Quote:
Originally Posted by WanderingKnight
But! It doesn't mean they'll make them open source, which can have its significant drawbacks. I hope there's a sane response from ATI and they do what they should have done a lot of time ago (open source them).
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The usual response to this request is that the drivers incorporate proprietary software from ATI's development partners for which permission to open is not available. I hear the same is supposedly true about NVidia.
I use the proprietary NVidia driver which works fine for me. Luckily there are pre-built kernel modules at Livna so updates generally happen in sync with kernel updates. I'm glad Dell is leaning on ATI, but I'm happy with my NVidia setup as it stands.
There's also been repeated discussions about a standardized "application binary interface" that would enable companies to write proprietary drivers that wouldn't need kernel source code "shims." I believe Linus opposes this whole notion, though, so I doubt it's going to happen any time soon.
I just wish there were some good resolution to the problem of proprietary binaries working with Linux. These issues have been around for nearly a decade now and show little sign of being resolved. If anything, the debate over GPLv3 suggests the situation may worsen, not improve.