Kristian Talks About The Wayland Display Server

[89c51]

slightly off topic here and this is more speculation (since i dont know what kristian actualy does at intel)

kristian moved recently from RH to Intel

clutter has(??) a backend for wayland, moblin is based on clutter and things come together in a way

once the infrastracture is there i believe we ll see something good

[deanjo]

IMO the way to get people off blobs is to offer a sufficiently good out of box experience with the open source drivers so that most users don't bother installing a binary driver.

As a coach of mine once said long ago:

"Champions don't become champions by saying 'good enough'."

[bridgman]

I don't get the connection. The open source drivers are intended to be a convenience for users and distro packagers, to allow the graphics framework to evolve independently, and to give developers working on other OSes a code base they can adapt to their own environment.

Open source drivers can "win" for those users (that "champion" thing, I guess) by being best in the ways that matter most (primarily compatibility and ease of support) even if they are only "good enough" in less important ways.

[deanjo]

I don't get the connection.

We don't use the open source drivers in highly competitive markets, we use the binary drivers. The open source drivers are intended to be a convenience for users and distro packagers, to allow the graphics framework to evolve independently, and to give developers working on other OSes a code base they can adapt to their own environment.

This is why it is not realistic to expect people who spend premium dollars on premium discrete solutions to settle for 'good enough'. Those individuals purchase those cards for their performance and features. If performance wasn't a issue gpu manufacturers wouldn't be compelled to revamp their video cards every 6-12 months now would they? While opensource drivers may be convenient for opensource developers they do not however have alot of value to the majority of users who are not developers. There is a good reason why surveys show the blobs as the preferred solution over any other.

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=lgs_2008_results&num=2

Considering that there are more intel graphics solutions out there in use then any other manufacturer why do you suppose the leading linux solution comes from a closed blob on discrete cards?

[bridgman]

This is why it is not realistic to expect people who spend premium dollars on premium discrete solutions to settle for 'good enough'. Those individuals purchase those cards for their performance and features.

I agree completely - but you are talking about one group of users and the open source drivers are aimed at a different group.

The chart you linked to showed ~52% binary drivers and ~48% open source drivers last year, it'll be interesting to see what the numbers are this year.

[deanjo]

I agree completely - but you are talking about one group of users and the open source drivers are aimed at a different group.

The chart you linked to showed ~52% binary drivers and ~48% open source drivers last year, it'll be interesting to see what the numbers are this year.

Your right, those figures don't even take into account the largest boom in linux computing in the last while hardware wise which is netbooks with pulsbo and nvidia ion chipsets. Again look at the hardware chart. Despite intel IGP's being the largest graphics provider in hardware sales the number 1 graphics solution has come from a closed vendor in linux for a long time now. Why is this true if there has been a "good enough" free driver for best selling solution for quite a while?

[myxal]

As a coach of mine once said long ago:

"Champions don't become champions by saying 'good enough'."

[insert obligatory reference to MSIE history]

@bridgman: What I think deanjo sees as a problem with that is that many linux users have many important aspects and having both enables the situation where one driver sucks at aspect #1 while the other sucks at aspect #2. And it's not just when one of the aspects is openness.

[deanjo]

It's not only that myxal, but when you look at what developers consider high priority vs what the end user wants to see, ease of installation and maintenance is not a high priority. It's features that they can use such as openGL performance and video playback.

[bridgman]

[insert obligatory reference to MSIE history]

@bridgman: What I think deanjo sees as a problem with that is that many linux users have many important aspects and having both enables the situation where one driver sucks at aspect #1 while the other sucks at aspect #2. And it's not just when one of the aspects is openness.

OK, I'm not following this at all. "Good enough" and "sucks" are not the same thing

It's not only that myxal, but when you look at what developers consider high priority vs what the end user wants to see, ease of installation and maintenance is not a high priority. It's features that they can use such as openGL performance and video playback.

Deanjo, what the survey outputs do not show is clustering or correlation between features, ie someone interested in A also values C highly, while someone interested in B doesn't value A so highly on average. You really need to pull out clusters of users with common sets of interests and look at that output before you can say whether survey results favour a single binary driver vs a combination of binary and open source drivers.

Combining all of the responses into a single graph does give some useful information, but it also misses a lot of important information about individual users and which combination of features they value the most.

That reminds me, I forgot to ask if "playing Windows games" could be added to the "key interests" list. Next year, I guess.

Besides, "ease of installation and maintenance" is one of those self-biasing questions. Anyone in a position where they would value ease of installation and maintenance at the time they fill out the survey probably couldn't bring up a web browser anyways

EDIT - wasn't this thread supposed to be about Wayland ?

[deanjo]

Deanjo, what the survey outputs do not show is clustering or correlation between features, ie someone interested in A also values C highly, while someone interested in B doesn't value A so highly on average. You really need to pull out clusters of users with common sets of interests and look at that output before you can say whether survey results favour a single binary driver vs a combination of binary and open source drivers.

Combining all of the responses into a single graph does give some useful information, but it also misses a lot of important information about individual users and which combination of features they value the most.

Sure but again you are not thinking of a whole. Graphs such as these even though they don't give a combination for a individual they still reflect as to what are the most desired features. Nvidia for example gathered a whole shitload of otherwise non-nvidia followers with the simple introduction of vdpau and look it is one of the most desirable features in the graph, people also desire great openGL performance look that is also a strength in nvidia's blobs. If you look at the graph it looks like really the only one paying attention to it was nvidia as their focus this last year has been in many of the features listed, one only has to take a look at their vast change logs to see this. Vdpau for example is a pure consumer driven feature that was added and it's support exploded everywhere. In my software company features and requests are handled on a "desired" basis by a simple number of our clients requesting it. The ones with the highest votes get first attention and because of it we get sunshine thrown our way from our target audience, the end user. It really is that simple.

Besides, "ease of installation and maintenance" is one of those self-biasing questions. Anyone in a position where they would value ease of installation and maintenance at the time they fill out the survey probably couldn't bring up a web browser anyways

I don't buy that at all as those same people would be more then likely also using another OS to do their surfing (oh ya in those other OS's with a full feature driven set of drivers where again they are using them because they work despite not being opensource) and I guarantee you that people that have a hard time clicking a 1 click install or even a one liner for a blob driver will still have issues trying to upgrade their free desktop system to get the latest feature/support.