On Wed, Aug 30, 2006 at 01:52:35PM +0200, Timo Schoeler wrote:
> 
> it's possible now to go for userland blobs on Linux:
> 
> http://www.uwsg.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0608.3/1908.html
> 

That is only a userland interface to a pci bus.  That will not go
anywhere to help in the case of 3d accelerators.

> i still see the problem of supporting only i386/amd64 in the long term 
> when accepting blobs.

*shrug* it may be a somewhat narrow focus but the applications I am
 interested in running on a 3d accelerator only run on i386/amd64.  If
 you are looking to gaming to drive the demand then that is the market
 space you are working in.

> fortunately, there are other OS, and one could 
> even start a new one (fork or from ground up).
> 

regardless of whether to go off to another OS or even start your own,
you are still faced with the fact that someone either has to leverage
the documents out of the hardware manufacturers (a seemingly difficult
task) OR reverse their driver and write your own (another seemingly
difficult task).  If you acheive either of these goals it really does
not matter what OS you are on - you have the driver but until then you
either do without or use a blob. rock. hard place. choose.

-- 
Brett Lymn