Re: NVIDIA driver

[Emiel Kollof <emiel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Op donderdag 16 februari 2006 01:42, schreef Danial Thom:

I know you are trolling again, but I'll bite this time. Don't bother replying 
to this as I don't have the desire to make this another friggin' Thread From 
Hell(tm).

> I wonder if the open source weenies will ever
> figure it out?

Figure what out? I think we have it figured out better than you will ever do.

> They made a business decision that they have more
> to lose by opening their interface to cloners
> then they have to gain by releasing source and
> interface specs. Its not really that complicated.

It would be nice (and ideal), but they don't have to. In nVidia's case, they 
can have a lump of binary code (an object file) that they can keep closed and 
provide a glue that can be hacked to hell and back (which is the case with 
the kernel part of the nVidia driver). Would be nice if this is the case with 
the userland bits as well. I know it can be done. I know for a fact that 
Matrox used to ship a closed up binary lump that would work in multiple 
operating systems to enable the use of their HAL feature in their cards in 
X11/Xorg.

What nVidia does is (IMHO) a dumb buisness decision. It might work for them, 
but they alienate people while they don't really have to. You are also 
forgetting that no hardware will ever stay closed because reverse engineering 
is always possible. It might take longer, but it can realistically be done. 
So it's a security through obscurity type deal, which is bound to backfire 
anyway. If some competitor of nVidia decides to clone an nVidia GFX card, 
they can. If they have access to the hardware (which is as easy as just 
buying the thing in the store).

Cheers,
Emiel
-- 
You will be traveling and coming into a fortune.