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This is pretty close to my interpretation. Basically I think that Valve has forced the hands of the graphics card makers to elevate the Linux platform to first

This is pretty close to my interpretation. Basically I think that Valve has forced the hands of the graphics card makers to elevate the Linux platform to first class citizen status. Due to the poor integration of the Nvidia proprietary drivers with the Linux kernel, it seems like they have two options to get their drivers into a better state: 1. Hire a lot of kernel hackers 2. Try to get the open source driver maintainers to improve integration in a way that is closer to the actual hardware (without giving everything away), and then somehow tie their proprietary driver into that integration code. The letter certainly doesn't express interest in improving the capabilities of the nouveau drivers to a point that they can compete with the proprietary drivers in terms of 3d performance, and I think that it would be prudent of the open source driver maintainers to be skeptical of Nvidia's motives given the timing and limited nature of the release.

lallysingh 13y ago
I agree completely. I'd add: 3. Improve the relationship between NVIDIA and the open-source community. If AMD was both much better on Linux (due to #2/#3), and they were "good enough" for a substantial portion of users who're now using SteamOS, that's a lot of lost revenue for NVIDIA.
- zanny 13y ago
  Too bad as the target audience of Steam on Linux (mainly, a hacker who also plays games, and doesn't buy Windows licenses) I can't go with either companies products. Nvidia is direly amoral in their completely asinine hatred of FOSS and their inability to contribute. I won't support a business with that mentality. They either grow up and play ball in mesa or I don't give them a cent. But AMD has terrible performance and instability in both drivers, and they still have proprietary firmware. It is like trying to have ones cake and eat it too - "hey look, we have foss drivers, except not!" is not good enough. The whole point of foss drivers is not hiding anything from users, and having binary firmware blobs making their devices impossible to reimplement without reverse engineering defeats the purpose. Then there is Intel, who just makes a foss driver as their only option and does it right. So my next build is using 4600 HD graphics and I'll just play minecraft and quake live rather than whatever shiny new shooter Valve brings to Linux.
  - stmartin 13y ago
    funny, you just summarized my thoughts on the issue. Intel should be praised for getting it right. The leadership of the company is awesome.
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    Of course, Intel has it somewhat easier, considering their GPU+driver combo only needs to play minecraft and quake live.

lallysingh 13y ago

I agree completely. I'd add: 3. Improve the relationship between NVIDIA and the open-source community. If AMD was both much better on Linux (due to #2/#3), and they were "good enough" for a substantial portion of users who're now using SteamOS, that's a lot of lost revenue for NVIDIA.

zanny 13y ago
Too bad as the target audience of Steam on Linux (mainly, a hacker who also plays games, and doesn't buy Windows licenses) I can't go with either companies products. Nvidia is direly amoral in their completely asinine hatred of FOSS and their inability to contribute. I won't support a business with that mentality. They either grow up and play ball in mesa or I don't give them a cent. But AMD has terrible performance and instability in both drivers, and they still have proprietary firmware. It is like trying to have ones cake and eat it too - "hey look, we have foss drivers, except not!" is not good enough. The whole point of foss drivers is not hiding anything from users, and having binary firmware blobs making their devices impossible to reimplement without reverse engineering defeats the purpose. Then there is Intel, who just makes a foss driver as their only option and does it right. So my next build is using 4600 HD graphics and I'll just play minecraft and quake live rather than whatever shiny new shooter Valve brings to Linux.
- stmartin 13y ago
  funny, you just summarized my thoughts on the issue. Intel should be praised for getting it right. The leadership of the company is awesome.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  Of course, Intel has it somewhat easier, considering their GPU+driver combo only needs to play minecraft and quake live.