thus Bill Studenmund spake:
> On Sat, Aug 26, 2006 at 12:49:03AM +0200, Timo Schoeler wrote:
>> thus Mark Weinem spake:
>>> Timo Schoeler wrote:
>>>> thus Mark Weinem spake:
>>>>> Zafer Aydogan wrote:
>>> But we should rnot support petitions and ask vendors for OS-specific
>>> binary-only drivers. Nvdia drivers for FreeBSD and NetBSD without the 
>>> possibility for
>>> all the other and smaller Open Source projects to profit - no thanks!  
>>> It's no problem for me that blob drivers work with Free- oder NetBSD  - 
>>> but we should really not demand them.
>> yeah, and that's the point. as soon as one accepts a blob from any 
>> vendor they will say in future that you accepted it and don't see the 
>> necessity of opening their documentation (i.e. NOT the design itself, 
>> but the docs).
> 
> I think you're wrong here. Well, you may be right about what is said, but
> that's not what's important. My experience is that if someone says that
> they will only blob a driver and that's ok because you took a blob
> earlier, they are just finding an excuse. The decision to open-source or 
> not happened earlier.

i think that you (still) didn't get the point; it's not about what's 
right or wrong today, or about which compromise to go.

it's more a psychological thing; (unfortunely) we're living in a 
*capitalistic* world. if vendor A doesn't have to publish documentation 
in order to get free (really free) operating systems support the card or 
whatever the vendor released, vendor B, C and D, who used to open up 
their documentation, will stop doing so.

why? because there are managers and lawyers without *any* clue of what's 
going on in the real world -- they just want to optimize their company 
to make more money (profit), in most cases regardless of who has to die 
or whatever. in this business, usually nobody has to die, except openness.

vendors B, C and D would save costs on documentation (for people outside 
their engineers), distribution of it, and most of all, feel more secure 
about their engineering, which they don't have to publish for any longer.

psychological, nothing else. it's like the child given a finger -- it 
demands the whole hand (it's a saying in germany, don't know if there's 
something equal in the UK/US).

cheers,

timo