> For further reference try > playing a recent sony audio cd under windows. > Soon you will only be > able to play discs under windows exclusively...
What's wrong with that, precisely? So long as there is no passing-off as a red-box compliant product, then I can't see that Sony do not have the right to do that. > people, stand in for your right, for your freedom! When you say 'your freedom', you make it sound like you have the freedom, and it is being taken away. I rather suspect that actually, for many things, you never had the freedom that you may think you did. In the UK, drivers are up in arms about new speed camera technology that WILL catch them when they exceed speed limits. They claim that this is unfair and an impingement on their rights. I know I speed. But I also know that this will simply enforce the laws of the land, and I just got lazy about assuming that I'll get away with it. I'm not about to lose any freedom from the introduction of these cameras. I'll just have to be more rigorous about obeying the law. I can, after all, exercise my democratic right to try to get the law changed. A lot of huffing and puffing about DRM is in the same vein, so far as I can see. Authors or publishers of software get to determine the licence terms that bestow rights on customers and users. Sony have that right too. Mr O'Hara-Smith says 'I expect to be able to use it without unreasonable restrictions' but the definition of 'unreasonable' is somewhat personal, and I think really 'desire' rather than 'expect' is a more realistic view of the way the world works. Now, I personally don't see why nVidia and ATI et al can't document how to do the firmware loading and what the command interface into their software is, without giving away too much, especially if there are people offering to do it all for them on a volunteer basis, and I'd have thought that they would find it much easier to work with the BSD and Open Solaris communities to make that happen. It may just be that its a mess and changes with minor hardware variations and stabilising and documenting it would be a PITA for them for minimal extra sales. Loading WDM drivers for networking is already done, why can't that be done for graphics drivers too? If you could align with the way that Apple do things, then that might work out too, I guess. And if they support Open Solaris, then that's a possible avenue too. If you're the little guy and you need an ABI, then surely *any* ABI is a point of reference, even if (to your taste) it sucks, or was simply Not Invented Here. If you have to change to line up with what nVidia do, then that's tough. They have big market presence, and you don't, so get over it. >From a practical perspective, I would have thought that all the BSDs should line up with one or other of the Open Solaris and Apple/Darwin ways and make a firm commitment to do so. Sun and Apple both sell hardware and neither will be engineering GPUs for workstations any time soon - its just a question of how to leverage it. James
