Re: Supported Video Cards under Free Software
On Sun, Apr 23, 2006 at 08:06:01AM +0900, 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?
I think the 'interesting' stuff is the nuts and botls of sending data,
because I think they're afraid someone will reverse-engineer their board
from that info and turn around a cheaper model that does the exact same
thing.
--
Christopher Nelson -- chris@cavein.org
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
It is the business of the future to be dangerous.
-- Hawkwind
Reply to: