Donations for OSS ATI driver

[D0pamine]

everyone uses 'linux' more than they know however the majority of the software on the 'linux' platform is 'GNU' hence 'GNU/Linux' ( linux is just the kernel ) so where does one put ones money??? , your time and patience is far more valuable than your money - even just pointing out problems and bugs is a major help so keep up the good work ya'll

[D0pamine]

You use Gentoo, no? How do you solve circular dependencies on Gentoo?

hum...... dont use a silly set of use flags???

I always thought that OPEN code is best to be shared across different environiments. Why wouldn't just everyone invent his own languge, protect it and use only privately, suing everyone trying to understand him? You are not inventors or scientists - you are brokers. You invent barriers for consumer money, then you try to build doors for consumer money or emulate via glass windows. And when people ask if they can help build without it - you offer them a shelter out of paper for free

Science even in its infancy is better than magic tricks performed by companies/street entertainers

computer science vs computer trickery = 'open/free' vs 'closed/non-free'

that said the GPL gives the community the power and that is why i will always be a free software advocate rather than an open sourced advocate

I know microsoft uses a lot of (almost all) cash to bribe - its not something new.
Also know that almost every linux desktop user was a windows user and switched for reason. If microsoft would behave, linux would just be a small alternate opensource kernel for windows.[/QUOTE]

[D0pamine]

gay edit time , make it 10 mins ffs i'm drunk!

[crazycheese]

everyone uses 'linux' more than they know however the majority of the software on the 'linux' platform is 'GNU' hence 'GNU/Linux' ( linux is just the kernel ) so where does one put ones money??? , your time and patience is far more valuable than your money - even just pointing out problems and bugs is a major help so keep up the good work ya'll

My mother is professional plastic surgeon. She hates computers regardless of their OS. She however did hate linux much less, everything was installed in a matter of minutes, not hours; everything was easy and logical - but once I had that Canon laser printer to connect and Canon provided half-arse(sorry) driver support where I had to research how to program hal and start udev, spending almost 2 days on it she asked me "Perhaps linux is not the best solution". Im talking exactly about such people. They should be able to decide what they want to support themself and if the manufacturer creates problematic support - its them and not the OS.

You just cant make everyone learn bash and start off coding. They will gladly pay those who are apt tp produce opensource code, hardware with opensource drivers, games that can be bought out and become opensource. However those who are apt are behind proprietary walls, showing tongs. :/

[D0pamine]

Gentoo is king thanks to the work of drobbins and the like it has made every distro better over time.
I don't think i'm '1337' or something because I use an 'akward distro', it gives me options that are simply not available in other distros - just to set the record straight - i'm not some gentoo elitist but I do like the options and flexibility gentoo offers - no other distro say for LFS offers support for a 486sx for starters and yes even in 2011 I have to deal with CPU's without math co-processors!

[D0pamine]

My mother is professional plastic surgeon. She hates computers regardless of their OS. She however did hate linux much less, everything was installed in a matter of minutes, not hours; everything was easy and logical - but once I had that Canon laser printer to connect and Canon provided half-arse(sorry) driver support where I had to research how to program hal and start udev, spending almost 2 days on it she asked me "Perhaps linux is not the best solution". Im talking exactly about such people. They should be able to decide what they want to support themself and if the manufacturer creates problematic support - its them and not the OS.

You just cant make everyone learn bash and start off coding. They will gladly pay those who are apt tp produce opensource code, hardware with opensource drivers, games that can be bought out and become opensource. However those who are apt are behind proprietary walls, showing tongs. :/

dude ... rather than sell the free platform short ( and yourself ) charge for your services! after all the likes of microfail charge and offer utter nonsense in return

there is gold in them there hills!

PS and yeh ssh is quicker and better than anything else

[D0pamine]

folks whine because it doesnt offer out-of-the-box support but christ on a bike... you're tech-savvy enough! make some pennies out of it even remotely for a few bucks

[D0pamine]

the GPU freaks are the worst of all i swear! , ' we want same day support for our ubuntu ' this happens already for CPUs so why not for GPUs , its all a sick joke but i love phoronix and many of its non-ex-neowin members :P many a true word is spoken here and people take note

[agd5f]

Not anymore. Nowadays they are either linux users, linux haters or "app X, I need, does not work on linux" type. Ask anyone what is Android or Iphone? I think around 50% of population are linux aware.

Not even close. I can't even count the number of people who are familiar with android but have never heard of Linux. Even a fair number of people who know of Linux were surprised when I told them android was based on the Linux kernel. Google doesn't exactly go out of its way to say that android is based on Linux. I've also read a number of articles about smartphones and android in major publications like Newsweek or Business Week, and they rarely, if ever, mention any relation between Android and Linux, or even mention Linux in the article at all.

Android is one thing, but desktop Linux is another. Many people have heard of android or perhaps Linux on embedded devices or servers, but not Linux on desktops PCs. "I thought Linux was for servers."

I always thought that OPEN code is best to be shared across different environiments. Why wouldn't just everyone invent his own languge, protect it and use only privately, suing everyone trying to understand him? You are not inventors or scientists - you are brokers. You invent barriers for consumer money, then you try to build doors for consumer money or emulate via glass windows. And when people ask if they can help build without it - you offer them a shelter out of paper for free.

We are in the business of making money for our shareholders. In order to do that we have to decide where to focus investment to get the best return for our money. Right now, desktop Linux is not were the money is. It would be great if it were, but it's not right now.

As to providing a open platform, due to the laws of most countries were we sell our products, certain parts have to be closed source to protect our investments and our ability to sell into major markets. If you don't like the laws, call your congressman.

Also, Linux doesn't encourage the sharing of source between OSes. The maintainers want the code to match the kernel coding style and will reject code that doesn't match. There are tons of open source drivers out there that use an OS abstraction layer to share the code between OSes, but they are never allowed upstream in Linux. It's not likely that our closed driver would be allowed upstream if we decided to open source without out a major rewrite. So I guess it would be a good investment to rewrite thousands of man years of source code to get it into the Linux kernel and then write a proper infrastructure to support all the advanced features available for 1-2 precent of the desktop market.

I know microsoft uses a lot of (almost all) cash to bribe - its not something new.
Also know that almost every linux desktop user was a windows user and switched for reason. If microsoft would behave, linux would just be a small alternate opensource kernel for windows.

MS has done some questionable things, but I wouldn't call building a decent well documented graphics stack a bribe.

[renkin]

Not even close. I can't even count the number of people who are familiar with android but have never heard of Linux. Even a fair number of people who know of Linux were surprised when I told them android was based on the Linux kernel. Google doesn't exactly go out of its way to say that android is based on Linux. I've also read a number of articles about smartphones and android in major publications like Newsweek or Business Week, and they rarely, if ever, mention any relation between Android and Linux, or even mention Linux in the article at all.

Android is one thing, but desktop Linux is another. Many people have heard of android or perhaps Linux on embedded devices or servers, but not Linux on desktops PCs. "I thought Linux was for servers."

Yes, and there are even articles talking about Android and ChromeOS moving into netbooks and competing with Linux in those spaces.