More and more companies are moving towards Free software. Hardware makers begin to support Linux at a level of parity w.r.t. Windows and many of them have even gone Open Source. AMD is a recent example. It’s not too obvious whether Google, Novell, Dell, someone else, or a combination thereof was the force behind AMD’s move. I’ve tracked this for a while and I think there’s something that predates the words from Henri Richard, who talked about the open source drivers in a conference about 3-4 months ago. There were lots of small hints and surely a lot of influence from all sorts of directions.

I am still trying to pressure NVidia, by the way, along with other people. It’s down to the people at the top, who sometimes don’t even understand these technical things. It’s about politics, image, perception…

“Intel and AMD have moved on the the future… while you, the small company, are the only one left in the past. And your drivers are not secure because they are closed.”

Inciting fear in a polite way might be ineffective, but I don’t think it does harm.

Still waiting for NVIdia to join the 21st century….

Either way, I doubt Novell was the main driver in this move by AMD. It was virtually silent prior to AMD’s announcement, which I knew about prior to others (inside information).

Some of Novell’s gifts make it Greek (to spin the old saying), Such ‘gifts’ include XAML and OOXML, both of which are proprietary, Windows-centric, and this Linux hostile.

Not true at all. If you follow along on some of the irc channels on GimpNet, you’ll quickly discover that since the MS/Novell deal, the “free software” departments within Novell have grown. As also mentioned elsewhere, it seems likely that they’ve also used that money toward opening AMD-ATI’s video drivers and many other things as well.

I think it’s a bit hard to argue that Novell “selling out” hasn’t helped the community by the boatload.