ncrfgs, I didn't say that licenced software was the only way programmers make money, just that it is a legitimate way for programmers to make money. I don't know about you, but I live in the USA and as much as I disagree with Capitalism as long as I live in a capitalist country I follow the rules of a capitalist economy. People need to eat to live and they need to make money to eat. If they happen to be talented at writting good code the should be able to sell that code. IMO writting code is a like making music or writing a book, authors and artist get paid for their works and so should programmers. You might not like it, but you're supposed to pay for CDs if you want to own a copy of the music produced by a band. Stealing it because you think it should be free isn't right. If you go to a Borders and sit in the coffee shop and read books w/o buying any of them you're stealing from the authors who spent time and effort to write that book and get it published. In a capitalist world money is what drives many people to go to the trouble of producing/publishing these works and by stealing from them you are lessening the chances that others will follow in their footsteps. Capitalism 101, money is what fuels society and progress. I too would like to live in a world where things could be different, but there are issues larger than Open Source and Free Software that need to be addressed before that world can exist. These are my political views and you're free to disagree with them, that's the beauty of democracy, people are allowed to and encouraged to think for themselves. I fully back Open Source, but to make all software free of licensing in the given economy would be reckless and damaging.


When countries attack the US, notice how they call us "Capitalist pigs" and not "Democratic pigs". Nobody has a problem with Democracy, but Capitalism has to go. Don't get the two confused.

I never got any response to this.
Does that mean that no one knows the answer?

To my understanding, if you only have one monitor and will not be using any 3D apps, you are fine with the nv driver.

--jeremy

lets say if i whanted my fx5200 to send video to my tv when i watch movies or play a game with heavy 3d in it i would have to have get the driver that suports all of nvidias fetures.

if you do none of those things then nv works just fine.

yea, if you're not using any of the cards extra features or 3D then you're probably fine w/ the "nv" driver. If you're running 2D games or using features like fading/alpha you'll probably be fine with "nv" but will see a slight improvement with "nvidia" since the GeForce GPU can take some of the load of redering alpha and 2D sprites off of your CPU.

Dear DragonWisard,

The message of yours I'm replying to isn't the first one where you talk about capitalism and democracy. You feel very proud about having discovered that USA live under a capitalistic regime, the capitalism doesn't automatically mean democracy and that USA aren't as democratic as they would like to make the others to think (talking about the elections for example, I'm not the first one saying tha USA was just "free" to choose between two... Teams with the same shirt).

I'm glad for you and I'm glad that an USA citizen reached such awareness but the world isn't just USA, there isn't just USA out here and not everybody lives in USA and under their capitalistic regime (although a lot of us are influenced in our daily life by it).

What I felt strange about your reply was that you talked like I said that capitalism and democracy are the same thing while I have never mentioned them and we weren't even talking about that topic. BTW, I don't think there is much to be proud about since you came late. =) I don't know if in USA thinking this way is more difficult given the control exerted on medias, but this kind of ideas have been around for a while (outside USA at least).

I may agree with you that this kind of attitude toward intellectual goods is related to capitalism, but I'd rather say that it's typical of regimes in general since they have to obstruct somehow the access to knowledge.

Unfortunately, even if it looks like you reached this level of consciuosness, from what you say it's almost clear that your brainwashing wasn't completely unsuccessful. "Stealing it because...", "... you're stealing from...", you talk about intellectual goods as if they were material ones and as if rules we apply to material goods could be applied to intellectual ones, as if stealing a car was just like copying and sharing an idea. Well... Software houses, movie and music majors achieved their goal... Actually, either this or you talk that way and use such terms because you have some privileges to keep.

we all know this in not a political forum.... but i'll still comment.

in defense of those in the US. we have many different beliefs and ideals. some very extreme. a cristian could say some one reached enlightenment when they found jesus. a scientist (much like myself) would say enlightenment was reached when one realized they are an organic mechanism resultant of cosmic turbulence congealed into the soloton referred to as ones self. and there are a possible infinite number of opinions a human can decide on.

to make such a comment as to ones enlightenment is un fair and belittling to some.

as with any market comes a profession comes diversion of effort and resources. all which stimulates progress. never mind the ones that could be considered frivolous.

in the realm of information/computers i would guess that if it remained a non public and or hobby interest, we would be much further behind than we are now. thou i'm sure we all would like this to be far more advanced than it is now, we are still enjoying it well with what we have atm. and we will have even more tomorrow and even more the day after because there are professionals working hard and efficiently for 8+ hours a day 5 days a week to make it so because they are being payed to do so.

