[Open-graphics] Getting more exposure for OGP

[Terry Hancock]

Patrick McNamara wrote:
>  We have identified that their is a problem with the closed nature of
>  current hardware and have begun taking steps to fix that. While our
>  focus is actually on creating the video card, perhaps as important is
>  the creation of the OGD1 board.

Side note: as fodder for marketing spin, it is precisely this kind of 
"unintended" reuse advantage that free-licensed design most enables.  
Projects can spin-off in completely different directions simply because 
this design exists.

>  I have found it quite interesting to read the opinions this topic has
>  generated. From the philosophy/advocacy side of things we have the
>  argument that the identification of the problem and action on that
>  problem is the newsworthy item and is the important achievement. The
>  creation of the physical thing is a side effect.

Yes and no.  Even from a philosophical/ideological standpoint, an idea 
that bears no fruit is, well, fruitless.  ;-)

Even the GNU project was not a "success" until it started producing 
utility programs that could actually be used. In addition to be a 
pragmatic success, these developments established the 
*proof-of-principle* that free-licensed software development can be 
done.  Linux was a much more impressive proof, because it was precisely 
the kind of project that many people believed could not be done.

With hardware, the credibility battle is much harder.  The number of 
people who believe it can work is still small.  Somewhere, I have an 
article by Richard Stallman himself, written in about 1999, in which he 
essentially claims that free-licensed hardware can't work.  It's clear 
from reading the article that at that time, he had not yet become 
conscious of the distinction between free-licensing the *design* for a 
piece of hardware (which is of course, software)  and free-licensing the 
actual hardware (about which, of course, he was correct -- nobody is 
talking about giving away the *hardware* for free).

Nevertheless, the misconception evident in his 1999 article is still 
prevalent in many other people's minds: the idea that free software only 
works because it is a "pure information product".  I even made this 
mistake to some degree in the early part of my "Free Matter Economy" 
series (I'm annoyed with myself for choosing that name, in fact, because 
it suggests "an economy of free matter", when what I intended was  "a 
free economy of matter" or even "a matter economy enabled by 
free-licensed design").  So, I think many people have some proving to do.

Strictly speaking, it's not the production of the OGD1 card that matters 
so much as proving that you *can* produce a piece of hardware from the 
OGP project (and actually producing OGD1 is the most effective way to do 
that).  After that, there's basically very little credibility gap in 
producing OGA1, and we'll see a lot more support and belief in the project.

As for OGP and OHF, I think you should realize that you are competing 
for mindshare with older projects like Open Cores (of course, you want 
to cooperate more than compete, but AFAIK, there hasn't been much 
communication at all -- is that true?).  For example, I recently read an 
article which described Open Cores as the 'the GNU project of free 
hardware'.

OTOH, what Open Cores does has little impact on end users, whereas an 
OGP graphics card has the potential to put an open hardware product in 
people's hands, and give them real benefits -- just like the GNU 
utilities did in the late 1980s.

Cheers,
Terry


-- 
Terry Hancock (hancock at AnansiSpaceworks.com)
Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpaceworks.com