Decent Linux Drivers: Seriously, what is going on? - Page 5

John Gatt · #41 (**permalink**) 24-01-08, 08:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by antoniocaputo

Yes, we should definitely spread the petition since visibility is the key.
I don't think so... maybe Via has been lacking in it's duties, but I don't think it's necessarily evil.
Still we could always open a new thread, in fact I think we should, since this thread has become a little long.
Please open a new tread about the petition (you should do it since you are the author ;-) )

If you want to start a new one let me know and I will stick it for you. Good luck!

Effenberg0x0 · #42 (**permalink**) 24-01-08, 08:48 PM

Hi guys, I am gonna draft a new thread then, we can edit it if we need to add aditional info. Thanks John Gatt for the sticky

It will help us a lot!

Have you checked out the petition in the last hours? More than 600 signatures!

Regards,
Effenberg

John Gatt · #43 (**permalink**) 24-01-08, 08:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Effenberg0x0

Hi guys, I am gonna draft a new thread then, we can edit it if we need to add aditional info. Thanks John Gatt for the sticky

It will help us a lot!

Have you checked out the petition in the last hours? More than 600 signatures!

Regards,
Effenberg

Not a problem. Ill unstick this and stick the new one when it is up.

Effenberg0x0 · #44 (**permalink**) 24-01-08, 10:12 PM

This gave me an idea:
Right now I am trying to reach forum admins and moderators (ubuntu forums and others) asking if they could also stick my threads at this places, in favour of free software and the matter in question...

I think I'll have good feedback on this.

Effenberg

antoniocaputo · #45 (**permalink**) 26-01-08, 02:32 PM

1451 signatures in a couple of days, how much are them? It's a high number or a low number? I mainly ask this to Via. Are we a sufficient number of people to give strength to our request or are we such a small number that we doesn't deserve attention?

Keep in mind that you have a fourth option, not considered before. Some time ago programmers from the linux kernel team were proposing to manufacturers to cooperate even through a non-disclosure-agreement. You can consider giving all the technical data needed to develop an opensource driver even without revealing such data to the whole world (only to few chosen programmers).
You could propose such agreement to openchrome developers and see if they can (maybe for a small fee) sign it and make the driver for you. This would make everyone happy and free you from the need to maintain the driver (an opensource driver is always maintained by the community).

rafelbev · #46 (**permalink**) 28-01-08, 11:00 AM

I am currently trying to package the latest driver to be bundled inside ThinClient hardware. The market share of VIA chipsets in this market segment is beyond 50-60% from what I see from customers hitting our forums and grumbling that the hardware is plain slow.

My current gripes are with crashes of the driver and sporadic behaviour with widescreen resolutions. VIA recently released an updated driver in the first week of Decemeber. With claimed support for 1440x900. I am still trying to today to get it to work with one of our sample widescreen monitors available at our labs. According to their documentation this mode should be supported. However, the driver fails miserably. I will not get into the specifics since this beyond the scope of this thread.

I believe the problem is more of lack of continued support of the Linux platform. Unfortunately, the world moved on since when they had released specifications and reference drivers for Linux. Since then, VIA released newer chips which are now only supported by their binary driver (which crashes) and there are newer monitors available which need to talk to this video card. I would just like to understand how VIA intends to proceed regarding their lack of continued support based on the outcome of this poll

antoniocaputo · #47 (**permalink**) 29-01-08, 09:29 AM

2759 signatures... is that enough to get attention?

I'd like to see some comments from someone in contact with VIA. I'd like to know their reply to this thread.

wateenellende · #48 (**permalink**) 29-01-08, 01:33 PM

Just signed. I actually already posted a list of things to do already: feedback to VIA

If I forget something, be sure to list it.

Effenberg0x0 · #49 (**permalink**) 30-01-08, 04:24 AM

Hi folks. Here's an update on the petition:

As we will reach 3.000 (!!) signatures in the next hours (it's up for only 7 days!), our petition is currently ranked 8th in the Top 10 Most Active Petitions at petitiononline.com.

It is important to notice that this is the only petition concerning an IT issue, among hundreds at that site, to be placed at such a position. More popular petitions involve mostly humanitarian and environmental claims.

I guess at this point we can say that, no matter how many more signatures we get, there clearly is a very significant dissatisfaction by VIA Linux users. A lot of people agree with what we're saying. We were right on starting all this.

I am being strongly criticized, at my personal email address, by a reduced group of Free Software fundamentalists ("we don't care about a working driver, VIA has to release full specs or I am never gonna buy it anymore" or "start a new petition asking VIA to end it's operations"), BSD users ("I will never sign a petition where the word Linux is written") and such.

I would like everyone to understand one thing: I am gonna stick to what is written in the petition. You can all be sure that I would be extremely happy to see VIA release full specs under a public license and also help the community to develop good drivers. However, my first concern is with the average users, who really don't know or don't care what GPL, MIT, etc licenses are, but they have paid for the hardware and deserve working drivers.

I am gonna do my best to give the community the best possible solution. However, I am not gonna engage in fundamentalists flame wars, battles between different Open Source projects ideals and such. Users don't need politics now: Users need drivers.

I want to discuss with VIA *any* way to make VIA hardware work decently on Linux.

Regards,
Effenberg

antoniocaputo · #50 (**permalink**) 30-01-08, 10:07 AM

I sent infos about the petition also to italian newspapers, and here is an article on the most important italian IT reference newspaper:
PI: Utenti Linux: VIA apra i suoi driver

Quote:

Originally Posted by Effenberg0x0

I guess at this point we can say that, no matter how many more signatures we get, there clearly is a very significant dissatisfaction by VIA Linux users. A lot of people agree with what we're saying. We were right on starting all this.

Yes, I think so... I hope VIA agrees too

Quote:

I am being strongly criticized, at my personal email address...

If you want help in replying to this emails you can forward them to me, I'll try to help...
I understand FSF concern about really free drivers, but please understand that this is one of the options we listed in our petition. The IT world would surely be better if all drivers were opensource and all hardware specs free, but this is utopistic and we don't have the legal right to force VIA to release it's hardware specs. On the other hand we have the legal right to pretend working drivers...
I understand also BSD users, but still there was non claim from VIA to support BSD kernel, so we can only "ask" VIA to release a BSD driver too, but we cannot pretend it since there was no BSD support from the start...

Quote:

Users don't need politics now: Users need drivers.

I would rather reply stating that we are merely pretending what VIA promised with it's claims, Linux support (a "full" support). Better non getting involved in discussions about "politics"...

If someone want to make a different petition asking something else to VIA please do, but understand the difference between pretending what VIA promised and asking VIA to promise something more...