VIA releases open source Xorg driver

VIA has just released a open source Xorg driver for their integrated graphics chips on their linux.via.com.tw portal. Here's the actual download link for the source code tarball.

I am very happy to see this! It's one more step that VIA has been working on to improve and show their support for Free Software and Linux.

Please notice that this driver (as opposed to VIA's proprietary binary-only Xorg driver) has no support for 3D, hardware video codec or TV encoder support. Nevertheless, it is a big step ahead.

Of course everyone involved understands that this simple "code drop" is not enough and that it is just the first step for actual 'Free Software integration'. There is a lot to be done to harmonize the current FOSS driver landscape for VIA's graphics products, from the old via driver in the Xorg git tree, over the unichrome and openchrome and now this new driver. Stay tuned!