NVIDIA Plotting Open-Source Strategy?

[Thetargos]

Apparently Vista not only backfired on Microsoft, but also on the OEMs. I know this is too complex an issue to hand it only to Vista or Microsoft alone. This has more to do with "consumer empowerment" than anything else. Consumers don't just "mindlessly buy" anymore, at least not many, and the number of "conscious consumers" is increasing at a rather rapid rate, this along with more users taking the plunge to alternatives (where even XP became such an alternative) has spoken problems for Microsoft and the OEMs. Even as good as XP turned out to be, it is not good for Microsoft's business to keep it "alive" much longer, as it will only (as it does now) hinders adoption of the new platform. Other factors at play are hardware needs and associated costs, downtime due to incompatibilities, etc.

To note is the increasing number of OEMs offering Linux alternatives. This can only mean one thing: Market indexes have started to reckon an increase of Linux market share or at least interest from potential customers. This has still a long way to go, but it is indeed interesting that it happening.

[lucky_]

It could be interesting to have the AMD point of view.
Do they believe in the nvidia statement ?
If so, are they confident to be ready before nvidia ? (almost full featured open source driver)
In how much time do they think AMD will be the best platform for linux, and how long do they hope to stay the favorites for linux desktop once they reach this place.
I don't want to thrown any bad statement, but this last year AMD/ATI wasn't the best linux friendly platform.

[val-gaav]

As an example when I bought my laptop, despite going with Dell and Ubuntu being an option on some models, I had to purchase Vista because I wanted a 15 inch display. +1 for Microsoft and/or -1 for Linux market share despite my not using Windows at all.

you are not the only one who did it... I also wanted a 15,4 display, so I ditched the dell offer quite fast...
Anyway I ended up buying an AMD Toshiba, funny thing is it costed 600$ with Vista home basic, and similiar Dell with ubuntu would cost over 900$ ...
Sadly the only thing I regret is giving money to M$ for the OEM Vista home basic... The rest was a good choice even if AMD/ATI radeonhd didn't give us a full radeonhd driver now ... I can wait and fglrx is good enough for me for now....

About the nvidia open source support .... It's good thing for all of us. In the future it will give a choice from all major GPU venders for consumers .... and for all that own ATI or are planning to get one it's also a good news. AMD will now do everything to get a good fully functional (2d+3d) open driver as quickly as possible. I mean they want to have an advantage over nvidia so speeding things up seems likely to happen.

So the news is good now let's await the next doc drop from AMD

[shaidtan]

I agree completely with - well with every point made here. Thetargos made a good point about market share. I'd like to add though that I've always thought those numbers were a bit skewed; more so as time progresses. As an example when I bought my laptop, despite going with Dell and Ubuntu being an option on some models, I had to purchase Vista because I wanted a 15 inch display. +1 for Microsoft and/or -1 for Linux market share despite my not using Windows at all.

If the majority of machines were offered with Linux (or better the option to buy either or both) I think the numbers would be much more telling.

[Thetargos]

I'm still a bit hesitant to switch to AMD graphics. I know, I know, they've come a LONG way, there have been quite a bit of improvements and what not. But there seems to be a lot more problems to solve still, for instance AIGLX + XVideo. Even though nVidia in the G80s have XVideo broken, it works reasonably OK with AIGLX running (the other series have no issues whatsoever... at least in this regard). Where as with ATi's is either, not both. At any rate, I find it rather funny that as ATI/AMD has started to get their thing together, and be more FLOSS friendly and whatnot, I can't help but notice that more people than ever before has started to have problems with nVidia hardware and sudden lockups and system crashes. Odd indeed!

[starkmjolk]

If it turns out right, it is a clear win for everyone. But I want to see some actual development before putting my money on nvidia again. If the timeframe holds, the next machine will be AMD/ATI.

EDIT: Still this is very good news of course. )

[yoshi314]

i think they noticed that specs + radeonhd initiative attracts more and more people to ati cards and development, while their hardware is constantly being reverse-engineered by nouveau team - which is something ati managed to postpone.

[Thetargos]

They were lagging behind. They must have reckoned something about AMD's strategy, or, as commented several times before by Svartalf, OEMs have simply "requested" that they also had open source support. This would also mean that if nVidia remained closed, OEMs would opt for Intel and AMD, giving AMD an instant lead onto the graphics department and with Spider in the horizon that could spell problems for nVidia in the market place. I know, I know, Linux market share is much smaller than the dominan player, however the trend has been steady in the number of users who switch to Linux, which only means more market. If nVidia was left out of the loop, that would have also meant less customers, less market, regardless the platform.

The upcoming two years will be very interesting indeed!

[DeepDayze]

Now that will be nice if this comes to pass. Its about time that nVidia makes a move on this. If this is done right, then we all win no matter what graphics card we use.

[shaidtan]

This would be a major step in the right direction. Consumers get better drivers, nVidia gets free driver developers, and developers get the support they've been wanting for so long.

Plus it would allow distributors like Dell to offer Linux on a wider array of their products. Again win/win/win.

If nothing changes my next laptop will have either Intel or ATI graphics. However if nVidia does this (and does it right) I'll gladly give them my money when the time comes.

-Shaidtan