Tim wrote:
On Mon, 2005-10-31 at 08:26 -0700, Robin Laing wrote:
I actually read an interview with one of the nVidia head honcho's and
this issue was raised. Due to licensing restrictions placed on them
by chip manufacturers and other coders, they cannot release any code.
This sounds like a cop out. They're the ones in a position to dictate
terms to their coders and chip suppliers.
Who else but to nVidia can a chipset manufacturer sell custom nVidia
chips? And they'll be selling generic chips to any manufacturer, so
what's to hide in that regards.
Write code for nVidia, and you obey their directives. Be difficult, go
and write for someone else.
Remember that just because X company makes their own chips does not
mean that they did all of the development to get that chip to market.
Some of the development may have been purchased from outside sources
and thus put under restriction.
Heck, I wanted to open a file from one of our pieces of equipment on
my Linux box. The hoops that I have to jump through make this almost
impossible to work into the software that I am working on. I would
not be able to integrate both of them together. I refuse to jump
through the restrictive hoops.
I took the time and did a search on one of the interviews. This is
not the most recent one that I read. In hindsight, I think the one I
read was on Slashdot.
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/t253027.html
[quote]NV) We have lots of IP in our supported closed source Linux
driver some of which is licensed and cannot be open sourced. While we
did our best to ensure that there was open source driver (nv) for our
chips available, we got lots of feedback from our professional
partners as well as end users that wanted a driver that had the same
quality and performance characteristics of our supported drivers for
platforms such as Windows and Apple. [/quote]
A single individual with a patent can force Microsoft into court, all
the way to the supreme court (refused to hear) with a patent. This is
my point on litigation. Microsoft, with all their might cannot win
all the time.
Supremes shun Microsoft's Eolas appeal
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2005/10/31/microsoft_eolas/
Is it a cop out? If you were in the same situation, would you take
the risk? How about the risk on losing the IP rights all together?
From some of the different articles I scanned, I see that this issue
keeps coming up.
--
Robin Laing
