OGP Open Graphics Project

Open Graphics Project

I don’t know how many of you are on the OGP mailing list but it is fairly active list and there is a lot of input from user level at this early developmental stage. I haven’t seen any blender head input on the list.

If you aren’t familiar with OGP it is an open source open technology graphics hardware project that will circumvent the proprietary drivers problem and open the way for some serious world class graphics development for the open source community.

http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=65731

I don’t know how Blenderheads could help sort the “problem”. I highly doubt that there is anyone here who is capable of writing low level device driver code. Not to mention that the majority of them are children and I don’t think that respectable companies will respond to a small gathering of children calling for changes to their professional product line.

Also, I don’t think there is necessarily a problem with proprietary drivers. People who make devices are within their rights to produce drivers for whatever system they choose for the reason that they are not obliged to disclose information about the hardware design. Yes it sometimes bugs me too but OS manufacturers get round these issues by providing well defined developer APIs. With the OS diversity amongst the Linux community, this is not easily achieved - though it could be by removing the diversity.

The solution presented is to encourage them to make a specific chip that caters solely to the Linux community. So are there any available already?:

“Currently, the market for such cards is not served very well.”

But it will be popular if it comes out?:

“Due to market size it will not be possible to compete on 3d performance with market leaders such as ATI and NVIDIA.”

But at least you will have made a truly open card?:

“While the hardware will be open spec, not all of it will be open source.”

Good features though?:

“An initial version of such a card will likely be limited to being single-headed with a single video-output. TV-out may be an option but may not be usable together with vga out at the same time”

When a Linux user can go out and buy a relatively cheap GPU from a good manufacturer and run GPU accelerated software well (doesn’t Blender run better under Linux than Windows?), I don’t see a need for a project like this.

Lastly, please stop implying the open source community consists solely of Linux users. Open source and proprietary are not mutually exclusive and can co-exist quite harmoniously. The traditionally proprietary community has taken the step towards embracing open source. I think the Linux community needs to do the same for proprietary technology.

Maybe the world would be a better please if everything was open and free but that’s never going to happen. The world works on trade, competition and the money produced by them and openness doesn’t always fit.

Big things often start small.

Actually respectable companies do pay attention to young user base.

Your blurb is almost a verbatim quote commonly spoken with regard to the Linux ten years ago. Open source drivers for hardware is a great forward thinking idea in my book. It seems you prefer the FBSD model. To each his own.

My appeal wasn’t to everyone to jump on board. I’m not of the impression that the community here at blenderartist is made up of children playing with 3d software. There are users here of all types.

I am on the OGP list and there is considerable professional input from non coding users. Just getting the word out. Part of my contribution to the cause.

I don’t care, really, if Nvidia or ATI open source their drivers. I like the FOSS model and I think there is a niche for FOSS and hardware interface. It will excel just as Linux and Blender have. It’s time has come.

Lastly, please stop implying the open source community consists solely of Linux users. Open source and proprietary are not mutually exclusive and can co-exist quite harmoniously. The traditionally proprietary community has taken the step towards embracing open source. I think the Linux community needs to do the same for proprietary technology.

Proprietary drivers taint the kernel. My boot log says so. Once the kernel is tainted it can not be shared by anyone for fear of a lawsuit by the proprietary driver owner. It kills the OS model.

Lastly, please stop implying the open source community consists solely of Linux users.

I don’t have a clue what you are talking about.