Re: Let's stop feeding the NVidia cuckoo
Ben Johnson <camilledalmeras@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Ok, debian-wankers, got it.
I really didn't understand that until I read Josh's explanation. I
don't read many Marco d'Itri spews, so I thought you were ranting.
I was thinking of something a bit more like the short-term private
lists that exist for short targetted work.
> [...] This is not just a case of bad
> coding practices, it is deliberate. What for ? [...]
Your claims of telepathy don't convince me. Also, it may be that
there's some bizarre reason for coding as random-looking pokes.
> >Can you direct me to the reasoning of the FSF on
> this, please?
> Certainly. From
> http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/free-sw.html: [...]
Sorry, I meant the reasoning that the FSF does not consider
the nv driver to be free software. I still feel that it falls
into a "free but not very good" category, but I think I would
be convinced by an FSF position on this.
> Now, only one person working at NVidia maintains the
> driver. Is this the proof of a lack of interest for
> NVidia's hardware from the free software developers,
> or that they are de facto denied the freedom to
> improve the program because the source is voluntarily
> obscure ? (Notice I did not say obfusacted.)
Quite a few bits of the GNU project only has one developer
working on it at any time. In some cases, there are even no
developers for a while. Would you call them not free software?
If we only consider "software that invites hacking" to be
free software, we're going to lose a lot more of GNU. That's
probably one reason why it's not in the DFSG. It just has to
be possible. Not necessarily easy.
nv is probably going to stay in Debian as long as it's in the
upstream. Even so, if you can do anything to increase the use
of hacker-friendly software, or replace hacker-hostile with
hacker-friendly, then I'd welcome it.
--
MJR/slef
My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/
Subscribed to this list. No need to Cc, thanks.
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