Re: video driver?
On Tue, Jul 18, 2017 at 01:25:34PM -0500, Doug wrote:
>
> On 07/18/2017 05:52 AM, RavenLX wrote:
> > 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? then
> > >
> > > Anyone 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)?
Depends on the code, and what you want to accomplish. Remember
that chips are laid out by software these days, and so are
board-level components. And cases are made by CAD systems. Lots
of code and data.
> My point is that most of the folks who complain about code not being free to
> modify are not capable of modifying it, so why do they complain?
Even a complete non-programmer can benefit from libre software.
- You can pay someone else to fix a bug or make a change for you.
- You can convince someone else to fix a bug or make a change for you.
Further, if the software maintainers accept changes from the
outside world, they can bring those bug fixes and features to
everyone who uses the mainstream.
And if they don't, forking the software under a new name allows
people a choice of which they want to use.
> Your point is interesting. I would guess that the company does not open
> source their driver because a modified version might become freely
> available, with the company's name still on it,
> and be inferior to what the company originally supplied, thus giving the
> company a black eye, so to speak.
That's grounds for a trademark suit in pretty much all
jurisdictions. You can fork Ghostscript and call it DougScript,
as long as you keep the AGPL, but Artifex will have standing to
sue you for a fork of Ghostscript that violates their trademark
by attributing it to them.
(And they have successfully sued a company that forked
GhostScript and did not comply with the AGPL and did not get
buy a commercial license either.)
-dsr-
Reply to: