Re: [TCLUG:16719] The NVidia license

[Mike Hicks <hick0088@tc.umn.edu>]

Troy Johnson wrote:
> 
> I can understand them wanting to make money from their cards, but at
> some point the "cool new tech" grows old and stale. You might think it
> makes sense to release specs (and maybe code) at that point, but I don't
> know if they have for any of their older cards.

That is one of the best reasons for releasing source -- at some point,
the hardware will be considered to be unsupported by the manufacturer,
even if it's in full working order.

As for releasing source or specs _before_ a certain piece of hardware
becomes obsolete, I think most companies are being fairly
over-protective.  Certainly, it's pretty difficult for a few random
coders, who may or may not have neat tools like logic analyzers, to
reverse-engineer something like a video card.  However, these video card
companies very likely have the resources available to reverse-engineer
cards much more quickly than any ordinary group of open-source hackers. 
That is to say, they have a lot more money than we do..

My point there is this: Sure, you're helping your competitors by
releasing specs -- but they could probably get those anyway.  You're
also helping your customers by allowing higher-quality drivers to be
written and maintained.  Also, someone might look at your specs and
suddenly decide, ``Hey, this is a good way of doing things.  I want to
do that,'' at which point, your card suddenly becomes a standard.

But I should probably just shut up, since I don't really know what I'm
talking about.

-- 
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 [ Mike Hicks | http://umn.edu/~hick0088/ | mailto:hick0088@umn.edu ]