amd64 NVIDIA support in FreeBSD 7

[Sam Fourman Jr.]

On Dec 18, 2007 2:08 PM, Chuck Robey <chuckr at chuckr.org> wrote:
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> Redirected to -chat, because it got too flamish.
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> Daniel O'Connor wrote:
> > On Tue, 18 Dec 2007, Marian Hettwer wrote:
> >> On Tue, 18 Dec 2007 11:37:07 +0100, Dag-Erling Smørgrav <des at des.no>
> > wrote:
> >>> "Sam Fourman Jr." <sfourman at gmail.com> writes:
> >>>> I wonder if having a petition signed by a bunch of people would
> >>>> help this along, because I believe that amd64 3D accel on nvidia,
> >>>> is life or death to PC-BSD in a year or so.
> >>> What, exactly, do you think a petition would achieve?  Can a
> >>> petition write code?  Can a petition pay somebody to write code?
> >>> Petitions may work in a democracy, but neither nVidia nor FreeBSD
> >>> is a democracy.
> >> While this is true (by the way, what is FreeBSD?
>
> This  is so wrong headed, I couldn't avoid commenting.  FreeBSD is in no way a
> democracy.  At best it is an oligarchy (if I have my definitions right?),
> meaning that it;'s run by a smaller set of folks who actually do the coding,
> and those folks are run 80% by what interests them, and only a VERY much
> smaller amount by what users want.  Even ports is like this, although I will
> admit that users there have more input, it's still much below 50%, because
> it's really up to what the porters want to do, NOT what users want.
>
> That fella doing all those polls, I have this suspicion that he expects his
> polls to have some effect.  The only effect it's going to have, is giving that
> person and only that person, so guidance, no other coder is likely to be
> guided by it more than the amounts I ahve listed above.  FreeBSD is not now,
> and never has been a democracy.
>

The only reason I suggested a petition is to demonstrate to Nvidia
that thee is a viable FreeBSD / PC-BSD userbase for amd64
my thinking was, they already have a i386 driver so an amd64 driver
should not be too hard to get them to make.

I wonder if nvidia would sponsor a bounty type fund, something like
FreeBSD users donate 50% of the cost and nvidia donates 50% plus
maintains it long term.

in a private e-mail I have already asked the PC-BSD guys if they would
consider sponsoring a bounty.

Sam Fourman Jr.