On Tue, 20 May 2008 15:10:28 -0700
"Christopher Stone" <chris.stone@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, May 20, 2008 at 3:05 PM, Jeff Spaleta <jspaleta@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Tue, May 20, 2008 at 1:51 PM, Christopher Stone
> > <chris.stone@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Until nVidia gets their act together?? What the H.E. double hockey
> >> sticks are you talking about? nVidia can't do anything until xorg's
> >> ABI is *stable*. They cannot keep chasing a moving target. If xorg
> >> declared today that the ABI will be stable then perhaps nVidia can get
> >> working on new drivers. Perhaps xorg has already done this??
> >
> > http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=107725
> > 05-13-08, 12:48 AM
> > "I got assurance from the release manager that the ABI won't be
> > changing between now and the official xserver 1.5 release, so the ABI
> > will be marked as supported in the next driver release so that
> > -ignoreABI won't be required."
>
> Okay, this is good news. I'll post on the nVidia forums to make sure
> they know. I still think it's a bit uncalled for to say nVidia should
> get their act together when the ABI was only declared stable last
> week.
>
> >
> >>
> >> And I don't see why you can't have two different xorg packages. We
> >> have other compat packages with gcc and libstdc++, etc...
> >
> > I think you are over-simplifying the complexity of what it would take
> > to make such a scheme work for the "framework" that is X. If you can
> > do it, and make it work seemlessly, more power to you. But I have no
> > doubt that it is wrong to make this sort of demand on ajax's time.
> > We've seen compatibility issues in the past with regard to nvidia on
> > release day. There is absolutely nothing new here.
>
> As I stated in my original post "just how hard can it be to provide
> compatibility packages?" From what I understand, you could just drop
> in the F8 packages right into F9 and that's all that is required.
> Then nVidia users could use the f8 version of xorg while everyone else
> could use the f9 version. Why is it not that simple?

If it's that simple, you should be able to do it yourself. The code is
there. Have at it.

(HINT: It's not simple at all)

josh

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On Tue, May 20, 2008 at 3:48 PM, Josh Boyer <jwboyer@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 20 May 2008 15:10:28 -0700
> "Christopher Stone" <chris.stone@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, May 20, 2008 at 3:05 PM, Jeff Spaleta <jspaleta@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > On Tue, May 20, 2008 at 1:51 PM, Christopher Stone
>> > <chris.stone@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> Until nVidia gets their act together?? What the H.E. double hockey
>> >> sticks are you talking about? nVidia can't do anything until xorg's
>> >> ABI is *stable*. They cannot keep chasing a moving target. If xorg
>> >> declared today that the ABI will be stable then perhaps nVidia can get
>> >> working on new drivers. Perhaps xorg has already done this??
>> >
>> > http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=107725
>> > 05-13-08, 12:48 AM
>> > "I got assurance from the release manager that the ABI won't be
>> > changing between now and the official xserver 1.5 release, so the ABI
>> > will be marked as supported in the next driver release so that
>> > -ignoreABI won't be required."
>>
>> Okay, this is good news. I'll post on the nVidia forums to make sure
>> they know. I still think it's a bit uncalled for to say nVidia should
>> get their act together when the ABI was only declared stable last
>> week.
>>
>> >
>> >>
>> >> And I don't see why you can't have two different xorg packages. We
>> >> have other compat packages with gcc and libstdc++, etc...
>> >
>> > I think you are over-simplifying the complexity of what it would take
>> > to make such a scheme work for the "framework" that is X. If you can
>> > do it, and make it work seemlessly, more power to you. But I have no
>> > doubt that it is wrong to make this sort of demand on ajax's time.
>> > We've seen compatibility issues in the past with regard to nvidia on
>> > release day. There is absolutely nothing new here.
>>
>> As I stated in my original post "just how hard can it be to provide
>> compatibility packages?" From what I understand, you could just drop
>> in the F8 packages right into F9 and that's all that is required.
>> Then nVidia users could use the f8 version of xorg while everyone else
>> could use the f9 version. Why is it not that simple?
>
> If it's that simple, you should be able to do it yourself. The code is
> there. Have at it.
>
> (HINT: It's not simple at all)


According to this thread it seems pretty simple actually:

http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=188645

If redhat wants to pay me $100k a year, I'll happily make xorg compat
rpms in about one day. Thank you very much.

