Miles Bader wrote: > "Manaen Schlabach" <manaen.schlabach@gmail.com> writes: > >>It seems like everyone agrees that Video card manufacturers really >>don't want to give up their 3d stuff and that seems to be the primary >>reason we can't get a "good" open source driver. > > > S, sowhat exactly is in the video card drivers they're so paranoid > about? I know pretty well how modern graphics _hardware_ works, and > software, but I'm not exactly sure what's in this disputed layer. > > Obviously, the nuts and bolts of sending data to hardware (various > protocols for talking to hardware), but that's fairly uninteresting, and > it would be silly for them to feel a need to "protect" it. > > So... what's the "interesting" stuff in the driver that they're trying > to protect? Texture management? AIUI, hardware manufacturers tend to work around buggy hardware in their drivers. If they release their code as open source or provide full disclosure of their hardware specs, the fear that this information will come out. Personally, I don't see the big deal. For every new chip, Intel and AMD publish reams of errata and work arounds for hardware issues. I don't think it has hurt them much. -Roberto -- Roberto C. Sanchez http://familiasanchez.net/~roberto
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