear and
pretty coherent.
> In my case, I want to work on the "it actually does something" side of
> programming as opposed to the "it enables you to write a program that does
> something" side.
It's abolutely your right. As it's the right to the GNU project to
think that writing a program that does something must use free
programs that enables to write something.
Obviously, if your program "actually does something" only if you
install a proprietary software, it's easy to disable your software.
The GNU project started by building development tools ; it was a
required step to build other tools as free software.
> > > Having a large number of free 3D programs available which use
> > > modern hardware capabilities seems to be an improvement over the
> > > current situtation of only the proprietary programs being able
> > > to do so;
> >
> > An improvement from the technical point of view, not from the ethical point
> > of
> > view.
>
> No, an improvement in BOTH areas. Right now we have proprietary games
> with proprietary drivers; in the future we will have free games with
> proprietary drivers, then free games with free drivers. It's the middle
> step.
Your point of view could be qualified as evolutionist. But this theory
is far too simple to be realistic.
> Having people learning from and sharing advanced 3D games is surely
> better than binary-only games with 10-page EULAs.
Maybe. You are maybe right.
But it's not the position of the GNU project. And Savannah stick to
the GNU project's position.
> > the end does not justify the means; and I think it is very
> > doubtful what will make proprietary vendors change their narrow
> > minds. We should rather make plans that depend on our own (the
> > free software community) actions.
>
> Software doesn't exist in a vacuum -- okay, well maybe embedded software
> does ;) -- you always depend on hardware. So, you can't make plans
> completely independently of what hardware manufacturers do. Even if you
> think, "I'll always have my Pentium 100", it will eventually stop working.
>
> The best way to avoid a proprietary future is to convince lots of people
> that your philosophy is correct. If you can't even run a 3-year-old
> game on your system, it's going to be a hard sell.
You are right, new computers are mainly needed to run games. But
actually, industry/states does not buy software to play games. And
it's seem far more essential to me.
Nobody cares if whether I played to Warcraft III or not, but many
people cares about the fact that some universities ask students to make
only MS Word .doc
> > can install it in my 100% free system because it is part of
> > Debian; it runs, but it works very slow and not very smooth. It
> > could be a Savannah package anyway, but if it was, we would expect
> > its developers to try to resolve our bug reports complaining that
> > it does not work well in our systems, without telling us "go and
> > install the nvidia package from Debian non-free".
>
> Of course it's easier preaching to the choir than doing missionary work.
>
> However, it doesn't make sense to expect game developers to make their
> game run better on an incomplete, buggy driver.
>
> Direct the pressure gradient outward and talk to the hardware
> manufacturers.
There's no pressure. We tried to explain how we understand the GNU
point of view, that we both, Jaime and me, share - and you probably
noticed that we do not have exactly same profile.
Apparently we failed.
The rules of Savannah will not change today. You didn't prove that
making a political stand is useless (It would be hard).
> > And how do you intend to pass the word to NVidia that people are
> > using their cards to run tuxracer rather than some proprietary
> > game? All they will see is an increase in their sells, which is
> > what they want, and will think that their policy of keeping
> > technical details hidden is working very well.
>
> Tux Racer is not exactly a high-visibility project. You need a popular
> free software project that attracts enough users that "get it", who are
> clamoring for NVidia to release a free driver.
>
> It worked with TrollTech and QT, and MySQL.
Do you think ?
I was thinking at the contrary that what worked with Qt and MySQL was
the fact that many people refuses to install non-free stuff on their
computer... and so there was more advantages for Qt and MySQL to be
really free.
Same problem: how can you incitate someone to free a software after
accepting it as non-free. You accept as non-free, you build on it: you
depend. You are not in position for any lobbying. You can only ask for
pity.
--
Mathieu Roy
<< Profile << http://savannah.gnu.org/users/yeupou <<
>> Homepage >> http://yeupou.coleumes.org >>
<< GPG Key << http://stock.coleumes.org/gpg <<
- [Savannah-hackers] Re: submission of Waves, Clouds, and Sand - savannah.nongnu.org, (continued)
- [Savannah-hackers] Re: submission of Waves, Clouds, and Sand - savannah.nongnu.org, planet10, 2003/02/25
- [Savannah-hackers] Re: submission of Waves, Clouds, and Sand - savannah.nongnu.org, Mathieu Roy, 2003/02/26
- [Savannah-hackers] Re: submission of Waves, Clouds, and Sand - savannah.nongnu.org, planet10, 2003/02/26
- [Savannah-hackers] Re: submission of Waves, Clouds, and Sand - savannah.nongnu.org, Mathieu Roy, 2003/02/26
- [Savannah-hackers] Re: submission of Waves, Clouds, and Sand - savannah.nongnu.org, planet10, 2003/02/26
- [Savannah-hackers] Re: submission of Waves, Clouds, and Sand - savannah.nongnu.org, Mathieu Roy, 2003/02/26
- [Savannah-hackers] Re: submission of Waves, Clouds, and Sand - savannah.nongnu.org, planet10, 2003/02/26
- [Savannah-hackers] Re: submission of Waves, Clouds, and Sand - savannah.nongnu.org, Mathieu Roy, 2003/02/26
- Re: [Savannah-hackers] submission of Waves, Clouds, and Sand - savannah.nongnu.org, Jaime E. Villate, 2003/02/26
- Re: [Savannah-hackers] submission of Waves, Clouds, and Sand - savannah.nongnu.org, planet10, 2003/02/26
- [Savannah-hackers] Re: submission of Waves, Clouds, and Sand - savannah.nongnu.org,
Mathieu Roy <=
- [Savannah-hackers] Re: submission of Waves, Clouds, and Sand - savannah.nongnu.org, planet10, 2003/02/26
- [Savannah-hackers] Re: submission of Waves, Clouds, and Sand - savannah.nongnu.org, Mathieu Roy, 2003/02/26
- Re: [Savannah-hackers] submission of Waves, Clouds, and Sand - savannah.nongnu.org, Jaime E. Villate, 2003/02/26