Opensource is good for some software, but not for all kind of software. Linux, apache are examples where OS works very well, Mozilla is an example where OS failed (Mozilla is useable now, but it should have been useable 1 year ago)
Well, to ATI’s drivers: why are ATI’s drivers (even windows drivers) not-so-good? I don’t think the reason for this is that ATI’s driver developers are stupid people that cannot write drivers, but maybe the driver developers team is just too small? I have nothing against ATI releasing the specs, but IMO it would be better to hire more driver developers.
to NVIDIA’s drivers:
I believe that OS drivers would be slower: current NVIDIA drivers use 3dnow, MMX, and SSE instructions to improve performance AFAIK, this will not be the case with OS drivers, or at least not in the short run. The problem is that optimizing is dirty work and nobody likes to do it (would you like to rewrite working parts of the driver to make it faster, I guess no, it is more fun to implement new features).
I think we look at the problem from 2 different sides: you are asking why NVIDIA does not publish the specs, and I’m asking for reasons to do so. Look, just because opensource is “in” today it does not mean NVIDIA must do it too. Why should they? Just for the sake of it? The facts are: NVIDIA produces good drivers (linux drivers are not perfect, but they are OK), they actively support Linux (which other IHV does that?), so where are the reasons to publish the specs??
lev, really, be serious and don’t believe everything that papa microsoft says, ok?
the open source community isn’t a virus that inhibits any innovative development.
Why are you talking about MS? It’s not about good or bad company, OS or not OS, its all about high-quality software. Linux is high-quality software, but so are some MS products. Drivers must be stable, fast and reliable. If they are written by the opensource community or a single company: I don’t care. Software must work. Everybody who thinks different is not going to make money with it, and for a company its all about money. NVIDIA has made a long-term investment and develops the drivers in-the-house. ATI has saved some money by shifting some parts of driver development out of the company. It will be interesting to see which decision is wiser. We’ll see in a few years.
And a few words on your innovation comment: OS can innovate, but so can closed source, it depends on a kind of software, and with GFX-card drivers you have almost no possibilities to innovate, because you are limited to existing hardware and to the driver specs. This is IMO why Linux itself is very innovating, just like KDE or GNOME, because they have no specs what an operating system or a desktop should look like. And this is also the reason why projects like Mozilla are not-that-innovative: they have the w3c specs that they must follow, almost no room for innovation.
Cheers,
-Lev