mixed OpenGL vendor drivers

[Maarten Maathuis]

On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 10:34 AM, Kai-Uwe Behrmann <ku.b at gmx.de> wrote:
> Am 16.11.10, 19:21 -0500 schrieb Matt Turner:
>>
>> On Tue, Nov 16, 2010 at 3:38 AM, Kai-Uwe Behrmann <ku.b at gmx.de> wrote:
>>>
>>> ATI and Nvidia ship separate version of libGL.so, for Linux and probably
>>> for
>>> other operating systems. Now I want to make a Live media with
>>> "out of the box" fantastic OpenGL support for a wide range of
>>> graphic cards.
>>>
>>> Is the replacement by vendors of libGL something dictated by the
>>> architecture of Xorg or the OpenGL spec? What are good solutions to
>>> switch
>>> the library on the fly?
>>>
>>> (That written, I admire the efforts to bring open sourced GL drivers on
>>> the
>>> table. But artists need for work horse graphics really fast drivers.
>>> Otherwise coe in danger to simply switch the platform.)
>>
>> Can you legally redistribute ATI/Nvidia's binary drivers?
>>
>> Back in the Xgl days, someone made a LiveCD to show off the spinning
>> cube, and in order to make this work distributed the drivers on the
>> CD. I think they realized (or were told?) that they weren't really
>> supposed to do that and stopped making the CD.
>>
>> It's pretty pedantic, but.
>
>
> http://de.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/260.19.21/README/faq.html
> says under 7.1 NVIDIA-INSTALLER
> Why does NVIDIA not provide RPMs?
> "... These repackaged NVIDIA drivers are likely to inter-operate best with
> the Linux distribution's package management technology. For this reason,
> NVIDIA encourages users to use their distribution's repackaged NVIDIA
> driver, where available."
>
>
> AMD Software End User License Agreement
> "(d)   In addition to the license terms above, with respect  to  portions of
> the Software in source code or binary  form  designed  exclusively  for use
> with the Linux operating system ("AMD Linux Code"), you  may  use, display,
> modify, copy, distribute, allow others to  re-distribute, package  and
>  repackage such AMD Linux Code  for  commercial  and non-commercial
> purposes, provided that:"
>
> So I read this as, redistribution is fine with at least Nvidia and AMD.
>

The constraints lie in linux' GPL license. This all hearsay, but there
is supposed to be a segment that forbids shipping a closed source
module with the kernel, without also providing the sourcecode.

>
> kind regards
> Kai-Uwe Behrmann
> --
> developing for colour management www.behrmann.name + www.oyranos.org
>
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