mixed OpenGL vendor drivers

Kai-Uwe Behrmann ku.b at gmx.de
Wed Nov 17 01:34:00 PST 2010


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.


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




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