An Open Letter To NVIDIA

NVIDIA Corporation,

We the GNU/Linux community and the undersigned, kindly request that you, NVIDIA Corporation, increase your efforts in better enabling the open-source community to develop free software drivers for your graphics hardware. Your major competitors in this market, AMD/ATI and Intel, have not only supported the community in open-source driver development efforts but they are now openly releasing hardware programming documentation.

The open-source "nv" driver that you provide for X is an abhorrent disaster that is limited to 2D acceleration and doesn't come without its share of limitations and shrouded code. We look to NVIDIA for providing concise programming documentation to willing open-source developers that is not encumbered by Non-Disclosure Agreements or other legal restrictions.

In a steadfast manner, we request knowing your true commitment to the GNU/Linux and open-source communities. For everyday that you stand by idle, your competitors are continuing to refine their open-source drivers and pushing out more documentation that is better enabling the open-source community. Please let us know what is going on and join the open-source community in this effort.

Sincerely,
The Undersigned
February 29, 2008

Read and sign letter here.

Cheers

sad you think this NVIDA has been the best source for use if you go to there site they have a whole section for linux. sorry you are using the drivers that came with your debian distro. Pleas be kind to NVIDIA. and look to build your own NVIDA driver from there source. mine works great 3d etc.but I use NVIDA driver not my distro nvidiafb junk. good luck.

when was the last time you saw a company pay there people to write source for linux. let them keep there work private they paid for it and do every day by paying people to keep the drivers stable for us. good luck

Originally Posted by Drakeo sad you think this NVIDA has been the best source for use if you go to there site they have a whole section for linux. sorry you are using the drivers that came with your debian distro. Pleas be kind to NVIDIA. and look to build your own NVIDA driver from there source. mine works great 3d etc.but I use NVIDA driver not my distro nvidiafb junk. good luck.

Obviously, you didn't follow the link and read the entire letter. That's exactly what the open source community is calling on, the ability to write their own true open source drivers for all of nVidia's hardware. Yes, nVidia's proprietary drivers do work quite well with some systems, but for far too many devices, there are no drivers or support at all, despite their promise to support GNU/Linux and open source.

Cheers

I don't see what this is supposed to be about - 5 years ago everybody was worshipping nvidia because they had drivers at all and now they got be open source, preferably being called GNU/Linux/NVIDIA. Why?

And what is this about working well with 'some' systems? What hardware is not supported?

Originally Posted by crashmeister I don't see what this is supposed to be about - 5 years ago everybody was worshipping nvidia because they had drivers at all and now they got be open source, preferably being called GNU/Linux/NVIDIA. Why? And what is this about working well with 'some' systems? What hardware is not supported?

Here's someone looking for help, right now, and there's nothing on nVidia's website to support their configuration. That makes about 6 or 7 devices I've found myself in just a couple of months. That's what it's about...

Cheers

Originally Posted by dragonslayer48dx Here's someone looking for help, right now, and there's nothing on nVidia's website to support their configuration. That makes about 6 or 7 devices I've found myself in just a couple of months. That's what it's about... Cheers

Yeah - but those are open source drivers the poster has a problem with (alsa anyone - nvidia got nothing to do with that) and the letter is about graphics drivers.

I read it all. but you see some thing are not for the taking. if you want get the card and chip by the equipment and build your own low level drivers just like the chip engineers do.Do it. 10 years ago NVIDA did some thing real nice for the linux community. Now you want to take there source rebuild it and give it back to them and say it is better now you just did'nt do it right for the community. You have good intentions. I believe the way to a company that makes money is to prove the market. open source is open. But I believe one thing I like my work when I do it not when others do it and say it is NVIDIA. Open to some one that can hurt the code that does not like your company. and use your name. Open NVIDIA.
How about we get together and take some offerings and pay them for there 20 years of hard work then we can call it Open to the open source I am for the respect of the programers work.

here is your driver good luck you may have to compile it your self if you they do not have the ready built driver.
http://search.nvidia.com/?q=NVidia+Nforce+430+

Dunno about the guys mobo but mine shows the same specs as far as sound is concerned and works fine with a regular alsa driver.Most likely some mandriva specific thing and I am not blessed with a lot of rpm-based distro knowledge plus alsa is a mess to me.

You might want to enlighten him in the linked thread.

nVidia's done an excellent job in supporting Linux, and it's the only GPU I'd suggest to anyone wanting to run Linux. I've seen much worse headaches with ATI.

I've added a poll, because I want to know how good they really are. I've seen several OP's having problems with nVidia hardware. I will admit, most of the graphics cards for which I couldn't find drivers were high-end, Vista Premium compatible. Is it that they just won't work with Linux, or is nVidia dragging their feet developing drivers? However, I still contend that if they are truly dedicated to Linux, then drivers should be provided for all their hardware, not just graphics cards/chipsets, or at least open the architecture so open source developers can write drivers. Just my

BTW- that is a community-generated letter with over 6000 sigs, thus far...

Cheers

I would like to add my aussie 2 cents.

I drive a toyota, pls don't hold that against me....lets pretend I got them to reveal their code...so I could convert their computer to linux....woo hoo....I might find I then needed some lawyer to get design approval....blah blah blah.

the bottom line is....there is a lot of stuff in this world that is not Open Source or GNU or GPL or freeware or whatever...I still use it....and I have no problem with a company that provides a driver that will taint the kernel and that I can use.

I do not use the nv driver supplied by my distro.

I agree we have big problems mainly with newest devices especially laptops but that is not Nvidia's problem its ours.

thanks for reading

In recent years, I have found NVidia's support for Linux to be outstanding.

Their best drivers may not be open source, but that doesn't detract from the quality.

Personally, I think that certain people within the Linux community should be more grateful for the level of support which is currently being provided.

Remember this: For a corporation like NVidia, it would be much cheaper and easier stop supporting such a small minority. Their shareholders would be happier with the dividends.

Originally Posted by rkelsen In recent years, I have found NVidia's support for Linux to be outstanding. Their best drivers may not be open source, but that doesn't detract from the quality. Personally, I think that certain people within the Linux community should be more grateful for the level of support which is currently being provided. Remember this: For a corporation like NVidia, it would be much cheaper and easier stop supporting such a small minority. Their shareholders would be happier with the dividends.

I can fully relate to your entire message, but it does raise a question with me. Did nVidia promise true open source drivers or better support in any way, or did someone read something out of context and convince over 6k people to sign this letter before they finally got it published in a prominent mag?

Certainly, it would be cheaper and easier to end support altogether. Of that, I have no doubt. But when someone makes a promise, even in the context of voluntary work for charity, they are expected to keep it.

Cheers