From: Joseph Carter <knghtbrd@debian.org>
  To  : ggi-develop@eskimo.com
  Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1999 13:46:14 -0800

Re: Glide 3 sources released!

On Fri, Nov 19, 1999 at 09:24:34AM -0500, James Simmons wrote:
> > Yeah, this is really cool (especially since I have a voodoo3)
> > 
> > I'm hoping to talk 3dfx into releasing source for stuff to use on the
> > older voodoo graphic/rush/2 cards, but I just got a message from Andrew
> > Fear at 3dfx telling me about it (I already knew--hadn't had time to email
> > him about it yet though) so it may be a day or two before I know what they
> > can do, and probably longer before they actually do it.
> 
> The question is will they do the same with the upcoming voodoo 4 and 5
> cards (These cards have 128 Meg on board). How will linux support be?  

...which is IMO serious f**king overkill, but they have to one-up the
other companies somehow after the beating the Voodoo3 has taken from the
G400 and the TNT2...

I've been talking with 3dfx since August for matters related to Debian and
they've been VERY cooperative.  SLOW for certain (they are a corporate
entity after all and my contact person at 3dfx is a busy guy besides) but
they have been very accomidating.


More difficult than getting them to support new hardware I think will be
to support their old hardware.  If they release source for glide for the
voodoo graphics or voodoo rush must they then support these ancient
codebases as if they were for a current product?  It doesn't take much to
guess that they'd rather not.


> > Within the last month alone we've seen Creative Labs come forward with
> > source for SBLive! cards (which BTW it sounds like they're starting to
> > come together nicely--I can't wait to get mine) and now 3dfx too...  These
> > were two of the most visible holdouts as far as opening source or specs
> > for their hardware went, so I'm very much pleased to see them both doing
> > an apparent 180 on the whole open source issue.  Good for them.  =>
> 
> Well when you see other companies cards being fully supported on linux and
> in news groups people saying hey get a matrox card because the nivida glx
> driver suck kind of changes their minds. I bet in two years all companies
> will release their specs.

Oh yeah..  I was kinda disappointed trinity had a Voodoo3 at first (I
didn't get to pick the components used in trinity, my new PIII system,
because I wasn't the one who paid for it) because I wanted to have a card
with open sourced drivers.

Just a day or two ago I got email from Andrew (not Apted) telling me the
drivers were open source now just in case I hadn't found out already (I
had) and apologizing for keeping me in the dark about them.

-- 
- Joseph Carter         GnuPG public key:   1024D/DCF9DAB3, 2048g/3F9C2A43
- knghtbrd@debian.org   20F6 2261 F185 7A3E 79FC  44F9 8FF7 D7A3 DCF9 DAB3
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10) there is no 10, but it sounded like a nice number :)
        -- Wichert Akkerman


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