Re: [Savannah-hackers] submission of Waves, Clouds, and Sand - savannah.nongnu.org

[Jaime E. Villate]

On Tue, Feb 25, 2003 at 08:38:33AM -0800, address@hidden wrote:
> > Due to our policy, we can only host your project if it only uses features 
> > that
> > exist in the few free drivers available, for example the ATI Radeon driver
> > distributed by XFree86. ¿Are you willing to keep your software in Savannah
> > usable with such drivers?
> 
> What about features that are part of the OpenGL spec, e.g.
> ARB_vertex_program instead of *_NV or ATI_* ?  Mesa now supports
> OpenGL 1.4.

If those features have not been implemented on any free driver yet, then they
should be avoided in a Savannah project.

> I'm concerned that 3D graphics in free software will fall way behind.  At
> the moment, it's mainly proprietary games that take advantage of the newer
> 3D features.  Those projects don't exert much pressure on the hardware
> vendors to release free drivers.  Also, most of those games run only on
> Windows, which encourages users not only to use a proprietary driver, but
> a proprietary program and a proprietary operating system.

This would not be the first time we fall way behind in some technological
aspect for the sake of ethical concerns which we put above technical
concerns.

> An additional point is that using features of newer cards requires the
> user to own the hardware; they don't buy it to have it sit there in 2D
> mode all day.

Some of us do. I have a 3D NVidia card and I cannot even play tuxracer. I've
seen it working in someone's computer with an nvidia driver and I must confess
that it looks nice, but I'd rather stick to 2D games for the time being rather
than installing a driver that is not even in the official Debian CD.

> Therefore it's unlikely that people with those cards are
> using free drivers at all; they are probably using the vendor's drivers
> which implement a superset of the free driver functionality.  Thus, making
> free software use only a few of these features does not encourage users to
> switch to free drivers, nor does it encourage vendors to release free
> drivers -- after all, all the features used by the free software already
> _ARE_ in the free drivers.

Sure, a lot of users do (including my son and some colleagues). A lot of
people also use gif files. We will not go after any of them accusing them of
being traitors; we'd rather try to make our point by keeping Savannah free of
any gif files and dependencies on proprietary software. (If my son someday
decides to smoke, I'll not forbid him or resent him for doing so; I will keep
on setting a good example of healthy leaving through my own behavior).

> It also makes the free software look rather
> obsolete, which does not encourage people to use it at all, and the
> outdated feature set makes the free program too far behind to be of any
> concern to the 3D vendors as well.

If those who took the free-software ride for its technical advantages decide
to jump into another train when this one seems to go too slow, it will be a
pity for them but we will be left with those who share our ethical views.

> Since the GNU project would like to replace ALL parts of a proprietary
> system with free versions, this is an opportunity to replace one of the
> proprietary links in the chain.

Not really. The GNU project attempts to create a complete free operating
system. The GNU manifesto does not say "thy shall do everything proprietary
software developers do".

>  We can either wait until free drivers are
> available, and at that point begin making free games, scientific
> visualization programs, and simulators that use them; or we can start on
> those projects NOW, so that their release will hopefully coincide with
> the release of those free drivers.

Or we can use our programming skills to make free drivers for the new cards,
rather than developing games that depend on the proprietary drivers. If that
task is impossible because the vendors refuse to release some important
information, we will then have to live with 2D or come up with a new 3D scheme
that relies on the CPU and not on the graphic card's chipset.

> Having a large number of free 3D programs available which use modern
> hardware capabilities seems to be an improvement over the current
> situtation of only the proprietary programs being able to do so;

An improvement from the technical point of view, not from the ethical point of
view.

> having
> more users of the free software turns into more developers, and a larger
> installed base means more pressure on 3D vendors to release free specs and
> drivers for their hardware.

the end does not justify the means; and I think it is very doubtful what will
make proprietary vendors change their narrow minds. We should rather make
plans that depend on our own (the free software community) actions.

> Also note that if the above doesn't change your mind, then to be
> consistent you are going to have to police all the 3D projects for banned
> feature use.

We work on a trust basis. We explain our policies and we expect people to
follow them. I've heard from colleagues that have Radeon cards and use only
free drivers that there are already some very amazing games that work pretty
well and have some nice 3D effects. What we would expect from you is to be
willing to make your game work for those users. Take tuxracer for instance. I
can install it in my 100% free system because it is part of Debian; it runs,
but it works very slow and not very smooth. It could be a Savannah package
anyway, but if it was, we would expect its developers to try to resolve our
bug reports complaining that it does not work well in our systems, without
telling us "go and install the nvidia package from Debian non-free". Some of
those "banned features" may become "bugs", if the developers handle them
appropriately without giving up to non-free dependencies. Are you willing to
make that effort in your case?

> I would prefer not to remain isolated, ceding the ground to non-free
> software; the main reason I keep hearing that users dual-boot is for
> games.  We were getting some free functionality for ATI hardware until
> they leap-frogged NVidia with the 9700 pro; now that they have the
> performance crown they don't have to make "concessions", and it looks like
> proprietary driver land from hereon out.  Unless, of course, we can get
> enough users to pressure them to release free drivers; and making obsolete
> 3D games isn't going to get us any users.

And how do you intend to pass the word to NVidia that people are using their
cards to run tuxracer rather than some proprietary game? All they will see is
an increase in their sells, which is what they want, and will think that their
policy of keeping technical details hidden is working very well.

> One last point: This is also a battle between Direct3D and OpenGL.  Since
> most Windows developers use Direct3D, we may lose OpenGL drivers
> altogether if we don't have enough OpenGL programs that push the envelope.

We then have to help OpenGL complete their implementation of their
specification. If the games that use OpenGL settle for the proprietary drivers
there will be no pressure to do that.

Regards,
Jaime