ATI gets a clue.
ron minnich
rminnich at lanl.gov
Mon Feb 9 18:51:00 CET 2004
On Mon, 9 Feb 2004, Terry Blunt wrote:
> Maybe I'm missing something, but I can never understand hardware
> manufacturers being cagey about their specs. I would have thought it would
> save them a lot of hassle if they *didn't* have to write drivers themselves.
2 reasons. First, somebody might steal their ideas. Evidently this
happens.
The second is really complicated, but works like this. Suppose you create
and design feature X into your chipset. You might find, via a lawsuit,
that feature X is patented by company Y. I've talked to vendors who would
like to open their hardware but are scared to do so for this very reason
-- they might have designed a patented feature into their hardware without
realizing it.
ron
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