On Tuesday 16 May 2006 03:15, Terry Hancock wrote: > Dieter wrote: > >In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Nicolas Capens" writes: > >>In fact, one of the fundamental questions raised a year ago still exists:
[deleted] > > So ... 'free hardware' is a selling point. But I also acknowledge that > a company needs to protect it's proprietary edge if it is investing in > card or chip production. There are a number of well-defined strategies > for implementing that balance though: license-delay schemes, proprietary > enhancements (but with a solid free-licensed reference design), etc. > At the risk of being shouted down, I say BULL. When was the last time Intel, AMD or IBM, SUN etc released a CPU that had no register level description? Never. That's when. Because people expect to be able to cut code to run on them. For some strange reason the graphics vendors have got into their heads that somehow they're so much more special than the CPU vendors when all they're really doing is producgin a specialised processor that runs through & performs the exact same thing as a general purpose CPU (i.e. follows instructions & peforms some memory alteration because of them). There is no need or defense for vendors to keep their hardware interface secret. At the very most I'd forgive them for doing something like Intel with their wireless (802.11) chipsets like the ip2100 and ipw2200. All they need to do is build a chip with an open & documented interface. Who cares HOW it does it, as long as it does what it says on the tin... Keeping secrets seems like it's more to protect themselves from having their faults known than anything else. (Sorry. Shouldn't post when I've been drinking I know). But this thread is gettign annoying. If you don't like the OGD, build your own competing product & sell that. Heck maybe two new products would be enough to make Nvidea & ATI realise we're not quite a thick & ham fisted as they seem to think & can really be trusted to know & see the code to interface to their chipsets. H _______________________________________________ Open-graphics mailing list [email protected] http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-graphics List service provided by Duskglow Consulting, LLC (www.duskglow.com)
