Quote: Original post by RPTD
nope.

the nvidia kernel module source is 'fully' available to you. it's the same with the ati kernel module. those sources are fully available to you. nvidia use a self-extracting binary and ati an rpm package

in both case you get the full source and you can compile it. you are just prohibited to distribute in any form the extracted source nor modified not original. you can only compile them and install them on your system.

thus those sources are 'closed' in the sense of reusability, not avilability.

I am going to have to look into that because I imagine that if the code was even that open there would not be so many problems reported.

To the post above, whoa. I read the BSD vs Linux link posted, and it was very informative. I use Debian and a lot of the philosophy is similar but I see where it is different. To argue that there is no point to having NetBSD when Linux can do a lot similarly is missing the point of having options. Windows can do some things better than Linux, so by your logic, what's the point of Linux? And yeah, this argument would be better in its own topic.

Quote: Original post by GBGames
Windows can do some things better than Linux, so by your logic, what's the point of Linux? And yeah, this argument would be better in its own topic.

Because it doesn't do ALL things better than linux.

See where I'm going with this?

Quote: Original post by C-Junkie

Quote: Original post by GBGames
Windows can do some things better than Linux, so by your logic, what's the point of Linux? And yeah, this argument would be better in its own topic.

Because it doesn't do ALL things better than linux.

See where I'm going with this?

No, actually. Not everything is done better in Linux either. BSD has its place, just as Gentoo has its own place even though Debian lets you do the same thing if you want. B-)

Quote: Original post by GBGames
No, actually. Not everything is done better in Linux either.

I'm saying it does.

Quote: just as Gentoo has its own place even though Debian lets you do the same thing if you want. B-)

But those each do something better than the other.

edit: and oh yeah, unless we want to turn this into a BSD thread, I suggest someone start a different thread if theye'd like to discuss why linux kicks ass for almost every angle.

Quote: Original post by C-Junkie

Quote: Original post by RPTD
the nvidia kernel module source is 'fully' available to you.

No it's not. Check out that chunk of precompile binary in that there package.

missed that one. there are precompiled object files in there, that's why you get the tainted kernel but the source itself that you need to get the module into the kernel is open and has been enough to fix errors (you just have not been allowed to post those fixes in public).

i sometimes mix em up with the xorg sources... those nvidia and ati drivers are fully open ^_^

Here's an obsticle... no market. How does $0 in sales sound?

Quote: Original post by RPTD
missed that one. there are precompiled object files in there, that's why you get the tainted kernel but the source itself that you need to get the module into the kernel is open and has been enough to fix errors (you just have not been allowed to post those fixes in public).

There is a small bit of LGPL glue code that has only been enough to fix one error historically (something changed during linux 2.5 development that could be fixed by fixing the glue code) and that was freely distributable. (because it was LGPL)

The nvidia driver is still completely closed source.

... Well, as to the lack of a good IDE on linux, you're all sadly mistaken. Neither Eclipse or KDevelop are up to snuff in my book. The only one that is worth the trouble is Visual Slickedit. And believe me, it is *worth* the price tag. It can emulate any IDE you tell it to, from MSVC to Kdevelop on down the line. It has support for just about every language I've ever heard of; its support for project management, compilation, etc are fantastic. It's the easiest and best IDE I've used since VC 6.0 (I hate .Net).

You know you're a linux geek when you spend years telling everyone how great your O/S is, and then start getting upset when they actually use it...

Well, there's no point in doing only a Linux game. The best way is to do as portable game as you can. Then distribute the Linux, MacOS and [insert OS of your choice] binaries along with the Windows installer and rest of the content on CD / DVD.

Of course, some people don't want to run precompiled binaries on their system but that's their loss, eh?

Quote: Original post by Kwizatz

I think it's a matter of different interfaces, people get used to windowed html like documentation and expect everything else to be the same, the documentation is there, its just not in the format you expect it to be.

It's not just a matter of "different" - the format is clearly inferior and too rooted in archaic practices. Man pages are no match for an extensively hyperlinked and indexed help system with full text search.

The main impediment to linux going mainstream is exactly this attitude: That if something was good enough for people back in the early seventies, it's good enough now.

It isn't.

Unfortunately, there seems to be some kind of emperor's new clothes effect(combined with a healthy dose of groupthink) at play in the unix community. People generally don't point out the glaring inadequacies in the tools; instead concluding that they themselves are at fault for not mastering them(the smug feeling of superiority that comes after memorizing a particularly cryptic command set for a tool probably helps too).