They can't release "card specification" becasue of the AGP stuff
theylicensed from another company. They signed NDA to use their way
/chipset of interfacing with the AGP bus.
I was talking to a guy at LinuxUniversity that SGI put on in LA. That's
what I was told. (I think he worked at Xi - a commercial X server
co). They had to sign 2 NDA's. One with NVidia and one with the other Co.
I wish I could remeber the other Co. name.... They would be the ones to
Email.
Disclaimer: It's possible I've just been smoking to much crack and got
some facts wrong... it has been about 8months since I attended the
LinuxUniversity thing from SGI.
Releaseing specs is just as bad as releaseing the source. They would
violate their NDA they signed. :(
On 12 Oct 2000, Yoann Vandoorselaere wrote:
> Bryan Whitehead <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> > NVidia really wants to give away thier driver. They just licensed some AGP
> > stuff from another Co. and CAN't release it. If they do they will lose
> > their right to use the way they do there AGP (and some other stuff). Plus
> > they can be sued by the companyfor violating a NDA. The driver they DID
> > release (remeber the crappy 3.3.x driver?) didn't have the AGP stuff and
> > it sucked ass.
>
> You should read the thread entirely... to quote myself :
>
> <quote>
>
> That's not the problem... That's simply a lie.
> If they just couldn't release the driver they could
> at least release card specifications.
>
> I was in talk with an NVidia engineer who's said me :
> "Actually, we do write our driver without documentation".
>
> Which can only be a big lie.
>
> Also, they say that they are affraid of giving informations
> to their competitor... But giving away driver and / or card
> specs doesn't give you any informations about the silicon die.
>
> </quote>
>
>
--
---
Bryan Whitehead
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
WorkE: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