GNU exists for those like ourselves for the reason that we get a kick out of it. we all need a break from the usual paying for this paying for that vortex. and also gives one the sense of communal effort that our regular lives lack. in some situations it enrichens that free material that we all enjoy.

so far as i can tell. there is a little something for every type of person on this planet. each person can't have it all without taking all from another.

and keep in mind that about 80% of the humans on this planet have an average IQ of 100. not to bright in my opinion. don't expect a reasonable/rational Utopia of fairness and communal effort until that average increases at least 50 points. not in our life time BTW.

interesting how a simple interview with the nvidia guys could snow ball into this. which brings to my attention that there needs to be a root topic to handle discussions like this. probably entitled "politics/philosophy of open source"

so. lets petition that so that we can keep the threads on there main topic only. we all have opinions and we need to express them some times. and these opinions seem to infect alot of topics making it hard to sift through the info you were originally looking for.

enough said.

I didn't mean to give the impression that Democracy and Capitalism are the same, or that they're everywhere. I think Capitalism is what has ruined Democracy in the USA. But politics asside, my focus is that to me, software licensing and control makes sense as a legitimate way for programmers to make money. I know that companies like Red Hat, MySQL, and others are businesses that make money "selling" open-source software, but the fact is, they're giving away the software and selling software-related services to companies. That business model doesn't work a lot of types of software. I know that "free software" supporters try to seperate software form physical property. But imagine for a second that you bought a book, then you photocopied every page of it and sold it to all your friends for profit, or even just gave it away to people. In fact, imagine you scaned the book into your computer and put it on your website for everyone to download. Now instead of those people buying the published version from a bookstore they're getting it from you which means the author and publisher are only getting paid for the copy they sold to you and people who may have otherwise bought the book are getting it for free. I realize copying with a copy machine and copying a file on a computer aren't physically the same, but idea of creating a duplication of something is the same. According to GNU.org since you aren't "taking" the chair, but just "making a copy" of it nobody gets hurt. But if you find a way to make copies at a lower cost you can indirectly harm a companies profits. I'm not sure what laws are like in other countries, but in the USA it is unlawful to distribute copies of book without the permission of the publisher. According to GNU.org "when information has digital form, you can easily copy it to share it with others" and "An ordinary reader, who did not own a printing press, could copy books only with pen and ink, and few readers were sued for that" well it's now possible for readers to copy books with Xerox machines or scan them into their computer and convert them into a digital form. Does GNU believe that since copies can now be easily made of physical books it should be encouraged? You don't buy a book because you like the paper, you buy it because you're interested in the words written on that paper. Someone put forth an effort to form those words into the meaningful sentances that make up that book and they did it with the expectation that they would be reimbursed for their efforts. Software code is much like that, just words (of a sort). Just because you write it to a disk instead of a sheet of paper doesn't change the words. The trade of ideas is as old as the trade of goods and services.

To be honest, I'm not likely to ever work as a paid programmer, or seek payment for any of my code. But I don't think that should mean I have to fight to prevent others from doing it. Just because I consider myself a Christian, doesn't mean I think we should force everyone to be Christians. (Unfortunately too many Americans disagree with me on that last part. I'm looking for a new country for the next 4 years, I'm open to suggestions.)

Sorry, probably my fault we got on this tangent. It would be nice to see a forum for the disscussion of opensource philosophy.

just making sure you know what GNU is. it supports free info. coul;d be anything. i could make a short film and wish to share it with all. let them reedit it even. i place it under the GPL. at that point nobody can use it to profit from and everyone can do as they wish with it. they could thou charge a fee for producing a dvd for you. but you don't have to pay for that dvd. make your own. thats all it is.

i've been thinking of placing one of my sound tracks under GPL for the fun of it.
see if it shows up anywhere.

