[mythtv-users] Current wisdom on PVR-150/250/350/500

yan seiner yan at seiner.com
Mon Apr 17 22:48:23 UTC 2006


Paul Pick wrote:

>I agree with most of what you wrote (I bought an nvidia card
>and use the non-free driver) but I couldn't let this bit go:
>
>  
>
>>My point was that people who are gung-ho on the "I only use things
>>that are open source, nay on nvidia for not being open" should
>>probably expand their horizons a bit and instead look at how well it
>>works in linux. It's like saying "I only want to buy a car that comes
>>in turquoise blue" and not looking at any of the reviews of the car,
>>the specs, the price, or safety.
>>    
>>
>
>Your analogy trivializes the FOSS viewpoint. I think that FOSS
>folks would rather you likened their preference in automobiles
>to something like "own vs use-until-we-decide-to-take-it-back"
>or "seat belts vs big-sharp-stick-in-steering-column" or
>something along those lines. (Hmm, car-software analogies don't
>work so well...)
>
>I may be willing to compromise my freedom in order to more
>easily use my hardware but I deeply respect those who
>aren't.
>
>  
>
Well, it turns out I have been asked to compare a FOSS and a proprietary 
solution...  One being CODA, the other being riverbed....  The app 
doesn't really matter; the problem is that the proprietary solution 
doesn't give you *any* hard info on how it works.  Basically, even their 
"technical specifications" are nothing but an advertising blurb full of 
meaningless technobabble, with no data and no actual description of what 
is going on.  Terms like 'multiuplexed TCP channels' sound fancy but are 
meaningless in any real sense of the word.

CODA on the other hand is open, and we can know its capabilities....

So there is no real way to compare the two products.

Thus it is with closed source drivers.  Look on this list; problem 
solving consists of "try driver xxxx instead of yyyy', which is no real 
solution.  It's simply blind trial and error, without any real 
engineering, debugging, or problem solving, and ultimately no 
understanding *why* driver yyyy works better than xxxx.  (I'm not 
knocking the NVidia faithful; the problem is the same for all binary 
only drivers....)

With FOSS you can stick debugging statements in the code and *see* where 
it blows up.  you can rewrite it, massage it, do what you want with it.  
Hell, you can make it blow up.

I use Matrox where possible because their open source drivers are pretty 
good, and they are open.  I like Matrox; they're fast, passively cooled, 
and work very well (except for HD, but that's a hardware limitation....)

So it's more akin to buying a sports car with the hood bolted down, with 
no way to look at the engine, no test drive, and no specs either.  Just 
a salesman's promise that it feels good and goes fast.


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