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Story: ATI Petition for Adequate Drivers in LinuxTotal Replies: 9
Author Content
vonskippy

Jan 16, 2006
2:48 PM EDT
Sure, whiny little petitions will get the attention of a big manufacturing company.

Here's an idea, take your 1% market share, and buy from a more Linux friendly vendor. That will teach ATI a lesson by golly.

Can these people be so stupid to think that ATI hasn't already analyzed their own market and determine that the cost to support Linux out weighs the potential profit?
fernando494

Jan 16, 2006
3:18 PM EDT
Man, I want Tom to start a new category. We could have the most condescending, flame of the day. I would nominate you for the first one, cabron. So, we could have the "Comment of the Dia" y "Palabra Mala del Día".

I think they had like 30,000 signatures on the petition. So, why would that hurt.

I can send you a prescription from here. Postage is high, but the medication's cheap and you don't need no prescription from a doctor. I think maybe Zoloff, Xanax and some Taquilla.

vonskippy

Jan 16, 2006
4:32 PM EDT
"I think they had like 30,000 signatures on the petition. So, why would that hurt."

I think Santa Claus gets around 1 million letters each xmas (in North America), does that help?

Business (of any type) is all about the bottom line. If there were actual profit to be made (or even a break even proposal that would gain market share) these companies would jump at the opportunity. So when it comes to Linux display drivers - it's just not worth their investment (at least not yet). All the begging (I mean petitions) in the world is not going to change their mind unless the petition comes with a magic business model that shows ATI how to profit from that idea.

Instead of signing a petition, all those people should go out and buy a Linux Friendly video card - and send a short note (and a copy of the invoice) to the Investor Relations address at ATI. Any yahoo can sign a petition, but a stack of invoices for your competitors product is way more motivating.
jimf

Jan 16, 2006
5:37 PM EDT
I for one resent that I can't use a technically superior hardware solution, because the manufacturer thinks they are in the driver business. I'd really rather have all of these idiots realize that they are selling hardware for god sake. Time for all these hardware vendors to just release the code to GPL.

If it takes a pention to make them release the code, so be it.
salparadise

Jan 16, 2006
10:37 PM EDT
I must have missed something in this. I thought the ATI drivers were highly regarded in the OSS world because (unlike NVIDIA's drivers) they are open source and thus don't "taint the kernel". It wasn't all that long ago people were praising ATI for releasing them.
jimf

Jan 17, 2006
7:19 AM EDT
That 'petition' has been around since (mid) last year sometime. It did cause ATI to release 'some' current drivers for Linux, but. open source?.... I don't think so. Overall, NVIDIA has been much more cooperative. But again, those aren't open source either.
SFN

Jan 17, 2006
7:26 AM EDT
"I think Santa Claus gets around 1 million letters each xmas (in North America), does that help?"

So, wait. ATI doesn't exist?
cjcox

Jan 17, 2006
8:49 AM EDT
The reason Nvidia and ATI don't release their drivers as GPL is NOT because of their competition, but due to embarassment of the stupid (and deceptive) tricks they are pulling. Neither Nvidia nor ATI want to drop their pants. There would probably be a lawsuit if either did.
theboomboomcars

Jan 17, 2006
10:37 AM EDT
Did I miss something or did they not say that they were not going to purchase any more ATI products until the driver problem was rectified?
jimf

Jan 17, 2006
12:33 PM EDT
Sure theboomboomcars, but we already have ATI cards, and as hardware they are really good cards.

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