Re: [PLUG] Want Video Card Recommendation

[Matthew Rosewarne <mrosewarne@inoutbox.com>]

On Sunday 14 September 2008, David A. Harding wrote:
> Allegedly, Richard Stallman once threatened to suicide bomb a
> proprietary software company's office.[*] I think they'd care
> about that.

RMS is er... flamboyant, but he's not *that* crazy.

> You can donate to the Software Freedom Law Center. They not only protect
> free software developers from unscrupulous lawyers, they're the
> organization NVidia or AMD (formerly ATI) calls when they want to make
> their code or specifications free, but their lawyers aren't sure about
> the consequences.
>
> You can write them a letter. It won't go to the company president, but
> it might go to the company's resident free software advocate. In the
> hands of an advocate, a customer's letter is not just a tool but a
> reason to keep fighting.

This does express that you'd like them to do it, but Nvidia, a publicly-traded 
company, will do whatever makes them money.  You can send as many letters of 
protest that you want, but the company is far more concerned with the green 
kind of paper than the white kind.

> A free software driver destroys the argument for keeping code secret.

If NVidia still makes the sale without having to do anything themselves., what 
incentive does it give them to cooperate and actually release information on 
the next product?

For instance, people have been hacking Apple's iPod since the first version, 
but it hasn't caused Apple to provide any information on new models.  The 
hackers scramble to reverse-engineer those, Apple continues to sell iPods, 
nothing changes.

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