Intel hopes this move will effectively give it an advantage over Nvidia and ATi, something aimed at increasing its market share and the software for these open-source drivers is something already being tried. However, the Free Software Foundation backs Intel's strategy:

"The move that Intel has taken, toward making better interoperability with free operating systems by abandoning secrecy, is the sign of a new competitive approach. More practically, Intel's move is well-timed to dovetail with Red Hat and Novell projects to build fancy graphical interfaces into Linux."

Of course, there is a curious contradiction in such a move: while 'tweakers' who enjoy such properties in Linux as being able to modify graphics speed on screen as one example, this will also make said graphics more "proprietary," something shunned in principal by those who love building their own systems. This means Intel seems to hope people will buy motherboards with these integrated graphics as opposed to using separate video cards. (What is notable is that the article further states Intel's, ATi's and nVidia's market share.) Since not all people are programmers at heart, and many more do not generally learn such a practice (unless imposed on them), Linux and these open-source drivers may only tempt already-convinced Linux users, or those who love modifying their systems habitually for optimum performance. This seems to me this may provide a limited gain at best, as the masses do not use Linux, and those who know a little more about graphics go with a separate video card of their choice.

I doubt many hard-core linux nerds use an onboard video card ....

Generally the users that buy PC's with onboard video cards are the LEAST knowledgeable computer users .. and said users are unlikely to ever learn a programming language.

Of course, all this was said above .. just re-iterating for effect

Maybe linux nerds will buy cheapy systems with onboard vid for servers, but then again, hardcore linux nerds ravage old systems, not buy new systems and adapt them for servers.

Intel is barking up the wrong tree .. keep it up, they might become the under-dog