[Open-graphics] Vision statement still not satisfying

[Nicolas Capens]

H Bart,

>> Our target market isn't only developers, is it?
>
> Without developers no Linux, so this is in fact also relevant to linux 
> users
> (and those of other open soucre operating systems for that matter)

Sure, but do you expect to sell the cards to be sold to end users too? I 
really hope so, and that should be the real goal we're after. And ultimately 
I don't see the strict need for open specifications and documentation to 
reach that goal.

It can be a requirement of one possible path to reach that goal. If no other 
approaches are even taken under consideration, fine with me...

> When interested in games currently I will use an NVIDIA card. As long as 
> their
> support remains as good as it is I'll keep doing that most likely. That 
> said,
> playing games is a small part of what I do with computers. Testing new
> software and operating systems is soemthign I do a lot more. For that 
> nvidia
> cards are not very usefull unless 2d support is enough.

I certainly understand that you do a lot more with computers. But frankly, 
that's not what the end user is interested in. They want to run 3D 
applications. And like you said support for that is good. For the little 
problems remaining, again from the end user's perspective, developing new 
hardware might not seem like the most optimal approach to solve a software 
problem. Who wants to buy a second graphics card if they got a really good 
one already, which costed less and has much higher performance?

You have to understand that many of these end users won't have the technical 
knowledge to understand the difficulties at the software side. With the 
current price/performance/quality ratios, marketing of this product is going 
to be very hard. Not a lot of people will look at the low-level problems it 
solves.

> The specs as they are would be very usefull for making a home theatre or
> digital video recorder/player device if entertainment must be in there. 
> No, it
> won't make a good gamign device if that is what you mean.

Home theatre system are nice, yes, but how are you going to compete on that 
market? Besides, it's 2D we're talking about now, support is adequate for 
these applications if I understood correctly.

> Again, there is more in this world then gaming, and a modern desktop
> environment uses a fair bit of 3d graphics as well. 3d hardware 
> acceleration
> is usefull even if it doesn't allow ou to play doom 3.

I know there's more than gaming, absolutely. I'm not a gamer myself. I'd 
just like to know what applications, the end user's interest, will be able 
to run better on Open Graphics hardware.

> Expect to? nope. It is not impossible, but it is extremely unlikely. I 
> doubt
> this is a problem at all.

Good.

It is impossible though...

> For all I can tell we are indeed not too clear yet about where this niche 
> is
> tho some areas have been indentified and are mentioned also on the about 
> page
> below the vision statement.

It's nice to finally see a bit of confirmation that the vision statement, or 
at least the targeted market, is not clear yet. I truely don't expect an 
answer right away, I just hope more people will realize this is important 
for the success of the project.

> That said, maybe you want to suggest a text that words this all better. I
> wrote the initial version of whats there now, but English is not my native
> language, so well, it might not be the best way to state whats there.

Waarom denk je dat Engels mijn moedertaal wel zou zijn? ;-) Anyway, it's not 
me who is going to carry out the project. I'm a poor student and I'm trying 
to make money writing software, not wasting my time on writing drivers. That 
being said, I -will- support this project in every other way I can. If you 
want me to perform tests with swShader, share knowledge about algorithms, 
say my opinion about design decisions, that's fine. I've just given up 
trying to understand the goals of this project, so please don't expect me to 
define any.

Best regards,

Nicolas