Peter TB Brett wrote:
Timothy Miller wrote:
I'd like to start with some more comments about the release of the
RTL. One concern is being ripped off. But some have suggested that
is unlikely. Whether it does or not, there's another factor that's
even more important.
The issue at hand is OGA becoming functionally obsolete from a revenue
perspective. If someone undercuts us, and they take away too much
business, that obsoletes the design. We should be sure that when the
RTL is released (under a Free Software license--it could be released
sooner under a much more restrictive license), we should suffer very
little from the revenue going suddenly to zero.
[snip lots more]
Timothy,
I don't disagree with anything you're saying: it all makes perfect sense.
In fact, I don't think anyone here is *enormously* fussed about how
ideologically 'free' the RTL is. I think that the thing that everyone
is most excited about is that this will be a graphics chip with full
specifications published, so that anyone can use it and interface with
it in the way that they want to.
Having 'open' RTL is a enormously cool and awesome bonus, but it's
just that. To be entirely honest, if nVidia and ATi were to turn
around tomorrow and say, "From now on all of our interface specs will
be freely released to anyone who wants them, here they are," Traversal
and the OGP would be out of business.
Now, going out on a limb and at risk of being called a troll: from
*my* point of view, Traversal is welcome to require very expensive
licenses/very constrictive NDA's in order to use/view the RTL code,
*provided* *that* they make a covenant with the community to always
release*full* interface & behavioural data & specifications for the
hardware[1].
I agree with this completely. This is the big difference between
software and hardware. I can completely document hardware and provide
and the behavioral and interface specifications and I have really
completely described the hardware. The implementation of those specs is
really just busywork. Ok, so I'm simplifying it to make a point, but
fundamentally it is correct. I suppose the same could be said for a
software system, but I have never ever seen it done, and frankly I don't
think you can, not to the point that is possible with hardware.
Going back to what someone said earlier about the OHF foundation
providing "certificates" for hardware, I'd propose two levels. First,
any company that pledges full and complete interface and behavioral
documentation for a device, any docs necessary to make the device do
everything it is designed to do, and makes it publicly available under
nothing more cumbersome than the basic copyright that exists on all
written works receives one certificate. Somebody else used "community
friendly" or something similar. I don't know what to call it. Perhaps
just "Open Documentation" though it's kind of boring.
A company that contributes back to the community during the development
of a device get labeled "Community Supporter" or something similar.
A company that enters into a legal agreement to release the entire RTL
and supporting information for a project at a given point in the future
(far enough ahead to protect the companies commercial viability) can
get the "Open Hardware" certificate.
Ok, so that's really three different levels and I'm pretty sure I have
just re-hashed what some other people have suggested but I'm thinking
out loud as I read through all the mail threads that have backed up today.
I'm sure I don't speak for everyone here. But you must be careful
that you don't get too paranoid about the Slashdot trolls' huffing and
puffing, either. Remember that although they all seem to say, "Well
the closed source drivers work well enough for me, I'm not
interested," or, "What's this? It's not entirely GPL'd? Rubbish!" they
aren't a representative sample by any stretch of the imagination.
Peter
Let's see... "Damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead!" and "You can't
please all of the people all of the time..."
For those one the list that are note familiar with American history,
these are attributed Admiral Farragut and Abraham Lincoln respectively.
_______________________________________________
Open-graphics mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-graphics
List service provided by Duskglow Consulting, LLC (www.duskglow.com)
