>How do I know they're any good as programmers?
How do I know a proprietary software company trying to sell me something employs good programmers?
>And all to have these advancements brought back to the original codebase for free?
You don't have to do that, you can keep the advancements to yourself.
>For features that generally proprietary counterparts already had?
You mean those proprietary counterparts which have a price, often which is a large non-negotiable sum of money in addition to being vendor locked for a long period of time?
>Just more work to do.
Then don't do it? Are you surprised that you can't get a thing to happen unless you do the work to get it?
>Nvidia is in no way, ethical or legal, obliged to cooperate with Linux
You're correct that they aren't obliged to cooperate. You're the one who seems to want them to cooperate, so you can get the drivers. I don't care about this because I will never buy nvidia hardware, they're a trash company.
Why are there so many anti-FSF shills here?
>good programmers
You can't directly inspect their work other than binary reverse engineering (which is still pretty good), but you can look at leaked code or apply empirical/psychological analysis to figure out shit programmers decrease productivity and directly lower the performance/memory usage quality of the code.
>keep
Wow. Thanks. I'd rather get a 90+% refund from the software owner for contributing the advancements instead of keeping them, negating most of my costs.
>large
Not as large as actually paying people every time I get angry at a misdesign.
>long period of time
It's really easy in the age of software as a service to select the cheapest plan or even free demos and ride on that. I rode on microsoft educational keys for years in university. I still know people there and get keys whenever I ask. All legal.
>do the work to get it
It seems like less work to just get the original.
>you can get
How about the supposed elite of elites in Linux write nouveau so it doesn't make a 1080 Ti perform like a 760 first?
>So I can expect to spend the extra money as hiring a normal programmer?
Yeah, but totally better than not having any other choice.
>DRM
Merely an example of the possibilities, I don't need to repeat myself.
>Then it's out of the question. I might as well be using windows.
99% free or 0% free, I wonder which is better.
>And mobile.
Pretty much confirms you are trolling, bye.
>other choice
There is a wide arrange of choices in the proprietary world because people actually fight for market shares.
>99% free
How about free to use the tools that make me money.
>trolling
Wow. Actually imagine, just for a few seconds,
preferring to run the java virtual machine on an embedded device, while hugely supporting operating systems and kernels written in a deprecated, messy language like C.
>looking at leaked code
>using educational licenses for business purposes
These things are illegal.
>apply empirical/psychological analysis
>constantly juggling time limits on low-cost plans or free demos
All of this also entails work, so your point is irrelevant.
>Not as large as actually paying people every time I get angry at a misdesign.
If you suck at hiring and managing good workers then that's a different problem.
>How about the supposed elite of elites in Linux write nouveau so it doesn't make a 1080 Ti perform like a 760 first?
Sure, they'll get around to it once you pay them.
>illegal
Just looking at a text file on someone else's server is not illegal. And neither is getting paid to program on Windows Education because microsoft offered internships at my university to students.
>work
Little work. Once you get down the patterns of the market, you can quickly tell when a program is bad just by the lack of attention to specific details.
>suck
Everyone sucks at hiring, including mega corps. Look at Google's hiring process and how supposedly successful it is.
>pay them
It's free software dude, it's my right to slam as many github issues and hatemail as I want, calling it auditing.
Because I don't give a fuck about the "ethics" of using sofware, I want my experience with computers to be as efficient and comfy as possible.
I'm a pragmatic person, I enjoy using Debian with non-free software because of how good it works and how I still have the advantage of ricing the system if I need it. I don't need to listen to some sixty year old booger eater about how I should only use sofware based on his arbitrary decisions.
Nonfree software does not provide an efficient or comfy experience.
Not true. Many free softwares are the best solutions that exist to a problem or a software need. As that's true, it's also true that many proprietary softwares are the best for their genre as well
>waaahh I can't compile someone else's code and imagine it was mine