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Jeff Spaleta wrote:

On Tue, May 20, 2008 at 2:11 PM, Jason Tang <jtang@magma.ca> wrote:


I just don't think neglecting 2/3 of the user base makes sense. The fact
is, many people use nvidia hardware. It would have seemed that pushing Xorg
1.4.99 to the development repo would have made more sense from a stability
perspective. After all, it is a 'pre-release'.



2/3 of the userbase? Are you relying on smolt stats for that?

Please read the
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=107725&page=3 thread
comment #42 for what is probably a very accurate picture of the timeline here.

The whole thread is actually a valuable read. There was more than
enough time for Nvidia to release beta drivers against the stable ABI
if they desired to do so.

Look at it this way... what if we did all our open driver development
like nvidia does. What if the open video drivers were not ported until
xserver 1.5 was officially released? Would there be any value at all
in doing open video driver development that way? The changes that the
nvidia driver need are surely on par with the changes the open drivers
needed and they could have been done in the same timescale. The real
question is why isn't NVidia syncing their driver development with the
upstream process? And we aren't going to answer that here.

-jef


2/3, 1/3... 1/4... whatever. I'm sure you understand my point that
there are a large number or eager F9 users in pain out there.


I read that nvnews thread (for the second time). And yes, I agree that
(in a perfect world) nvidia should play nice, or at least keep their eye
on the ball concerning upstream changes that may affect them.


Granted, I don't follow the dev group all that closely, so hopefully you
can forgive me for thinking that what we seem to have is a circle of
groups blaming one another for their own collective failure to deliver.


Of course, I can and will wait for the drivers I need to work before
upgrading my primary system. Perhaps most of us 'users' would have been
content with a heads-up about the nvidia breakage, and maybe a rough
timeline of when to expect a fix. That way there would not have been so
many struggling now.


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On Tue, May 20, 2008 at 5:32 PM, Jeff Spaleta <jspaleta@gmail.com> wrote:

> The real
> question is why isn't NVidia syncing their driver development with the
> upstream process? And we aren't going to answer that here.

Aren't they doing so by waiting for an official release before
supporting a product?

Nvidia is not distribution specific. The changes they make and release
have to work for all Linux users on all distributions not just Fedora.

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On Tue, May 20, 2008 at 5:28 PM, Alan <alan@clueserver.org> wrote:

Besides... Someone has to push these things out first. *If no one pushed

out new versions before the release date, they would not get much in the

way of testing. *Getting xorg 1.5 into the F9 betas gave it more testing

than if it was just confined to the people who compile their version of X

from the source code repository. *Yes it causes pain for some users, but

it makes for a much more stable version for the rest of us once the

initial bugs get worked out.
Yes, we've had this flame war before. Last time, it was said that Nvidia has no intention of updating their drivers to a new Xorg ABI until a distribution releases that version in a *stable* release. That means if every distribution waited around for Nvidia to have their drivers ready before release, we'd be waiting forever. So go bitch at Nvidia, not us. Standing around and waiting is not what Fedora is about. We move fast. Don't like it? Use something else.


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Callum Lerwick wrote:
On Tue, May 20, 2008 at 5:28 PM, Alan <alan@clueserver.org
<mailto:alan@clueserver.org>> wrote:


Besides... Someone has to push these things out first. If no one pushed
out new versions before the release date, they would not get much in the
way of testing. Getting xorg 1.5 into the F9 betas gave it more testing
than if it was just confined to the people who compile their version
of X
from the source code repository. Yes it causes pain for some users, but
it makes for a much more stable version for the rest of us once the
initial bugs get worked out.


Yes, we've had this flame war before. Last time, it was said that Nvidia
has no intention of updating their drivers to a new Xorg ABI until a
distribution releases that version in a *stable* release. That means if
every distribution waited around for Nvidia to have their drivers ready
before release, we'd be waiting forever. So go bitch at Nvidia, not us.
Standing around and waiting is not what Fedora is about. We move fast.
Don't like it? Use something else.


Please post that on the http://fedoraproject.org/ page so everyone will
understand what to expect.


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Les Mikesell
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2008/5/20 Callum Lerwick <seg@haxxed.com>:

> Yes, we've had this flame war before. Last time, it was said that Nvidia has
> no intention of updating their drivers to a new Xorg ABI until a
> distribution releases that version in a *stable* release. That means if
> every distribution waited around for Nvidia to have their drivers ready
> before release, we'd be waiting forever. So go bitch at Nvidia, not us.
> Standing around and waiting is not what Fedora is about. We move fast. Don't
> like it? Use something else.

