D russel wrote:
Personally I think it is certainly a bad idea to default to using the nvidia binary video drivers. I think the arguments are well known on the use of binary drivers with respect to tainting the system, lack of maintainability and removing the desire to work on free solutions so I won't start a rant.I dont know for other drivers but these two seem acceptable. Nvidia drivers : Smart link modems: So at least for the above there should be no problem. Or is there?
What I will say is that the question becomes a lot more difficult when you cannot use a device with Free drivers and a non-free solution (such as the sl-modems) is the only option (I'm still not 100% certain why it is non-free but am assuming it includes firmware). I think in this sort of case it is a reasonable choice for Knoppix (and similar) to include the binary drivers as it increases hardware compatibility but I would also think it reasonable to not include it.
In the case of the nvidia drivers are you gaining significant hardware compatibility? And if so at what expense? If the nvidia video drivers do provide additional hardware support, could they be activated only by cheatcode or at least only for nvidia cards which aren't supported by the Free code, to make them both easier to remove and prevent them running by default?
What do various distributions do, do they ship the binary nvidia drivers running by default?
Just my 2c, if it's even worth that! It's Klaus's cash that counts deciding this one!
Niall