No you can. GPL doesn't say you can't profit from it and FSF encourages profit from Free Software.
You can't earn money from licences selling of course, though.


No you can't, for example you can't include such piece of software in a proprietary software.
So everyone can do what they wish with is as long as they grant other people the same freedom they were granted.


They suggest the use of other licenses for works that aren't software, for example the Creative Commons Linceses, by Lawrence Lessig, who is also a member of FSF.

GPL *could* also work for non-software, though. I'm sure it would work just fine for a sound track. There may be better licenses out there, but that doesn't make GPL invalid for the given purpose.

And I still contest the idea that all information should be free and open. Information is a comodity, like any other, which has been traded since before there was even a written language. Control of information has and will probably continue to be a profitable business. Asside from that, some information can be misused or become dangerous when made public. Althought I don't like secrecy, I agree that it is sometimes in our best interests for governments to withhold certain information from the public.

If you really think ALL information should be free and public, why don't you post for us your social security number, credit card number, and the pin number to your bank account.

What is the incentive for authors to exert time and effort to write a book if they have no control over the sales of that book and could wind up not even making enough to cover your initial expenses, while the ideas that were originally yours are spread all around the world to hundreds of readers? Don't respond w/ more of that crap about how you can force people to pay you a fee or percentage to redistribute your work unless you can give me a practical example of how that could be tacked and/or enforced or a company that acutally uses a license like that to make money.

I've never stated that it was invalid that that purpose...


Have you ever wondered why GPL applies only to RELEASED version of a program? Your example is non-sense. My social security number, credit card number, and the pin number to my bank account are information I don't want to be released. But when one writes a book or a program, once he intentionally release it, then it should be free.


I don't know, ask it to Free Software developers. What is their incentive? IMO a program or a book should be written because of creativity, not because of the willing to make money. Creativity and intrinsic interest diminish if task is done for gain.

http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/motivation.html


I make the assumption in what I say that a user of software is no less important than an author, or even an author's employer. In other words, their interests and needs have equal weight, when we decide which course of action is best. Unfortunately this premise is not universally accepted. For those who believe that the owners are more important than everyone else, what I say is simply irrelevant. But why would you believe in something that elevates certain people in importance above everyone else?

It's funny that your Constitution says that the purpose of copyright is to ``promote the progress of science and the useful arts.'' The Supreme Court has elaborated on this, stating in `Fox Film vs. Doyal' that ``The sole interest of the United States and the primary object in conferring the copyright monopoly lie in the general benefits derived by the public from the labors of authors.''

http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/shouldbefree.html


There is no shortage of artists who keep at their art even though they have no hope of making a living that way. However, there are plenty of ways that artists could make a living without selling the right to use a work. This way is customary now because it brings artists and businessmen the most money, not because it is the only way to make a living. It is easy to find other ways if you want to find them.

http://www.fsf.org/gnu/manifesto.html


I don't want to force anyone and nobody should be forced to do it.

You aren't one?

I didn't mean to imply that the software authors are more important than the users. I'm simply trying to defend their right to control the spread of their own creations. As you stated yourself, there is information that people might not want shared with everyone. The pin number to your bank account is as intangible as software and just as you protect that pin number some software authors may wish to protect the source code to their programs.

I'm not familiar with that particular case but I will look into it as I am now curious about it. Since you called it "your Constitution" I assume you're not a US citizen, may I inquire where you are from? It's not important, but I'm curious about that as well.

I did read the web page (shouldbefree.html) and I both agree and disagree with parts of their argument. Free software in most cases does hat the potential to be more useful to society. However, they make the assumption that the programmers recieve the necessary compensation for their work. That is all that I'm putting in question, does this system have the potentail to always provide the necessary compensation for the programmers in every situation.

I am aware of this, however, I feel that programming is a skill as much as art. Many people spend a good deal of time and money learning to program well and I believe that these people should be fairly compensated for their work if that is how they choose to support themselves. Not everyone writes software for money, I've never charged anyone for anything I've written and I have no current plans to. However many programmers support themselves through the sale of software (either directly or though the comany they work for).