I like Fedora, I advocate Fedora, I install it on people's
workstations, and talk it up as much as I can. However Nvidia did not
jump the gun and ship a prerelease Xorg.

I see and agree with the point of not being held hostage by a vendor,
and there is no winners here. Only losers and those losers are the
Fedora users who depend on the nvidia drivers who will either have to
reinstall F8 or go to another distro and provide bad word of mouth for
Fedora.

- Erich

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Les Mikesell wrote:



Please post that on the http://fedoraproject.org/ page so everyone will
understand what to expect.


Frontpage of a project website is not anybody's playing ground to
scribble random information. For those who care, there is ample amount
of information including the overview page. Insisting on putting
everything on the frontpage is just silly and not going to happen.


Rahul

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On Tue, 2008-05-20 at 17:23 -0400, Jason Tang wrote:
> The only problem being that this release is incompatible with current
> nvidia drivers. Granted, I'm aware of the Fedora position regarding
> non-OSS, but this Xorg issue has completely destroyed many user's
> confidence in the dev team.
>
> Most users could care less about supposed 'valid' reasons - that fact
> is: No 3D acceleration == No F9 adoption (or worse, an eroding user
> base). Lets not play this game with F10.
>

Let me just state, this is not going to happen ever. If you want hold
your desktop ransom to a large binary piece of software, I'm sure
Microsoft will sell you an OS more suited to your needs.

Fedora is about having an open distro and we are *never* going to expend
time or effort to support a binary driver. I say this as the
co-maintainer of X.org for Fedora. Fedora is not ajax's or mine primary
reason for being paid, we really wish it was. However even if Fedora was
the only thing I was scheduled to work on, I would still not expend even
one small shred of effort to support a binary driver running on this OS.
You buy hardware with closed source you now get to keep both bits.

unsure if I can clarify this any better.

Dave.



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On Tue, May 20, 2008 at 3:11 PM, Jason Tang <jtang@magma.ca> wrote:
> 2/3, 1/3... 1/4... whatever. I'm sure you understand my point that there
> are a large number or eager F9 users in pain out there.

What exactly do you want at this point? I'm prepared to get in front
of a camera, and do a video with a sincere apology to nvidia driver
users that we have chosen to provide better support for video hardware
with open drivers...than for closed source video drivers.
But nothing I can do is going to fix the problem in a way that you
want. We've never claimed to support nvidia drivers. If they
work..they work. If they don't they don't. We can't fix them...we
don't support them. I'm not going to mince words about it.

> Granted, I don't follow the dev group all that closely, so hopefully you can
> forgive me for thinking that what we seem to have is a circle of groups
> blaming one another for their own collective failure to deliver.

Xorg has an open transparent process... we have an open transparent
process. We can't do anything more than be open and transparent. If
Nvidia wants to have a discussion with Xorg concerning development and
release cycle I'm sure that would be a fascinating thing to read.

>
> Of course, I can and will wait for the drivers I need to work before
> upgrading my primary system. Perhaps most of us 'users' would have been
> content with a heads-up about the nvidia breakage, and maybe a rough
> timeline of when to expect a fix.

We've known about the nvidia breakage for months now...since the
beginning of the F9 development phase really, when the snapshots of
the new xserver were put in rawhide..back when few of the open video
drivers worked. There was more than enough time for any contributor
who cared about the NVidia issue to submit something to the release
notes process specifically about the known NVidia problems.
We have an open community driven process for the release notes. If
there is something specific you or any NVidia driver user wants added
perhaps you should look into participating in that Beat writing
process or talk to the Beat Writer for Xorg.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/ReleaseNotes/Beats
Obviously we can't point to 3rd party drivers...even if they did work.

But how can we tell you when Nvidia will fix things? Nvidia's
development process is opaque, they don't tell people when to expect
driver updates. We cannot impact when and what NVidia chooses to do
what they do, nor can we force to be more forth coming as to their
timelines.

> That way there would not have been so many struggling now.

Honestly I don't see how. There is absolutely nothing we can do to
impact how Nvidia will respond when X needs to make an ABI change.
All we could do is put a big notice in our release notes that Fedora
does not support 3rd party proprietary hardware drivers..full stop.
Our release notes reference a long manifesto(which I didn't write even
though it's length would suggest I did) which amounts to such a
statement. In the future I'll insist on a bolder statement explictly
stating that we do not support 3rd party drivers. If the work..great.
If they don't...they don't..take it up with the driver developers.

-jef

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