Rogelio Serrano wrote:
On 4/14/06, Jeff Garzik <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Rogelio Serrano wrote:
You actually believe they will release all documentation for IP they do not own?
ATI and NV own the programming interface, which would be the docs that
people care about.
Which they say will be used to reverse engineer the damn silicon. I
dont understand how that can be done. Maybe its just an excuse? Maybe
the patents holders are just unreasonable?
I doubt ATI or NV ever actually said that. Reverse engineering the
_silicon_ is pretty uninteresting to all but their direct competitors --
and one can guess that both ATI and NV have already done this in their
labs. As for patents, ATI or NV own the key patents for their hardware
AFAIK.
Here are the various reasons I've heard from the ATI/NV direction
(disclaimer: I DO NOT endorse the reasons, just repeating them):
* The graphics chips are so complex, ATI/NV don't trust the open source
community to produce a good driver in the time dictated by the release
of new hardware.
* More difficult to support Linux, when control of the driver is not
100% in the hands of the vendor.
* The vendor Linux drivers contain performance hacks that the vendors
deem necessary, but open source community would never accept.
* Its a patent minefield, and you open the topic of patent grants when
outside developers are working with your hardware.
* Rumors of questionable IP in early 3D drivers. This may or may not be
sanitized at this point.
The first reason is IMO actually a quite credible reason, I'm ashamed to
say. NVIDIA graphics hardware is quite unlike any other 3D chip out
there, and even with full docs, writing a complete driver is no easy task.
The law guarantees that they cannot go into the open source market in
a big way.
Fantasy.
Is it? This is my impression after the above reasons. IP is a fiction
of law right? Patent holders want to make sure their stuff is not
reverse engineered. And the card manufacturers dont want to get sued.
I just never heard NVidia and ATI saying otherwise.
Reverse engineering and patents are two completely separate threads of
discussion. Patents, by definition, are public. You can download the
full text from a government database.
But the easy counter-example is the innumerable companies that hold
patents on their hardware, and on techniques used in software, which are
fully supported by open source operating systems.
Only way they can go around this if they have a team big enough team
to track developments with a few weeks lag. Just how big is big
enough? 7? 30? 50? Are they willing to link their drivers with uclibc?
how about building with llvm?
That guarantees that developers like me cant get in on the act anymore
except test, submit bug reports and wait until new versions are
released like some enslaved beta tester in windows.
Yes, this is the cost of closed source, regardless of the _reasons_ for
being closed (such as IP).
Maybe open source graphics development just cant happen without big
bucks.
Its an open question... Look at the history of the various companies
that have tried to do open source graphics drivers for profit. Its a
history littered with the corpses of dead companies.
Jeff
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