For almost all software which is written to address a need or solve a problem Open Source is a very good system. However, let's look at another category of software. Software created as entertainment. Many of the people interested in using the nVidia drivers wish to take advantage of their nVidia cards for playing computer games. Although there are several good computer games that have been, or are currently being written by volunteers and released to the public for free, many of the best computer games availible today are closed sourced and restrictively licensed. This fact does not necessairly limit the gaming industry. Many of the recent first-person shooters come with Mod SDKs and often people buy the game to play a fan-written mod of the game. Mod creators benefit from the use of the code that was written by the original game's authors, and those authors get compensated for their work. The games produced by profit-seeking companies are often developed much faster than the open-source alternatives and are usually high-quality offerings. I have no qualms about paying for quality entertainment. Games are among the most pirated software on the internet however. Apparently some gamers feel that this entertainment should be free. Unlike movies which can bring in profits throught the sale of tickets at movie theaters, or music with the sale of concert tickets; computer games, in many cases, lack the ability to generate revenue outside of direct sales.

Further, open-source can be harmful to some types of games. For games that are played multi-player, an open-source game would be much easier to "hack". A player that is familiar with programming would be able to re-write their copy to give themselves an unfair advantage over other players. Ofcourse, the game could be written to reduce the potential for such cheats, but that would bloat the code or at the least make it more complicated and, therfore, confusing to read. Also, trying to get away from a reliance on per-copy sales, many companies are developing subscription-based games (like EverQuest). If a subscription-based game were open-source, not only would they have to deal with issues of cheating, but also server-emulation. Think about it, if you wrote the EverQuest client, you wouldn't want another company to come along offering the players of the game a free or cheap alternative to the subscription-based servers you're offering them. Subscriptions pay for both the high-capacity servers/bandwidth as well as the programmers and artists who are constantly improving the game and adding content and also the dedicated support staff. Outside competitors would lag behind without the power a paid full-time staff developing for them but most gamers would still rather turn to the cheap alternative. In fact, it's possible that without one group controlling the source-code to the game you could wind up with numerous incompatible versions. Since the whole point of a MMORPG is the Massively Multiplayer part, the more you devide the community (amoung different servers or version of the game) the less fun it becomes for everyone. It ruins the experience of a persistant, player-filled world.

The Unreal Tournament serise is popular among many Linux gamers, but it wouldn't have created without the efforts of the paid, full-time employees at Epic Games. How would you propose Epic Games generates the funds to pay those employees if not the restricted distrobution of the software? Be honest, you know a lot of people who wouldn't pay a dime for good entertainment if they didn't have to. I happen to think that Unreal Tournament 2004 is a good piece of software, wourth paying for. And I'm glad I don't have to worry about other players modifying the game in unexpected ways to gain an unsportsman-like advantage, while at the same time modifying the game is very easy given the ammount of code and tools they do provide mod developers and artists with. Although "hacks" are still possible (and do happen) w/o open-source, they are much less common and easier to thwart.

I like free-software too, I've even written and contributed to some. I just don't think EVERYTHING needs to be open-source. Closed-source can add one more security defense against those who have less-than-honorable motives. And it also helps provide good programmers with well earned compensation for their efforts.

....hmm, I didn't expect to write that much....

did anyone actualy say that all software should be open source? i missed that.

i'll say this thou. i love linux. i'm enjoying my mandrake 10.1ce alot. it has worked beter than any winblows install i've ever used. and it's alot more secure. you have to be logged in as root to mess with the darn thing.

it's not as simple t o use ofcource. but in time i'll know all that i need to. and is very powerfull. with 515 dif command line commands that actualy do something worthwile.

it was free. the apps i installed are free. they are open source. when i know what i need to, i will be able to modify it all to my ecxact liking. i have controll over my property.

so long as linux lives, and it will, i'll never buy another piece of software or OS again. or be reduced to the "dishonorable act of piracy" again. most of the things i've used prior to linux cost far more than i'm willing to pay. if could not have obtained it free i wouldn't have got it at all. either way nobody will be getting money from me except hardware manufactures. well. i'm concidering purchaceing a mandrake bundle. i whant more stuff than i realy need and enjoy there product so well that i would like them to have some of my money.

no don't go picking at any one thing that i said. look at all of it.
what dose the mesage realy tell you?