Alberto Milone is looking for a new video card. Why? Because the driver software he chose to run his current video card doesn’t work anymore.

My old ATI card is not supported any more by the ATI driver (fglrx) since version 8.28.8.

One wonders why treatment like this deserves the name “support”. If ATI really cared about their users they’d at least make the software free for hardware they no longer wish to deal with. Apple has the same problem, as any Apple Newton user or anyone trying to develop bootable CDs for so-called “old world” PowerMacs will attest to.

Milone asks for help picking a new ATI card (!) and lists the criteria he wants you to use to help him place more trust in his apparently untrustworthy master. One of those points is “it should be supported by the latest ATI driver”.

He also says what he’d rather buy—a card that runs with free software drivers? No: “I’d rather buy a card of the X series (e.g. X800) so as to be sure that the support for it won’t be dropped soon.”.