On 07/18/2017 01:43 AM, Brad Rogers wrote:
On Mon, 17 Jul 2017 22:38:55 -0500 Doug <dmcgarrett@optonline.net> wrote: Hello Doug,I get so sick of this! Did you PAY for your nvidia software? No? thenAnyone that buys an nVidia chipset GFX card pays for the nVidia drivers - whether they use them, or not.it was FREE!No, it wasn't. Cost is hidden, but is still there. In any case, the 'free' that Teemu was referring to was freeDOM. That is, the restrictions the nVidia license places upon the buyer.
This poses an interesting question: Why would a company keep something proprietary such as a driver? In my mind, those that *can* make use of it, like you said, already bought the product that has the chip. Those that haven't bought the product thus would not be able to use the driver anyway. So logically speaking, a driver that is not proprietary (ie. is open source) really can't be used by anyone other than someone who already paid the company anyway.
As a programmer, I don't think many (if any) would be able to say, reverse-engineer a chip or device, etc. and replicate it just by looking at programming code (unless I'm mistaken)?